**Quick note - I did the math, and my timeline was off. I've changed the Equinox deadline to an annual holiday called Sunrest, which I'll explain next chapter.**

************************************************************************************

The masses revered Will like the royal heir he was.

Finally.

The children loved him, the clan chiefs respected him, the warriors he'd challenged considered him an equal or a treasured mentee, and Reese and the other women already considered him a son—and ideally, a son-in-law.

But that was just Rhea.

The Ellsians in attendance knew that his relationship with Siren had saved Holly. They'd heard him defend their comrades on the stand, despite the horrid treatment he'd received. They'd seen him fight for their country on the home front, and now, they'd watched him recruit thousands of soldiers to defeat his own bloodline.

The admiration was evident—and well-deserved.

"Unfortunately, Colona wasn't deserted," Will said to the circle of military personnel who'd gathered in the glade for a debriefing. "During our excavation, we ran into some Pans who weren't very keen on sharing their stockpile." His lips flattened with the weight of an unpleasant memory. "They were expecting us."

I didn't find it surprising that Regulas had foreseen the raid, but it was still unnerving. Because if he'd seen Will coming, then—

"The king knows we're here," Jeremy stated gruffly. He sported a purple bruise on his massive, freckled forehead, but like the others, he'd returned from the mission relatively unscathed. "Meaning we no longer have the element of surprise—assuming we ever had it—and if Sterling is smart, he's surrounded the palace with his entire army."

"His army and then some," I contributed, thinking of the crows he'd recruited before and the sparse wildlife we'd encountered on this trip. There was a good chance he'd summoned every demonic creature within a hundred square miles, and I was not looking forward to fighting a damn zoo.

"I'd prefer concentrated forces over his troops invading Ells while we're away," Siren reasoned, arching her back to take some of the baby weight off her spine. "At the end of the day, our objectives are the same: destroy the portal and spare as many lives as possible."

The circle nodded, and I found the accordance refreshing after working intimately with the Command for so long. I'd presented Mason's report this morning, thrilled to deliver some good news, and the Rheans had arrived with their own innovative contraptions ready for use. Within hours, our nonlethal approach had become perfectly feasible—beneficial, even—and Long-Nose was eating his words.

"As for the portal, we'll send Claus, Will, Koji, and Victor through the Rhean tunnels to destroy its foundation," Rover said, opening his flipchart to reveal a detailed map of Rhea's underground network. He turned to Will.  "Our activity should draw most of the guards away from the palace, but you'll need to move quickly. Sterling knows what we're after, and he'll do everything to preserve that bridge."

Will dipped his chin, and I bit my cheek. I knew the tunnels well too—I'd literally summoned an army of skeletons from their depths. Plus, I had firsthand experience destroying a portal in Holly, and I could wipe out any sentries with my back turned.

But my place was on the battlefield, and even with the portal masking my presence, I couldn't risk endangering the others.

...Right?

"What's the status on ammo?" Beckett asked. "Sister portals are one thing, but do we have enough energy for something that size?"

Molly sat at his side, drawing in the dirt with a stick Richard had been eyeing for half an hour, and I was surprised Laughlin even brought her along. Then again, it was unlikely the kid would have stayed put anyway; we were too much alike.

Rover deferred to our bomb expert.

"It's enough to bring the whole palace down," Claus answered, and he looked a little too proud of that fact. "I've designed the ammunition to be carried in three sets. That way, we distribute the weight evenly and can still fight our way in." He stroked his goatee, mischief swirling in those tiny eyes. "Of course, that means we all have to make it in alive."

"...Bring the palace down?" Laughlin echoed from across the circle. "With the king inside, then?"

We all looked to Will, and he studied the dirt for a few seconds, contemplating his answer and the political impact attached to it. "We believe Regulas is the delegate for all demon energy. Which means he's directly responsible for bringing those monsters into this world, and he compels them to kill and possess anyone who stands in his way." He swallowed thickly. "If we fail to destroy the portal, killing him should, at the very least, prevent new demons from crossing over. And if we succeed...then we've dug two holes with one shovel."

"And if you destroy the portal, but he survives the blast?" Laughlin posed. "Then what?"

"...Then he'll die by sword."

