When I reach our habitat, Sash is already lying on her back in bed. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top with the bottom of her shirt lifted to just below the curves of her breasts. With both of her hands resting on her stomach, she gazes up at the Swirls in the crystal ceiling. I cross the cavern to the mattress and sit down by her side.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Our child grows inside me,” she answers, turning her head to me. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. In Krymzyn, the woman experiences pain at childbirth. The man feels pain at conception.”
“You could have warned me,” I say tongue-in-cheek.
She smiles at me and moves her hand from her stomach to my knee. “I didn’t want to scare you away. I prefer making love the way it’s done in your world.”
I return her smile. “I do, too. What happens now?”
“For the next seventy Darknesses, I do nothing but protect the child growing inside me. Then I give birth.”
“You won’t hunt during Darkness?”
“No,” she replies. “But I’ll spend time with the trees in my region each morrow to make sure they’re healthy.”
“Is that going to be hard on you?” I ask, knowing how much she thrives on fulfilling her purpose as a Hunter.
She returns her hand to her stomach. “What I feel doesn’t matter. My only purpose now is to care for the child.”
“What happens after the child is born?”
“I take care of the child until seventy more Darknesses pass. After that, the child will be called for the Naming Ritual.”
I hesitate before my next question, bracing myself for an unwanted response. “And after the Ritual?”
“The Keepers take the child,” she answers.
“Can we talk about that?”
Her face instantly hardens. “I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t think you want to hear my response.”
“I can’t imagine us not raising our child,” I tell her. “Love and nurture start with the parents.”
“Do you believe the only way a child should be raised is by its mother and father?”
“Yes,” I answer. “I mean, not really. It could be two men, two women, or even a single person. It doesn’t matter as long as they love the child. They’re still a family.”
“In this world, everyone in the grace of Krymzyn is what you think of as family.”
“It’s not the same,” I argue. “It’s much more personal in my world.”
Sash closes her eyes for a moment. When she reopens them, the amber orbs swirl with turmoil. She reaches a hand to my wrist, takes it in her grip, and lays my hand on her stomach.
“Please listen carefully,” she says. “Children are raised in Krymzyn the way they are for a reason. We’re all one, all responsible for each child, and the child is taught by all. Nurture comes from all of Krymzyn. That ensures that each child finds balance with everything around them.”
“It didn’t work out that way for Balt,” I counter.
“He’s an anomaly,” she replies. “On rare occasions throughout our history, a person can’t control their desire for sap and might end up in the Barrens. But it doesn’t happen often. There’s a purpose for Balt to be the way he is, even if we don’t understand it, just as there’s a reason for you to be in this world. The only thing that matters for our child is what’s best for her. Do you want her to feel different from the other children?”
“Of course not,” I say. “But I think the best thing for her is to be with us.”
“But you don’t know that,” she insists. “You only know how things are in your world. We discussed it once before. Parents in your world aren’t always nurturing to their children.”
I dig my fingertips into my palms. “You and I will be great parents. The Keepers can educate her the same way a child in my world goes to school. I can’t imagine coming back to our habitat at the end of the morrow and not having her with us.”
Sash shakes her head. “You only feel that way because that’s how things are in the world where you were raised. This is your world now. You made that choice freely. Even if it’s difficult for you, you have to accept the ways of Krymzyn.”
Unable to believe what I’m hearing, I look across the room and then back at Sash. “Are you saying that you want to just hand our daughter over to the Keepers?”
“I won’t fight Krymzyn on this, Chase,” she replies resolutely. “Don’t ask me to. I stood up for us dwelling together because I thought that was the best thing for both of us. But I don’t believe the ways of your world are the best thing for a child born in Krymzyn.
“Eval told me,” she continues, “that our daughter was in her Vision of the Future. I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. She said that our child will know I’m the woman who gave birth to her. Our daughter had blue eyes in my glimpse of her, so I’m sure she’ll know that you’re her father.
“I know it’s difficult for you to understand, but the way a child is raised in Krymzyn is for the good of the whole. Knowing what we’ve both been through in our lives, would you want her to feel different from the other children because of how you want her to be raised?”
“No,” I say. “But I don’t think this will make her feel different.”
Sash snaps upright in bed. “Think about it. How could it not make her feel different?”
While weighing Sash’s words, I don’t reply. Although there’s a certain amount of truth to her logic, I can’t help the way I feel. The last thing I want is for our child to be viewed as different, but I also can’t imagine watching her grow up from a distance.
“Please don’t ask me to defy Krymzyn on this,” Sash implores to my silence. “We have
