Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Osiris they’d named for Cendrion’s father, he who had passed through the veil beyond which immortals so rarely traveled. He’d fallen in battle, obliterated in the fire of an archangel’s wrath. So it was that Gzrel and Cendrion’s children, Osiris and Alexander, would carry pieces of their family’s history on both sides.
“He is fierce,” Cendrion said, his voice deep and the gray of his eyes soft and warm against the pale gold of his skin and the burnished brown of his hair. “I’m quite sure I didn’t yell so when I was born.” A stunned joy in his tone. “Did Osiris do the same, or were we just younger then?”
That joy, that shock at becoming parents again was still with them when Ojewo, who was said to be distant blood kin to Cassandra herself, came to visit Alexander some few days later. Gzrel wanted to hug her precious babe close, protect him from the seer’s strange sight and yet at the same time, she wanted to thrust him into the seer’s arms so that Ojewo could tell them what dangers the future held for their boy.
Gzrel was no warrior and neither was Cendrion. They’d eschewed the path of violence eons past, but violence wasn’t the only choice when it came to the troubles of life. They both had minds clever of thought. Surely if they knew of danger, they could find a way to protect Alexander from it?
Ojewo, with his air of youth despite his years, smiled as he entered their home, and that smile was so full of light that Gzrel handed over her child with a smile of her own, certain that Alexander would be safe in the arms of this handsome angel. So many sighed after him, whispering of the smoky green of his eyes and the deep brown of his skin, the slenderness of his build and the mystery of his smile.
Gzrel, in contrast, always wanted to mother him, though she knew that Ojewo had been an adult before she’d ever been a spark in her mother’s eye. Perhaps because he reminded her of a young Osiris, slender and slow to smile, but with eyes that lit up when he did.
“You carry a youthful heart,” she’d said to him once, bemused enough at how that was possible that she’d forgotten her natural reticence. “I’d always heard that seers are haunted by what they see, that it causes them to age before their time. I’m so happy this isn’t the case for you.”
She’d blushed in the immediate aftermath of her words, her hands flying to her face. “Oh, what has come over me? Forgive me for stepping where I have no right to go.”
Ojewo would’ve been right to be insulted by the personal comment, but he’d laughed a laugh warm and bold that embraced her until she could do nothing but smile. “Ah, Gzrel, you need not fear to say such to me—you have earned the right after your many kindnesses to others.”
He’d leaned in close, as if sharing a secret. “The truth,” he’d said, his skin warm with the scent of the wild berries that grew all over the Refuge, “is that my sight is but a whisper in comparison to that of my most legendary ancestor. There are no records, no birth histories, but it is said in my family that she and her beloved Qin had a child. However, that child was born before her natural sight turned into . . . a fury and an agony.”
No laughter now, nothing but sorrow for a woman he’d never met. “So, even if I am blood of her blood, a direct descendant, the sight I have inherited is a faded painting in comparison to the startling truth of hers. And I celebrate that gift every day of my life.”
Gzrel had recoiled inwardly, her anguish for Cassandra as sharp as her horror. For Ojewo already saw too much, carried too much. To know even more . . . It made her wish peace and comfort to Cassandra where she lay, locked in a never-ending Sleep.
Immortals, to Gzrel’s way of thinking, should see the future even less so than mortals. What was the point of seeing a grim future when that grim future might be thousands of years distant? All it would do was shadow the present. She’d always been grateful that Ojewo had given them no fortune for Osiris. All he’d said was that, like most newborns, he’d have many opportunities, many forks in the road to his destiny.
“If I speak for him a future, I will color his entire existence,” Ojewo had murmured as he held their firstborn, and for a moment, Gzrel had thought she’d glimpsed the darkest of shadows cross the seer’s face, but then Ojewo had lifted his head and smiled and the foolishness of the thought had passed.