Whose sword it would be remained unuttered, but the implication was obvious. And while our comrades seemed surprised by Will's callousness, only a handful had seen what Regulas did to him, and only a fraction knew the trauma he'd endured for months at his brother's side.

This bloody conclusion was written in the stars from the very beginning.

"What happens if the king dies and the portal remains?" asked the chieftess of the Miyamoto Clan, taking it upon herself to fill Mason's role as nitpicker. "Or if destroying the bridge leaves the demons stranded in this dimension?" She crossed her arms. "Asa's efforts will attract every enemy in the vicinity, corporeal and otherwise. Do you expect them to fight them off, just the four of them? Are they expected to flee into the tunnel system?"

A few Rheans murmured to each other, voicing similar concerns.

"I'm with Homura on this. This magic system has too many unknowns. And even if the plan unfolds as intended, it sounds like a suicide mission," said Braidy, Will's older, cordial opponent from the Rite. "Are there no other options?"

My self-nomination slipped through the cracks before I could stop it, and I stood from my tree stump, puffing out my chest. "I could always—"

"No," half the group declared, and I sat back down with a huff.

Worth a shot.

"Let's face it.  This whole battle is a suicide mission," Victor said. He stubbed his joint on the tree he reclined against. "We either win this thing, or we die. That's the risk we all face. That's a gamble we've all made."

He and Siren brushed gazes, their eyes hardened by the ruthless whip of combat, and it chilled my blood. Victor was right; this was a perilous undertaking, and the realist in me knew that many of us here today wouldn't make it out alive.

I just couldn't think on that possibility too long—my heart wasn't built for tragedies. 

"We know what we're signing up for," Cillian conceded, "but Stripes is our only ambassador here, our only way of keeping Ellsians in check. We can't lose him." He immediately cringed, as if his words reeked of a comradery he wasn't ready to acknowledge. "What I mean to say is...Str—Sterling is essential in the aftermath, and I'm not. I'm willing to take his place in this mission."

I was tempted to second that for my own selfish reasons, but Will was quick to shut it down. "I appreciate the concern, Campbell," he said, quite unappreciatively, in fact. "But we've already discussed the alternatives. Canons. Grenades. Bottle Bombs. None of those are precise enough. The only way this stands a chance is if we do it properly." He examined every man and woman who'd seen more years on this earth than him. "I'm not about to send you to war without doing my part. And I'm the only one here who knows the palace tunnels inside and out. It's decided."

Cinder placed her head on my knee, sensing my distress, and I carded my fingers through her shiny black fur. Splitting up did not favor us historically, but as usual, Will was right; if anyone could get close enough to the portal, it was the son of Godric Sterling himself.

What really worried me was the need for a supernatural remedy, just as Mason feared. Except he and Tori hadn't returned from the Rim yet, so our tried and trusted technique was our only hope.

Still...if the detonation could injure or kill Regulas—and trap a few dozen Pans in the process—we'd lock the door to the netherworld and buy ourselves some time. That alone made this mission a worthy undertaking.

"Well said, Will. And rest assured, one man alone isn't holding this pact together," Rover insisted, his sea-green eyes moving from Cillian to his fellow skeptics. "I know this alliance is brittle, but Siren and I will not allow this pact to die upon our victory. No one here benefits from a failed peace accord."

"Words without action are just lyrics," Jeremy muttered, his icy gaze on General Iver, who sat quietly in the back of the group. "And your people like to sing."

"Their people have followed through on every item thus far," Laughlin responded evenly, killing Jeremy's attempt to ruffle feathers. When no one else challenged his decision, he indicated for Rover to continue. "On with the logistics, Wright."

Rover's palpable relief made me chuckle, and he cleared his throat. "Right. I'm thinking we'll send the team in—"

Siren let out a small grunt of pain, cutting him off, but when Rover paid her a worried glance, she waved him off.

"As I was saying. We'll have them approach from the West—"

"Fffff....!"

The archer bent in half, letting out a string of curses that would do Jo proud, and Victor shoved his joint in Locke's hand as he rushed to her side. "What's wrong, love?"

She muttered something about "inconvenience," and Will glared at her in his aggressively concerned way.

Rover stared at his co-leader with wide, fearful eyes. "...Sye?"

