Prologue
Prologue
An ear-piercing shriek echoed in the room at the end of the long hall. Pacing down the tiny corridor, Joseph spun around to face the room, his heart thumping in his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he was that uneasy.
His consultant approached him with steady steps. Joseph looked at him with an expression that screamed his hysteria.
“My Lord,” Mr. Lancaster said gently, curtsying lowly.
“Three hours,” Joseph said, shaking his right hand to eliminate the tension in his muscles. “Why is it taking so long?”
Mr. Lancaster looked at Joseph’s hand, understanding why he was that perturbed. “It took your mother seven hours to give birth to you,” Lancaster said, trying to choose his words wisely to placate the earl.
Joseph looked him in the eye, the restlessness of his hands easing slowly. “Really?”
Mr. Lancaster nodded. “I was right here, pacing the halls just as you are now.”
Joseph smiled weakly. “What if we lose it?”
“Only God knows what will happen. Have faith, my lord.”
Another scream ascended from the room, startling Joseph and Mr. Lancaster. They approached the door and waited impatiently. Joseph closed his eyes, reciting a verse of the Bible to himself. A baby’s cry broke into the tension, and Joseph opened his eyes. His prayers had been answered. The baby was born. He could just burst inside and ask to see his child, but he didn’t want to invade the privacy of the birthing room. The midwife opened the door, holding a baby wrapped in a thick blanket.
Tears filled Joseph’s eyes. He opened his arms for the midwife to put the infant in his hold. She gently guided him to embrace the baby without hurting the neck. The first connection with his child washed away all his worries. The baby mewled, and Joseph laughed, his tears making it hard for him to see. “Is it healthy?” he asked the midwife.
“He is,” she said, indicating that the child was a boy.
Mr. Lancaster smiled widely. God had finally smiled upon Joseph’s life. After many years of failed attempts, a boy was born. He patted Joseph on his back. “I told you,” he whispered. “The new heir for the earldom is born.”
Joseph nodded, still fighting tears. What could be better than that moment? “Joffre Francis Ford,” he said. “This shall be his name...”
On the other side of the world, where the night had stifled all light, an old woman was sitting on the floor of a dark room with kittens around her and on her lap. A hooded man sat before her on the floor. His face was not visible in the darkness.
“What have you sacrificed?” The old woman spoke in an unknown language.
The hooded man pulled a bloody heart out of a bag and placed it before the woman without speaking. The old woman’s eyes lit. No one had dared take a heart to her. She smiled, watching her kittens approach the bloody organ to eat it. The white blind cat on her lap didn’t move at all.
“A wolf’s heart,” the old woman said, still staring at the unusual sacrifice. “You’re brave.” She grabbed the blind cat from her lap by its neck. “And stupid,” she added, tossing the cat to the side without caring about the poor animal’s condition.
She knew what the hooded man was waiting for. So she stopped wasting both her time and his. “I see your future,” she said, leaning a bit toward the hooded person. “It’s blurry, yet clear.”
The hooded man stayed silent for the woman to elaborate. The woman watched her kittens eat the heart. She grabbed one of them and stared into its eyes as if the visions were coming to her slowly. The blind cat on the side seemed frozen as it stared into nothingness.
“When the sun cripples you,” the old fortuneteller said, still staring into the kitten’s eyes, “And the sisters soak in darkness—”All the kittens stopped eating and looked up with the same hollow gaze as the blind one. The old lady suddenly smiled and let go of the cat in her hands. She looked at the hooded man and continued, “Dead eyes will speak thunder.”
