“Tanila?! What’s wrong?!”
Tanila was sobbing, and Batrire held her friend close. The friend she knew was struggling still after all this time, unable to speak after waking everyone up from the screams that had come from her mouth.
Fowl stood there, trying to advert his eyes from the spilled and mangled red hair as Cordellia knelt by the bed, stroking the hand of the one who was royalty.
“Speak to us, princess. Tell us what is wrong.”
Large sobs came, and each breath made Tanila’s whole body shudder. Finally, after a few minutes, she wiped her arm across her nose, not caring about the snot that had run freely and made her look like a beggar on the street.
“Max… I… I felt something… through this…”
She tapped the necklace on her chest, and Batrire’s eyes blinked a few times as she stared at it.
“The one that tells you he is still alive?”
“Yes… as long as it doesn’t break… he’s alive. I… I have been able to keep going because I know he is alive. Each day we fight, and try to grow stronger and defeat the next floor in the tower, I know that he is alive. I can sense it. I can feel it.
“It’s the only thing that gets me out of bed each day. Knowing one day he will return and that I need to be strong enough to be beside him.”
Cordellia scoffed and then grimaced when those irritated green eyes glowered at her.
“I mean, Tanila, you’re stronger than all of us. How can you say that?”
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“You don’t know Max. He is far stronger. I can feel it every day somehow. Yet… in my sleep just now…”
She shuddered for a few seconds, squeezing herself tight.
“Something has happened, and it is like a pain I have never felt before. I’m afraid for him—for who he is.”
“As in that he is hurt?” Fowl asked from across the room, taking a few steps toward the trio of women at the bed.
“No,” Tanila replied, forcing a smile as she stared at the dwarf she knew was hurting almost as much as she was. “Not like that… more like his soul was broken.” �
No one said anything for a few seconds after Fowl whispered those words.
“No… it was something else.”
“But he is alive,” Batrire stated. “Surely that means something. Right?”
Another few sniffs came, and Tanila nodded.
“But what if the Max I know and love is gone? What if whatever lives within isn’t the man…”
Tears began to flow, faster this time, and both women grabbed her tighter.
“If he isn’t what man?” Fowl demanded, now at the foot of the bed, squeezing the wood at the end.
“I’m pregnant,” Tanila whispered.
The only sound that came next was their dwarven warrior who had lost his grip and fallen to the stone floor.
Max… don’t give up. Your child and I need you.
Squeezing the necklace with her hand, Tanila willed her desire harder than ever before.