She let out a breath, then peered up at him through a curtain of raven hair. "We'll have to take a recess. I'm in labor."

Agonized screams poured through the camp like a cold spell, forcing groups to huddle together for comfort and a distracting conversation. Anything to drown out the misery of their leader.

Koji, Claus, and the other male cadets watched on from a distance, visibly queasy, while the women paced about and busied themselves with chores, too antsy to sit still. Jo and Grismond stood guard outside the tent, their shoulders stiff, their faces pale, and inside the house of horrors, Reese, Ellen, Beckett, and Nazir tended to the mother-to-be.

Will and I sat against a pine tree a few yards away, wincing at each guttural cry of anguish, and for once, I was happy not to be invited into a room.

"She's at ten centimeters!" Victor cried, exiting the tent to flap his arms around before ducking back inside. He'd provided the crowd with frequent updates all evening, usually tossing in a request for medical supplies or extra snacks to eat his stress away.

I hadn't seen Rover in hours. He'd gone into that tent without much of a say in the matter, his hand locked tightly in Siren's vice-like grip, and he hadn't emerged since.

"Ten centimeters," I repeated quietly, aghast.

Will closed his eyes like he was staving off the urge to vomit.

Siren was a late mother by Ellsian standards. Most women gave birth to their first child before twenty, and our superior was a few years older than Tom. Had she lived in Belgate, she'd have been shamed for such a late contribution to society, as my mother had been with me.

Twenty was the standard...and gritz, it wasn't very far away.

I was barely an adult myself, and I was expected to feed and clothe and monitor a tiny, defenseless human in just two short voyages around the sun. I couldn't even fathom it, devoting my life and future to a small human. Prioritizing them above all missions, all causes, all wants.

Plus, children required routine and a sense of predictability to flourish—especially in a country so battle-worn. But every one of my life decisions sowed chaos; how could I ever provide stability?

"What is Siren gonna do with a kid?" I whispered.  Her raising Will was hard enough to picture, but a baby? What would that even look like? What would any of my superiors look like stripped of their wartime duties?

Would Rover ever become a dad? A business owner?

Would Victor return to the mines?

What the hell would Grismond do?

Will shrugged. "She'll teach it to kill and maim, probably. The kid's gonna be a living weapon."

"You say that as if that isn't exactly how you'd raise your own," I teased, but a strange, undetectable emotion squinched his jaw, and I raised my brow. "You do...want your own, right?"

He didn't respond for a while, his dark eyes on the ashen sky. Then he wet his lips and murmured, "Kids are loud. They ask more questions than you do. And they're always sticky."

I snorted. "Is that a no?"

He hesitated, and the response was so intriguing, I found myself turning away from Siren's tent altogether, captivated by his reservations. "In Rhea, we don't have procreation laws. It's not a mandate to have kids. And since I was never the crown prince, I didn't have the same... expectations as my brother." He glanced at me, and he almost looked nervous to voice the words in his throat. "After my mother died, I basically raised Lucy myself, and it wasn't easy. I loved her, but I felt...stuck. And then guilty because I felt that way."

I nodded. I'd experienced something similar with my father. I'd wanted freedom from the ranch and the structured life it promised, but the idea of leaving him all alone had plagued me. And the regret in doing so still followed me, long after his death.

"Then in Ells, I guess I'd always planned on leaving Belgate before I was forced to marry someone. So...I've never really envisioned anything beyond survival," he confessed. "...Nothing except loving you."

We locked eyes, and my heart thumped loudly in my chest—and not just because of his stupidly romantic amendment.

Will didn't have kids on his agenda. He never had.

"You, um...you had a lot of suitors," I recalled, before I lost all sense of control and tackled him to the pine needles. "In Belgate, I mean. The girls all hoped you'd sign a marriage contract with them."

He scowled at that. "They didn't even know me.  Why would you want to marry someone you don't know?"

When Will had first moved to town, my classmates gushed daily over the "dreamy boy with the iron eyes." Then, once he'd grown taller and stronger and somehow, even more aloof, they'd wander into the carpenter's shop to discuss vanity prices or ask him to fix a table that wasn't broken. The number of times I'd heard them self-identify as the future Mrs. Tooms made me want to bash my head against the wall.

