Seraphyne sat on the edge of the bed in the cold room with the broken chimney and pressed her hands against her stomach and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. The way Finnian had taught her, in the early days, when the feeding sometimes overwhelmed her and the hunger became something she could not control and he would hold her face in his warm hands and say breathe, just breathe, I am here, you are safe.
She was not safe. She was in the most dangerous place she had ever been, playing the most dangerous game she had ever played, and the stakes were not her life — she had risked her life before and would risk it again — the stakes were the two lives inside her. The child in her belly and the boy at Mirewood, both of them depending on her to get this right, both of them trusting her — one knowingly, one not — to be smarter and colder and more ruthless than every other creature in this house.
She could do this. She was Seraphyne Virellion. She had survived empires.
