Aeris was stuck inside Hearst Castle.
She already knew what was going to happen before she did it, and decided to go through the motions of the action anyway, hoping that no one else would die that night.
As she was walking towards the portrait of the goddess Diva near her daughter's room, she saw Leofric exiting her bedroom. He looked at her, and she looked at him, both caught in the act of something odd.
"What are you doing," Leofric asked.
Aeris clutched the baby close to her chest, worried that he would kill another.
"You and Godiva are too close," she said. "It's wrong."
"You and father are cousins," Leofric said bluntly.
"Yes, and we only love-make for reproduction. It is our duty."
"There is no worry of purity if it is the two of us-"
Aeris smacked him in his face and Leofric let out a yelp.
Leofric's cheek stung and he heaved. His eyes turned black as coal and he counted the days in his mind until he could finally kill her.
"It was only a joke," he barked. "Ask her yourself!"
Godiva herself exited her room. She was wide awake, and in her clothes from earlier in the day.
"You.. are in the same clothes," Aeris said.
"Yes, he was helping me, I was having trouble with school. I've been up all night," Godiva replied. "Why is there screaming?"
Aeris glared at Leofric. He was only wearing shorts, and she was sure that he was there to try something. She worried that Leofric would try different perversions the more he aged. She couldn't prove it, but she knew.
She could see future results, however, only the bad ones.
Whenever she looked at Leofric, she saw horrible images.
"Whose child is that," Godiva asked. Leofric then realized what she was doing.
"Yes, Honorable Mother. Whose babe is that?"
Aeris thought of many different lies. Most of them ended in Leofric killing the child. Finally, she saw a result that wouldn't end in its death.
"It's ours," she lied.
"You haven't been pregnant! Stop with this," Godiva giggled.
" Oh it is ours," Leofric agreed. "She was nice enough to rescue one of those poor things from the fire."
"Yes, that was terrible. Whose children were they? Who put them there," Godiva asked.
Aeris saw many results from her various lies and chose the one that had the least damage.
"We think it might be the servants," she lied. "They took their children they couldn't feed and… it was horrid."
"Pay them more," Leofric sneered. "Then no more babes will perish."
"Go to bed Godiva," Aeris said. "I must speak with him alone."
Godiva left, wondering what she had missed during the entire conversation, but didn't want to stay to hear another fight. The moment she left, Leofric told her everything she wanted to know without any prodding.
"I will kill it the moment you leave it alone," Leofric declared. "If you leave with it, I will kill Godiva first."
Aeris glared into his eyes, seeing only horror and pain, the different endings in her mind never wrong. She knew he was telling the truth. She wanted to hurt him. Aeris knew she could.
"You are not my first," Aeris bellowed. "There is another. You will never be High Prince, and one day he will kill you." Leofric was thrown into a fit of rage. He tried to keep his voice low so Godiva wouldn't hear what he was about to say.
"Did you make him the way you made those monsters," he whispered. "Those were not babies! I know what you did!"
Aeris glared at him, and she finally stopped lying that night.
"Who told you," she whispered.
"No one," Leofric replied. "I found out on my own. I noticed strange men would come and go into that small place. They are not proper."
" Leofric you have been lied to," she said. "They are-"
"I have been lied to by you! You use science. You reject our ancestry, the gods, you are a liar."
Aeris was done arguing with her son. She knew that giving him attention simply made him more justified in his horrible actions. She grits her teeth and tried to end the conversation.
"We are all liars. We all know that we are not true- ``
''Don't," Leofric said.
He hated whenever she brought up the truth. He walked away, and Aeris left for her bedroom, happy that she had chosen the right path.
The path that would ensure that Leofric wouldn't kill them all, at least tonight.
When Aeris opened the door to her bedroom chamber, Griffin was in bed. He was up late, worried about his wife. He shot up out of the bed when she returned, with a baby.
Before he could say a single word, Aeris told him everything that had just occurred, minus the part about her bastard running away with the other of course.
"We need to send Leofric away," Griffin said. "He is more trouble than he is worth."
Aeris rocked the baby, who began to complain. He was hungry and all the movement jerked him awake.
"I have seen the result already," she whispered. "If we send him to the house of del Sol, he will just...assault someone."
Griffin balked at the very idea of it. "He is mad, but not that mad," Griffin argued.
"Either he is unfit and we keep him, or he is unfit and we don't," she huffed. "We cannot rid ourselves of him. He is a thorn."
Leofric's parents were past the point of even pretending he was fine. All the nobles in the kingdom were well aware of his behavior and simply said nothing, not out of fear of Aeris, but of fear that one day he might be the only one left and take his revenge.
"Is that the last one," Griffin asked.
"Yes," Aeris lied. "They are all dead."
"Let us at least keep this one," Griffin hissed. "We wasted so much time and money on this science of yours."
"Yes, and it worked! We made one, stronger than the others, but a boy. He cannot take Godiva's place."
"I do not like it," Griffin said. "Yet he will possibly be the only sane one of them all!"
"Would you prefer the natural method," Aeris taunted.
Griffin simply looked away. He and his wife were best friends, but not lovers. Aeris had her own lover, and Griffin had his own as well.
They were both well taken care of, lived near Hearth Castle, and both were men.
"How do we explain this sudden appearance of a child," she asked. "No one has seen me with child!"