I hadn't understood their infatuation with him back then. Honestly, I'd found it rather pathetic. But now, it was obvious why he'd caught their attention, and even if I hadn't realized it at the time, mine.

"Girls were desperate to find an attractive husband who wouldn't make them miserable housewives," I said, "and for those of us who weren't promised to our second cousins, we didn't have a lot of options inside the walls." Will scrunched his nose, and I grinned at his persistent hatred for Ellsian customs.  "So when you came along, it was a big deal. You were cute, and you were new."

"...Novelty isn't a legitimate reason to marry someone."

"I agree, but it's not just that. You also give off this...safe feeling," I explained. "If I had to pick a male escort to accompany me after hours, I would have chosen you or Fudge, and I think the other girls could feel it too...that you didn't see them as a conquest, or prey. And in a country like Ells, that's as good a reason as any to sign a contract."

I'd thought my female peers boy-obsessed and self-injurious. But now that I'd witnessed just how wicked "good men" could be, I realized they'd been looking out for themselves and the wellbeing of their future children. Which made them a whole lot smarter than I'd given them credit for.

"Safe, huh?" Will leaned his head back against our tree, frowning at the branches above us. "I can't decide if I should be grateful or disappointed that I'm not as scary as I feel."

I was just about to reassure him of his terrifying presence on the battlefield when another violent wail erupted from Siren's tent, followed by a round of urgent shouting.

I threw Will a fearful glance, and I decided to make the leap right then and there. "Would it upset you? If this...if that," I jerked my thumb to our left, "wasn't what I wanted?" The last word barely escaped me. "...Ever?"

In a world where women were expected to grow up, get married, and spawn—all for the prosperity of humanity—to reject such a lifestyle was mutinous.

Criminal.

And horribly isolating.

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Based on your vehemence for all patriarchal expectations, I'd be shocked if you did." His eyes darted between mine, suddenly unsure. His voice dropped. "...Do you?"

I shook my head as fast as possible, and he huffed a quiet laugh.

"Is that why you asked me about it?" His voice was playful now, almost smug, and I felt my cheeks grow hot. "You were worried about our future together? The future you insist is impossible because of your inevitable death?"

"I wasn't worried," I scoffed, glancing away, but I could hear him grinning at me.

Eventually, Siren's groans gave way to high-pitched, beautiful crying, and every soldier—Rhean and Ellsian alike—let out a sigh.

Nazir appeared a few minutes later, his grin weary but relieved, and he gestured for Will and me to enter the makeshift hospital. Not expecting to see the baby so soon, the two of us walked stiffly toward the tent, hearts beating rapidly in tandem. Hand in hand.

Inside the delivery room, Ellen leaned against Beckett's shoulder with happy tears streaming down her face, and the soldier's eyes glistened as he gazed upon the woman who'd saved his life, his flask nowhere to be found.

We stepped around the pair, and an awed gasp left my lips.

Siren, covered in a sheen of sweat, lay on a pile of furs and blankets. She cradled a pink, heavy-lidded newborn against her chest, the long-term resident already forgiven for its torturous arrival. Victor knelt beside her, his face wet with tears and his gaze pulsing with the greatest love he'd ever known.

I squeezed Will's hand, my own eyes welling with water. After everything we'd been through, this gift of life, this precious anomaly in a world so harsh and cold, restored something essential in my soul.

Goodness still existed here. Love still existed here. And I'd needed that reminder more than anything.

Will wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my temple, and I suspected he'd had the same thought.

Rover, alive and well, sat on Siren's left with his arms draped over his knees, crying more than anyone else in the room—from the pain, probably; his right hand looked a little bruised and broken from here. But his red eyes swam with affection, and the way he looked at Nameless told me this child would never know loneliness.

"It's a girl," Siren revealed, looking up at us with a softness that made my tears fall.

"She's beautiful," Will whispered. He paused to examine the squinty-eyed baby, then added, "She's got your glare."

Beckett barked a laugh, and Victor and Rover beamed like they'd recognized the look as well but lacked the courage to say anything. And Siren...she simply smiled down at the one person capable of destroying her walls, and for one happy little moment, everything was still, and everything was bright.

********************************************************

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Only one more chapter before battle.

I cannot WAIT. <3