No Fury

Now: Sixty Seven

We leave Anne with James, and as we tear up the hill away from the cottage, I glance over my shoulder at them standing at the door.

Harry's father's eyes are tight with worry, and my daughter cries, arms outstretched as she watches us leave.

Everything inside me aches. I do not want to leave her even for a moment, and I do not want to leave like this: in a hurry, emotional, full of fury.

Harry calls to me and I turn forward, moving as quickly as I can to catch up to him and Zayn.

"She'll be fine," he says over his shoulder. "We shall return at daybreak."

I watch the muscles in his back tense as he turns and continues on.

~~

I register once the cottage is out of sight that I have not been this far from it in over a month. The path back to the village is overgrown, as always; it hides James' secret home well. But I know the branches and roots as well as I know my own heart. I could travel this route in my sleep.

Even so, I struggle to keep up with Zayn's frantic pace, and Harry's grim, determined march.

I do not know what awaits us back at the castle, and my heart aches knowing this child could be his.

It could.
But I pray fervently in my heart that it is not.

By my estimation, the last time Harry lay with Maria was many weeks before he left for war. He was gone for five months, and has been back for just over one.

I look up heavenward, and beg for this one tiny thing.

It does not feel so huge to ask the universe, after all of it: You created us for each other. Our whole lives we have struggled to end up here. Please do not tear my little family apart.

Because if Maria tries to make one single, bloody claim to the throne, I shall behead her myself.

Twigs snap beneath my shoes and I can see the puff of our breath in the chill, dusk air.

There is a time when our minds enter a sort of trance. We move, we breathe, we cease to think.
All we know is the moment before us, and then the next, and the next.
We are reaction, we are instinct.

This is how I feel now, unable to let myself imagine what awaits us. I've already told Harry he is not to be out of my sight for one instant. When he walks into her chambers, I shall follow him there.

But oh, she will feel the chill of my wrath long before she sees me.

~~

I am breathless, choking on air as I jog, clamoring after their long strides.

"Harry," I gasp, bending at the waist and bracing my hands on my knees. "I cannot run uphill so far. Please."

He stops, quickly returning to my side and putting his hand over my back. His flattened palm makes slow circles from one side of my spine to the other, and I listen while he catches his breath, too.

"Sorry," he whispers, bending to put his head to mine. "Sorry. I wish Zayn had brought horses."

"It is all right," I tell him. "I just need to gather breath."

I feel the press of his warm mouth at my temple. "Let me hold you," he says against my skin. "Just for a moment."

I straighten, putting my arms around him and needing this tiny pause where it is just us again, and we take a moment to understand what lies before us.