matter if I fought it, pushed him away, tried to resurrect the walls between us. I loved him utterly and always would. No denying it. And it had been pride and fear that kept me from telling him, not any sort of wisdom as I’d been pretending to myself.
I did have a heart, and it loved as desperately and unwisely as any human heart did. I had to face the truth of that. I’d never been cold. I’d only isolated myself, a tactic that had worked all too well.
So—humbled a bit more than usual, but thankfully not entirely hollowed out—I stepped out from under the spring still not resolved on whether to tell Con I loved him in return. Or whether to tell him about my pregnancy. Drinking the waters gives you the truth, but no guidance on what to do with it. It’s one thing to recognize that your own pride and fear have gotten in the way—and something else entirely to overcome them.
All things I could think about later, if I managed to tame Calanthe.
I waded across the pool to the dark mouth on the far side, the soaked clothing clinging like the flaws I had yet to polish away. They served as a reminder that I carried them with me always, unless I found a way to do better, to shed myself of my failings. Folding my hands, I cleared my mind and waited.
Taking a visibly deep breath, Ambrose—barefoot already, as always—waded into the pool, leaning heavily on his staff. He wore his court wizard robes, and the jeweled stars, planets, and moons seemed to leap into life as the sun motes hit, whirling into a vast waltz as the wizard’s magic and Calanthe’s collided.
He shuddered, clinging to the staff with both hands, then—clearly forcing himself to do it—he tipped back his head, opened his mouth, and drank. For an endless moment, he froze. Even the galaxy on his robe halted its mad dance. Then he fell to his knees and screamed.
Sondra leapt forward, hands outstretched to drag him out of the pool, but Mother glanced her way and sent Sondra flying backward with equivalent force. Con caught her with an oomph of expelled breath, wrapping his arms around her and restraining her fierce struggles as she fought him with the wildness of an enraged lion.
“You must not interfere,” Mother explained smoothly, returning her attention to Ambrose, who—still clinging to his staff—nevertheless sagged in the water, sobbing and writhing in pain. Con nodded at Mother, tightening his grip on the still-flailing Sondra, then met my eyes across the pool. His gaze held a question, and I wondered if he thought of all the times he’d wished suffering on Ambrose.
I have an old debt to repay, restitution to make for unforgivable crimes, and labor of deepest love before me, Ambrose had once said to me. I’d always figured he’d seen more of what the future held than he’d shared. With Calanthe’s lifeblood surging through me, Her crystalline truth in my veins, I knew Ambrose had foreseen this moment—and had faced it willingly.
Ambrose’s shuddering had subsided, his sobbing moans receding like the surf gentling at low tide. His hands tightened on the staff, using the leverage to climb to his feet. He stood there, shuddering, then turned and staggered toward me, leaning heavily on his staff and dragging the one leg. His forest-green gaze met mine, the ancient being I sometimes glimpsed in him bent over even more, face lined with centuries of grief. But he gave me a rueful half smile, a faint glimmer of humor in it.
“That will teach me to wait so long to face my many uncomfortable truths,” he said. “Good thing I was already on a path to expatiate my crimes, or I don’t think I’d be standing now.”
I smiled in perfect understanding, offering him a hand on impulse—realizing too late that I’d offered the twig hand. But he took it, bending over the orchid on my wrist to inhale its scent with grateful reverence. The orchid always responded to the wizard with flirtatious flutterings of its petals, and it did so now, but more gently than usual. When Ambrose lifted his face, something of peace had been restored. “Thank you, Euthalia,” he said, using my full name with the confidence of friendship. “I apologize for what happened to You in Yekpehr. If I could’ve suffered in Your place, I would have.”
So fresh from the spring, Calanthe’s clear truth still rattling me with my