Page 20 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

"Of course." Merlin smiled. "It feels good to be helpful, especially when your help is appreciated."

Yaaf wasn't sure whether Sullha's work was appreciated by the other enclosure women. They took it for granted and sometimes voiced grievances over minor issues.

"Not always," Sullha admitted. "I mean the appreciation. Sometimes I feel like I'm spinning my wheels for nothing."

Merlin nodded. "We all get overwhelmed from time to time. How do you like living in the village?"

"Naturally, I love it," she said. "I'm free, kind of. My body belongs to me, and no one will ever tell me to do anything with it I don't want to do. Tomek is safe, and he has a future that doesn't involve killing." Her hand went to her left side without her noticing. "I'm just so tired all the time while not doing anything harder than before. In the enclosure, I worked in the garden. It wasn't too strenuous, and the shifts were short because I was a mother with a small child. The vegetables were easy to tend, and they didn't keep me awake at night. Now I can't sleep, my stomach hurts, and I've had fourteen venom bites, and nothing has happened."

"Fourteen." Merlin glanced at Yaaf. "Consecutive?"

"Yes," Yaaf said.

"Good. Don't stop." Merlin turned back to Sullha. "Here's what I'm hearing. You are carrying a great deal of responsibility. On the island, things were not pleasant, but the expectations were clear. You worked in the garden, not too many hours a day, so it wasn't physically demanding. On the contrary, it was probably therapeutic. Now you are the one everyone comes to because no one else can do what you do, so you do it all."

She shrugged, but Yaaf could see that Merlin was hitting the right buttons.

"Your body learned to brace for the worst when you were in the enclosure, and that elevated alertness level can't just revert to what it's supposed to be, even when it's no longer needed." He spread his hands. "I will conduct a physical examination, but I suspect what you are feeling is stress. Before you dismiss it, I want to tell you that stress is as dangerous to the body as a physical injury. It sits in the gut, affects the elimination cycle, wrecks sleep, and wreaks havoc on your hormones. Your body thinks you are under attack, and it keeps the door shut on anything that would put more strain on it."

"Margaret said I was young and healthy and had nothing to worry about."

"Usually, she would be right," Merlin said. "But generalizations don't apply to everyone. There is no average person. We are all unique combinations of qualities and attributes. I looked over your file and reviewed the test results Bridget ran. Everything looked good, but Bridget didn't check everything, and things can change, sometimes in a very short period of time."

Sullha's hand was still on her side. "I might be pregnant," she said.

Merlin's expression didn't change. "Did you miss a period?"

"No, but I'm not transitioning, and pregnancy could be the reason."

"We can test for that right here. It only takes a few minutes." He stood and turned to Ronja. "Please take Sullha to the examination room and have her change into a gown."

Ronja rose and held out her hand. As Sullha took it, she looked at Yaaf.

"Good luck," he said. "I'll wait here."

She nodded, and then the two women were gone.

"It's most likely the stress," Merlin said to Yaaf. "But I will look for other possible culprits so we can rule them out."

Merlin left a moment later, and Yaaf was left alone in the sitting room.

If Merlin was right and stress was why Sullha wasn't transitioning, he had to find a way to ease her stress.

But what if Sullha was right and she was pregnant?

For some reason, the idea of having a child hadn't felt real until now, and it should be even less real after Merlin's assertions that this was all about stress.

And yet Yaaf was thinking about it now, and the idea didn't scare him.

It excited him.

So yeah, he was only nineteen, but so was Sullha, and she was a mother to a little boy who filled her life with joy. He liked spending time with the boy. Having another child join their ragtag family would probably make things better, not worse.

He wanted it.

He suddenly wanted it so much that the wall he'd built to separate himself from the other seven began to crack, and his excitement leaked through.

Seven minds caught what spilled over and sent back a torrent.