Maeven stood from the throne. Crossed to her daughter. Stood before her—close, private, the distance between a mother and the child she'd almost lost twice in two months.
"Are you frightened?" she asked. The same question she'd asked the night Elyra arrived. The same amber eyes searching for the truth behind the answer.
Elyra looked at her.
"Yes," she said. No lie this time. No armor. Just the word, raw and honest and sitting between them like a wound. "I'm terrified, Mother. I'm terrified that my body will fail me. That it'll be like before—the herbs and the prayers and the waiting and the nothing. Except worse, because this time there are two, and if I lose them—"
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
