And then, the vision dissipated. Her heart was racing and through the haze of pain in her belly, she heard it—distant at first, then swelling into deafening certainty.
The roar of triumph.
The clash of steel fading.
The unmistakable cry spreading across the plains like wildfire.
The war was over.
They had won.
And then she heard it… Leroy's horse, the familiar rhythm of hooves striking the earth with the certainty of a man returning victorious. Lorraine forced herself to stand, pretending her legs weren't trembling, pretending her breath wasn't hitching in uneven gasps, pretending the fire curling through her abdomen wasn't the first whisper of death tightening its fingers around her.
Her hands shook, not only from the building contractions but from the memory of the vision—the lake cracking open, the Swan Divina's tomb rising from the depths like a terrible truth made stone.
