On the night they created life, they began to understand death.
They had known they would have another son, would need another. In their grief, in their desperate need for comfort after so much loss, they had forgotten the warnings. The wine from the southern vineyards had made them seek solace in each other's arms, their sorrow had made them reckless, their love had made them forget.
Now, as they lay close together in the night, silk sheets twisted around them in the humid night air, they remembered.
They had known the consequences. But also the necessity. The fate of it.
"Our little boy, he'll be…" She paused, her hand pressed to her belly. "He'll be the other one."
"The shadow to the light." His voice was barely a whisper.
"A shadow to the gray." She looked up at him, eyes wide with fear. "How can we reconcile ourselves to this fact? Knowing what he might become? What suffering he might cause? How can we justify bringing him into the world? And how can we not?"
He was quiet for a long moment, his hand joining hers.
"There are… herbs from the eastern provinces. Things we could do before it's too late. But we can't."
"Could you?" Her voice broke. "Could you truly end him now, before he even has a chance to choose? He's still a person. But could you even do it?"
"No. All these years as the emperor's wolf, I still couldn't do it. I can't do it. I won't do it." His admission was barely a whisper. "What's worse? Denying him life, or allowing him to become the monster they say he will be? How many will die because we couldn't bear to…"
"But what if they're wrong?" She gripped his hand tighter. "What if we kill our son for crimes he hasn't committed, may never commit?"
"And what if we're wrong to spare him? What blood will be on our hands then?"
They sat in agonized silence, weighing innocent life against future devastation.
"We can't know for certain," he said finally. "But we can try to shape him. We can teach him mercy."
"And if mercy fails?"
"Then we teach him to survive in a world that will fear him. And pray that survival doesn't require him to become what they prophesied."
"It might not be enough."
"It'll have to be enough." His voice was hollow. "Because I can't… we can't…"
"I'm scared."
"I know." He pulled her close. "I am too."
And so, between one heartbeat and the next, the world's most dangerous child began. Carrying within him the power to destroy empires and the choice of what to do with it.
Outside their window, the wind stirred restlessly, carrying whispers through the humid air. It had witnessed what transpired within, felt the weight of what was now growing in the darkness.
The night called, and the wind obeyed—sweeping onward through shadow and moonlight, rustling leaves and bending trees. It paused at other windows, other chambers where hearts beat fast and creation sparked. Such coincidence. Here, beneath golden silks, another spark of life flickered into being. There, in a nearby cottage where grief still lingered.
Three times the wind paused. Three times it felt the tremor of new creation.
The breeze carried the knowledge through root and branch, through stone and stream—until all the ancient things that remembered the old names knew. Children had been conceived. It was time. The threads of fate had been woven on a single, sacred night. As always. As it had to be.
Even the deer in the wood heard it and talked among one another in hushed whispers.
"Have you heard?"
"Yes, I am going to see now."
All creation whispered, hovering beyond windows and nestling against stone walls, murmuring soft as the storm died down.
"Sleep well, little ones. We will have need of you come morning."
The cycle had begun again. And this time it was to be an age of endings.