"You could be lying," she said.
"I could," Kael agreed. "You will have to decide what your son's hand already decided."
She shut the shutter. She did not sleep. Near midnight she fed Elias, changed him, and stood for a long time at the cradle that had been her first child's and was now her second's, watching the rise and fall of a chest too small to carry destinies.
At first light she opened the door.
Kael was still there. Dew silvered his fur. He had not touched the beans, the rosemary, or the fence. He looked at her as if she might still drive him off with iron and prayer, and as if he would allow it.
"You will stay outside," Mara said. "You will not enter this house unless I say. You will not touch him again unless he reaches first. If anyone from the village comes, you will go into the Reach and wait until I call. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"And you will tell me everything. Not pieces. Everything. Starting with why my son. Why not some lord's child with a wet nurse and a guard."
Kael's human eyes held hers. "Because unmarked blood means a child born outside the old bargains—no temple oil, no name given to a binding stone, no father who signed a keepers' pact. Your Elias was born in a midwife's hut with only you and the rain for witnesses. The Hollow King cannot smell him through the usual chains. I could. The light could. That is why."
Mara swallowed. "My husband—"
"Is gone," Kael said gently. "I know. The Reach hears more than it should. I am sorry for your loss. I am not here to replace him. I am here because your son may be the last hinge that still turns."
She nodded once, sharp. "Then we begin with breakfast. You eat what I can spare. I go to market as if nothing happened. And if you are a liar, Kael of the High Stall, I will find a way to make the pitchfork matter."