"Lie," Griffin said. He rolled his eyes and scratched his hairy back.
"These fools think you shit gold as bright as my blonde hair. Tell them Amora gave him to you or something."
"You are worse than I," Aeris said with glee. "Much worse and unrepentant."
"Do not blame me," Griffin grinned. "You are the one who listened to the fanatics. Now you might as well use them to your benefit."
He got out of the large bed and walked over to the bathroom, tired of the conversation. Aeris sighed and made a call for house services on her phone. Within ten minutes one of the servants who was nursing fed the baby and Aeris sat on the bed, her head in his hands.
"We are cursed," she mumbled.
"Do not believe the rumor," the wet nurse said. "Just the rantings of the boorish."
"No," Aeris sighed. "It is a truth. We have cursed ourselves."
The wet nurse said nothing, as she was taught to not disagree with any of those of higher standing. She burped the small baby and promptly handed him back, happy to return to sleep before any of hers would wake up.
Aeris cried when she realized that she had given away something to Ta-Vet that he didn't know how to use, that it would have dire consequences and that she had lost a baby in her final attempt to finally be a good parent.
Aeris hoped that Ta-Vet was smart enough to leave and smart enough to take the baby to Sunmira. Aeris wondered what she could do now that she feared whatever horror Leofric had planned.
"I should have drowned him after I gave birth," she whispered. "I was a fool."
Her ability had warned her of the many horrors he would inflict upon the world the day of his birth. She told herself that what she saw was only the bad outcomes. She missed her dead sister, who could see all the good ones.
They would compare together, and come to their conclusions.
Without her, Aeris was just a paranoid mess.
Aeris contemplated many times of killing her son, but he had grown too strong and powerful. Once someone got close with just a touch of his hand they would be weakened, unable to use their abilities. All the endings in her mind of her trying to kill him ended in only her death.
She held the baby and wondered how every horrible prediction came true.
Her only consolation was that her lie had worked. Ta-Vet loved his mother so much that he was willing to believe anything that came out of her mouth. She wanted to give him a new life, but she saw the two infants as externalities.
Her eyes flickered as she saw the many endings, out of the many choices she would make, and there was only one in which Ta-Vet lived.
So she gave him the child.
She hoped that she wouldn't be stuck with the other, but her prediction came true. Now all she could wish for was creating a being strong enough to kill Leofric and protect their kingdom.
Griffin exited the bathroom and saw her sitting on their extravagant bed, with white sheets and black pillows. He let out a loud groan when he laid on the bed, tired from the stress of wondering when Leofric would finally kill them all.
"I have a confession," Aeris whispered.
She didn't face him as she spoke, unable to say what she had done to his face.
"The watch is gone," she said. "It knows what we did."
Griffin inspected his nails and slowly thought about what he was going to say before he said it. He wondered if Aeris was his punishment from the gods for being a men-lover. He decided to say nothing, and wait for her to confess the rest herself.
"What will we do if people know what we did," Aeris asked. "Will we lose everything?"
"No one knows," Griffin exclaimed. "No one believes those stupid people in the mountains anyway! They've been telling everyone the truth for years and no one listens!"
Finally, Aeris turned to look at him and she grinned, shaking and wild-eyed.
"Yes. You're right," she said. "No one would believe them. They're nothing but a bunch of dirt-colored Nightwalkers anyway."
"Exactly," Griffin sneered. "As long as we keep everyone fed and happy no one will believe those savages. Even if they are supposed to be in here, why aren't they?!" Griffin adjusted his pillow and gazed up at his wife, who was now assured that everything would be fine.
"I just heard the worst news dear husband," Aeris whispered. "That spies from Masona came in and killed all those poor babes."
Griffin looked at her with pure adoration. He sat up and scooted closer to her, holding her hand and caressing it with his thumb.
"We must send them a message," Griffin said. "Those poor children were innocent. Just like poor Toris."
"Yes poor Toris," Aeris sighed. "Every day I have to listen to that sword complain about his dead child. It's so annoying."
She put the baby down on the bed and glanced at it, now bored that the thrill was over.
"Griffin I will miss you," Aeris whispered. "I love you dearly."
"Don't say things like that," Griffin replied. "I'm still alive!"
Aeris looked into her husband's eyes and saw only one ending.
"I know dear. It's just that life is so fleeting," she said. "I miss you already."
Griffin picked up the baby and inspected it, wondering why they never thought of making children without needing to physically copulate beforehand.
"Don't fret," he told Aeris. "We are still here. This business with that thorn has just rattled you is all."
"Yes," she lied. "That's all it is."
She got dressed for bed as Griffin held the baby, and it fussed as he was too loud and the baby liked peace and quiet. She wore a pale pink night slip and glared at her husband that was bothering her son. He kept poking it and snickering, and it started to sniffle.
"Why are you so," she asked him. "Why must everyone bother this babe?"
"It is not a babe," Griffin insisted. "Don't get confused. It cannot be a person if it was not made with natural methods."
"Don't say that," she shouted. "You sound like Leofric!"
Griffin mumbled a quick apology. He gave Aeris back the baby, who was more than happy to not be harassed by the hairy blonde fat man that somehow was his father.
Aeris couldn't sleep and greeted the sun as it rose.
Leofric will kill him next. At least my children will live another day.
Aeris had seen the future in which her children had lived. She had sacrificed her husband for them.