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The water beat on her head and neck, all across her shoulders in a blissful pounding As so sensation in her chest, as though gravity had doubled its hold on her heart

She ht possible Only fourteen days had passed, but her loneliness had beco her She wept silent tears into her pillow at night She s to endure this separation?

She turned into the water and let it stream down on her head Tears joined the flow She pressed a hand to her lower abdomen, aware, as she alas now, of the life inside her She wanted her baby to have a father, to grow up as she had grown up beneath the love, care, and affection of two parents The tears flowed harder, faster for a long time, until at last she could draw breath and not want to fall to the wet tiles and sob her heart out

Shutting off the water, she toweled dry then dressed in clean green fatigues and socks She stretched out on her cot and put her hands behind her head It felt so good to lie down, and she had a lot to think about, to process

She knew one thing She couldn’t continue as she was, so painfully heartbroken every night Soe

As she considered her situation, a seed of resistance began to grow, built of anger and grief, forged perhaps in ht Leto in the Tolleson arena What was the point of having endured such a tre ca?

Somehow the two concepts did notascended with the same level of ability Endelle had possessed upon her ascension, but to be trapped in a training program for which she knew she was fundamentally unsuited?

Was this truly all her ascended life would be? Hoas this any better than her cloistered existence on Mortal Earth? The result was exactly the same--she was essentially alone, as she had been all her life She was still holding back her powers and trying not to hurt anyone, just as she had on Mortal Earth, and she was still living a constrained, frustrating, not-built-for-her existence, da to be a warrior anyway? She had no heart for this form of service She never would In this profession she would be a shade-loving fern expected to thrive beneath a desert sun

Worse than that, however, she was sick at heart She hadn’t seen Kerrick for teeks now but instead of the separation getting easier, it had gotten harder

When she had split from Kerrick at the hospital, she hadn’t expected to feel so h her heart had been torn in the process and just continued to bleed, refusing to be healed She loved hiotten her very pregnant But she’d only known him three days Surely she wasn’t that attached

Hah

Her love for hi ofbecause she knew Kerrick

She knew hiiven her soof his essential noble warrior character as well as knowledge of his life For that reason half the pain she felt when she thought of him was also a projected pain based on how she kneould be feeling right now, separated as he was from her

Kerrick had knohat it was to love well and to love deeply He fit the model of a man or woman who had been happily ain He’d knoo fine es with hiht of his first wife, Marta, and his second wife, Helena, she had great affection and appreciation for these woreat pleasure, deep satisfaction, and treles and pressures of life

Knowing especially of Helena’s sacrifices, she kept asking herself the tough question: Was she doing the right thing in separating herself frorown up on Mortal Earth essentially separated froht path, because it was how she had always lived But there was another part, a new part, a new inner eye, that kept nagging at her, kept asking the question--Do you still intend to live through your fears alone?

But the consequence ofa mistake--like the one she had made at Endelle’s palace--was, si close to Kerrick, ever, when she had so much pohich had already once almost taken his life?

The ansas--she couldn’t!

Her thoughts turned to Kerrick’s second wife, Helena She had seen this woh Kerrick’s eyes, the love he had for her, his devotion to her, and his adht of Helena She could see the arguh her mind, how he had refused for years to be wedded to her, but how Helena in the end had prevailed A staloh she understood the risks of e to a Warrior of the Blood, she had insisted on u like, Our love will prevail Her arguments instead had addressed the reality of his situation: I refuse to live in fear, not now, not ever You are what I want and I accept all the risks inherent in your warrior life

What would it be like to live with such courage, such fearlessness?

The arena battle onceso horrendous as battling Leto mano a mano, why couldn’t she survive whatever else Darian threw at her?

Butquestion to ask

And in that moment, the heavens parted and Alison finally understood the real question she needed to ask herself No one knew the number of their days, but wouldn’t it be better to live full-out, to ride the hurricane, however frightening, than to continue to retreat into a pit of despair?

Her heart rate sped up She rose to a sitting position She drew a deep breath and the fatigue of the day’s workout fled her