“She never smiles, Kama. There’s only two memories in her mind: the day Lillis died and the day the ship sailed for Bandara with Arton on it. It’s gone beyond mourning.”
“I tried to tell you both that in the spring.”
The tension went out of Walegrin’s neck; his chin slanted toward his breastbone.
It was a delicate subject among them. Molin had used his own fortune to provide for Illyra’s healing and when the seeress’s mind proved more injured than her body he’d prevailed upon Kama’s near-legendary talent for dissimulation to provoke the S’danzo’s recovery. No one wanted to discuss it but it seemed likely that Illyra’s damaged mind had both started and then mercifully aborted the spring plague outbreak.
“And we didn’t listen.” His voice was as despairing as his half-sister’s ever was.
Kama twisted her hair through her fist. “Look, I wasn’t sure, either. It bothered me that one woman, who wouldn’t ever hurt anybody, was suffering more than anyone else in this whole filthy, stinking town. Gods below, man, the last thing I ever want to know is my destiny-but I’d belt myself into one of
Rosanda’s old gowns again and stand outside that forge in the midday heat if I thought it’d make a difference-“
“But it won’t. She’s healed wrong-like Strat.”
“Maybe another child,” she mused, ignoring Walegrin’s remark about the stiff shouldered Stepson. “It wouldn’t make her forget-but she’d have one to care for, to keep her going from one day to the next until she didn’t feel the pain so sharply.”
The ebony-haired fighter stared out the window as she spoke. Walegrin knew what had passed between herself and Critias. Knew about the unborn child she’d lost up along Wiz-ardwall and her secret fear that now there could never be another one.