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Tha-thump-tha-thump-tha-thump.

I can hear my rapid pulse and my harsh exhalations. I know what I’m seeing, but—no, there must be some other explanation.

No. Please, Vesta, Api—anybenevolent god out there. Please, not this.

“Oh, Roxilana,” Katiari whispers, “no.”

It’s her sorrow that makes it real.

Fear rises like a tidal wave, replacing my shock and every rational thought.

Roxi?Memnon’s voice moves through my mind.

He’s so close—I can make out his mounted form up ahead—yet it feels like we’re an ocean apart as he steers his horse toward me.I can feel your fear. Is everything all right?

Katiari’s inked hand grasps my forearm, and I jerk in surprise at her proximity. I don’t know when she moved her horse so close to mine.

“Roxilana,” she says, her brows pulled together and her voice soft. Too soft. “We need to get you to a healer.”

My eyes drop back down to the juncture of my thighs. I’m still holding up my tunic, and that bright-red blood is still spreading.

I can feel myself nodding, and I’m dimly aware of Katiari taking the reins from my hands and turning our horses around. But I’m not really here in this moment.

Behind us, I hear Memnon shout.

Roxi, what is happening?he asks down our bond, his voice alarmed.

I pinch my eyes shut, feeling that awful, awful wetness between my thighs.

The baby…I feel my hope breaking, shattering.I think we’re losing the baby.

There’s no word for this loss. Nothing that can encapsulate losing something so beloved before you even had it. And the grief, the grief is a leviathan, sorrow and longing and hope—such sweet, brilliant hope—dashed upon the rocks of reality.

There’s cramping and pain, clots and blood, and eventually, a tiny body, one that fits neatly in the palm of my hand.

I stare down at it, trying to understand this unending ache. No one sat me down and told methispart of life, this part that would absolutely break my heart.

Memnon and I go out early the next morning, Ferox following behind like a sentry. Here the landscape is dotted with kurgans, the area nothing more than a graveyard for the venerated dead.

Using our magic, we unearth a hole in the ground. Perhaps if the child were born alive, a proper grave would be made, but neither Romans nor Sarmatians have burial rites for those who are born without ever drawing breath.

I lay a piece of fine linen over the ground and place my child on it, their body wrapped in the orange veil I wore the day Memnon found me in Rome. Memnon unsheathes a slim dagger from his belt and places it in the grave, the weapon four times as large as our child.

“From the gods that made you to the gods that take you, I bid you ride with our ancestors in the heavens till the day of reckoning,” Memnon says, his face stoic. “I await your embrace in the afterlife, my child.”

My eyes prickle, but no tears come. Neither of us have cried, though I can feel our combined grief across our bond. We’re drowning in this pain.

I press a hand to my child’s body. I have no eloquent words, nothing that can spin the mess of my emotions into something poetic and beautiful.

“I love you,” I say simply. “I will always love you.”

With a shudder, I remove my hand, and Memnon and I fill our child’s grave up with dirt. We use a bit more of our magic to make a small mound.

After we’re finished, Memnon wraps his arms around me and pulls me down to the grass next to the small kurgan we’ve made. It is there, cradled in his arms, that I finally allow myself fall apart.

“It will be all right, Empress,” Memnon says, his own voice wavering as he strokes my hair. “Sometimes, this is life too.”

I shake my head. I know what he says is true, but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear any placating words, not even from Memnon.