Two Eyes Cenote lead

“I saw that.”

Eset teases from the archway, a lift of levity in her brow. She enters the room with a spread of palm leaves and takes up scrubbing the veined stone floors while Tavina assembles her stations. She felt between them both the hunger for ritual kept thoughts from darker emotions, yet still at moments her mind was wildly defiant.

She’d no idea what to do with Machiavelli’s entrapment. With Zaahira’s despondent letter. Or how to get the burning pull of Akavir's novel fire eyes out of the front of her mind.

Most preciously there was a life stirring within her belly, one who needed their mother to be strong for them.

Mother. Her mouth dimples with concurrent anxiety and emotion, strong enough to be seen in her reflection as she washes the sandstone.

She felt alone. She wished desperately to confide in Tavina. But she felt a severe fool.

What did she think was going to happen? She’d return as hebsut to Muat-riya and raise a child by herself? How was she to explain her pregnancy- that seeds on the khamsin had impregnated her? How was she to make such a confession to Tavina, who wept for her wife and the loss of her own children?

Eset felt like the last woman on earth who had never known love. She did not know if it made her lucky- or cursed.

“How did you meet Nala?” She asks softly, lifting her eyes from her work to gaze up into Tavina’s.