Chapter 7.
Eric felt kind of groggy and he suspected a large part of it was not to do with his leg. It was the whole situation they'd found themselves in; finding out his girlfriend was actually his soulmate and that she was a witch with an insane cousin who would have given Aphrodite a run for her money? Sure, why not? Finding out that you were going to be a father at eighteen, in only four months? Great! Finding out your baby's the Destroyer who could win the war for either side if only she died? No, not good.
"I've found it!" Thierry yelled, he was flipping through a document, "a similar prophecy, it speaks of a baby being born after Galen got Keller back and became king, and that she has to be killed before her first birthday or else no aid goes to either side."
"Why is that?" Hannah asked calmly – all right for her to be calm, Eric thought. She wasn't the one whose daughter was in danger. His leg was aching, stretched out on the sofa, long legs out in front of him, Thea sat in front of his legs, holding Blaise as though she could form a protective shield around all three. Strangely, his mother and sister were at this meeting too, not only the soulmate couples but Lupe and Nilsson, Jeanette, Winnie and Nissa and Illiana.
"Something to do with purity, the more a person grows, the more and more impure they become," Thierry said in the same infuriatingly calm tone, "Beyond that, the Destroyer…" at this, Eric cracked. She was a girl, she had a name and it wasn't The Destroyer.
"Her name's Blaise," he choked out, he felt wetness in his eye, and he tried to keep it there and off his cheeks. He couldn't cry, he had to be there for Thea, but it was hard.
"Pardon?" Thierry asked, whether in surprise or not really hearing him, he wasn't sure, everyone turned to look at Thea and Eric if they hadn't been doing so anyway.
"He said 'her name's Blaise,'" Thea repeated, and she was crying, she wasn't even stopping it, "why do you all have to be so unemotional, talking about her as though she's an item, she's our daughter! Not The Bloody Destroyer…"
"I'm sorry," Thierry said contritely, bowing his head, but it snapped straight back up and he was talking again, "Okay, Blaise… she will probably be too strong by her first birthday for them to use her in that way. Now, she's weak, she's…a baby, by the age of one there should be some witch showing in her."
"Is there anyway you could be wrong about this, Thierry?" Rashel cut in, "I mean, Blaise – the first one – wasn't that powerful, I mean – she was – but not to the lengths that you're talking about with Thea and Eric's kid."
"Yes, but…" Thierry trailed off, "people change every time they're reincarnated. Look at Hannah, she's the same person as she's always been, but she doesn't have the skills of a stone-age girl, or anything else for that matter that she did in her last life. This Blaise probably wont treat humans as bad as the other one did at first, after all her father's human, but she'll be the same person – inside."
"You can see why the enemy want her that bad though," Rashel said, not as though continuing the conversation, but muttering under her breath, speculating, "if she could put an end of the war just by dying…"
"Rashel!" a few people yelled, shocked. Eric wasn't one of them, although he wished he was, he looked over at Thea. Never had he felt so useless, so helpless, even when she had said there was no chance for them ever to be together, he had hope. Now…
"What? I'm not saying we should hurt the kid, I'm just saying…well – what's Eric and Thea's baby to the enemy? They don't care about a witch-human couple, or their kid. They're nothing to them, just one death – they've done worse."
Strangely, nothing could be worse than this. Of that, Eric was convinced.
Thierry scratched his head, "I can honestly say that I completely do not have a clue what to do," it was unreal hearing Thierry say that – Thierry, who always knew what to do – or so he'd have you believe – "I'm going to contact the rest of Circle Daybreak, the witch council, the lords of the shape shifters – and Galen and Keller – as soon as possible. In the meantime, I'm going to import some fighters to protect Eric, Thea and Blaise… I really don't know what else to do…"
On that note of hopelessness, everyone else went to their rooms, leaving Thea, Eric, Rosemund, Mrs. Ross and Blaise alone, staring at one another with tear-filled eyes. Eric was the only one not crying, unless you counted Blaise, who was sucking at her pacifier, unfazed about the conversation that had been around her. Eric shifted in his seat and carefully swung his legs so that he was sitting beside Thea, not lying behind her, then he put his arms around her – tentatively, as he'd done when they were first dating – she pulled away a moment then collapsed into them in sobs louder than those she'd been drawing, "why did it have to be our baby, why? Haven't we suffered enough?"
"It shouldn't have to be anybody's baby," a different voice said. His mother, speaking fairly seriously for once instead of every sentence gleeful or meant to embarrass him, she removed her glasses – they'd gotten steamed up – and wiped them, her eyes were brimming with tears, "no one should have to deal with this. No one."
Then Rosemund was hugging them fiercely, and Mrs. Ross had an arm around Eric's shoulders – clinging together, trying to get through this particular brand of nightmare.