He lifted Olivia’s chin. “Don’t ever lose faith, my dear, and don’t ever feel like a fool. Whatever is meant to happen, can and will happen. Your beliefs become your reality.”
Olivia’s nerves seemed to vanish.
“Come,” Montague said, extending his hand toward a small couch draped with bright white sheets. “Please, lie down.”
Montague lit a stick of sage and circled the room, spreading the fragrance. Once the queen was comfortable, he put the burning spice on a table near her head and gently placed his left hand across her forehead and the other on her stomach, just under her navel, “A moment of silence, please.” Just like Burton had taught him, he placed four crystals around her to enhance his ability to read her aura. Every person had a magnetic field surrounding their body, and one could tap into it if he was tuned to the same frequency. Montague closed his eyes and sank into deep concentration, examining the energy signature of her biology through his mind. After obtaining a blueprint of her body, it only took moments before he sensed a second energetic pulse—another life form.
“Indeed, my dearest queen, you are pregnant,” Montague said, opening his eyes once again.
Gretchen nearly jumped out of her slippers. She hugged Montague in a fit of excitement. “So much to do in such little time!” Gretchen seemed to be already planning the celebration and the child’s nurturing in her head.
Montague stepped into the kitchen to put together a basket of herbs that were normally consumed when a queen, princess, or lady was with child to help the baby develop. Behind the door, he overheard Gretchen going on to the queen about the baby. Then her voice got quiet.
“After all this time, I was beginning to think that Alexandal was without seed. You didn’t sneak away under my nose, did you?” Gretchen asked.
“Gretchen!” Olivia said, offended. “I have never. Unlike some of my family, I honor the bond of marriage.”
Montague heard everything. He stepped back into the room. “We must alert the kingdom, my queen. This news will be the dawning of a new day. The kingdom’s future leader of Men has arrived,” Montague said, offering the basket.
He was well-aware of all the complications Olivia and Alexandal had had with trying to conceive a child. Alexandal was twelve years older than Olivia and he had been married to another woman before she died in the sack of Illyrium. Together for four years, the couple had never been able to conceive.
This tribulation had not been an isolated event. For years, the number of pregnancies across the land had been declining. It had become harder and harder for families to grow and multiply.
Before Burton had left to inspect the farms, he told Montague that the toxin found in the food supply was making people sick but also causing the infertility crisis.
Then Montague remembered the tales his sensei told about bringing an angel into the material world. On the physical plane, they were not conceived from human fathers. An angel would meet a woman in her dreams to plant his spiritual seed, only to be born from her womb. But according to the angelic writings in Gabriel’s Diary, the unfortunate reality was that the mother would usually die soon after childbirth. The energy to birth a being from the higher realms was too much for the human body to withstand.
But the conversation that Montague had overheard between the queen and Gretchen introduced a thought that had never occurred to him. There could be many children roaming the land that had resulted from secret sexual encounters between royals and peasants, or whores, who would grow up unnoticed and unknown. That was what the abducted children from Grale and Mern had in common with those that both Demitri and Bolo were trying to take from Ikarus. They were all bastards.
It seemed as though the baby’s soul had waited to grow in the queen’s belly until Ikarus was safer, in Demitri’s absence. Demitri must have waited for Olivia to get pregnant, but then became impatient when it seemed as if there was no hope for new blood, Montague thought. Demitri shifted his focus on finding bastard children that carried the Volpi gene. But surely he would come for the child once he heard news of a new royal Volpi.
The most anticipated nine months had come to pass. It was just days before the new prince was expected to join the world of Men.
In the early hours, Montague La-Rose returned to his chambers to find the queen pacing anxiously around his desk, reading a manuscript. Parchments were scattered across the room.
Olivia held up a sheet, discolored and burnt around the corners. “This document says that the following enchantment is meant to protect one’s mind from psychic attack,” she huffed, then held up another. “This one claims that these symbols will ward off any predatory entity trying to possess one’s soul.”
Montague hadn’t expected this. He had just been gathering berries from his garden for nuncheons along their trip. “My queen, I—”
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” Olivia asked. She was standing still, but her hands shook.
“I have never kept anything from you; nor have I ever lied to you. These are only cautionary measures if something should ever go wrong. I still don’t understand how any of this even works,” he said sincerely. “But there is something that you are not telling me.”
Olivia let out a long breath. Her eyes were red and teary. “I want you to
