“The cord is wrapped around the neck. The position is strangling him.”
“Can you pull him out?” William asked, touching a small, pale foot lying motionless against the sheets.
Rose’s breath shuddered in and out of her chest as she slid her fingers into the birth canal, searching for the chin. “No—I can’t find his chin.” Her muscles trembled from the strain of supporting the substantial child on her forearm. “If I pull him out now, I could kill him.”
William’s hands were on her shoulders. “He will die anyway if you don’t. I’m here. Pull him out.”
“No. If I hurt his neck or head, he could die instantly. You told me you couldn’t bring back the dead.” Tira screamed again. Another hard contraction squeezed Rose’s fingers.
“Pull her to the edge of the bed,” Rose ordered, her voice frantic. “Now—do it!”
William gripped Tira’s thighs and pulled her down so that the child’s body dangled over the edge, supported by Rose’s left hand and forearm.
An arm slid out, and Rose felt the chin. “I got it!” she cried triumphantly, lifting. The mouth was free, and indeed, the cord was wrapped tightly about the baby’s neck. Rose quickly slipped her fingers in further, locating the other arm and freeing it. Then she grasped the feet with her right hand and flipped the baby up and back, freeing the head and laying him neatly on his mother’s belly.
He wasn’t breathing. He was limp and unresponsive, even after the cord was unwrapped from his neck. She cleared the mouth and nose, but still nothing. William took the baby from her and held it in his arms. Rose’s heart pounded in her ears as she looked from his face to the child. A moment later, he thrust the baby back at her and went down on one knee.
A jolt of panic went through her when he collapsed further onto all fours. The baby still hadn’t cried, but his dark eyes stared at her now, and they were full of life. Rose snatched a towel and lay the baby on a table. She massaged his feet and back until his shrill, angry cry rang through the room. Her shoulders slumped, profound relief shuddering through her. When Hilda appeared beside her, she turned over care of the infant to the maid.
Tira still moaned on the bed, and William was on the floor. Rose knelt beside him, pushing a lock of silvered black hair off his forehead. “You did it,” she whispered, her throat tight, nearly overcome by what he was capable of.
But there was no time to become emotional. There was still work to be done.
Rose said William’s name several more times, but he remained unresponsive. She lifted an eyelid and only sawwhites. His pulse was weak and fluttery. When she passed her hands over him, she saw dark splotches near his head and chest, but his sapphire-blue color pulsed, healing him.
She managed to drag him closer to the fire and covered him with a blanket. She returned to her patient.
“You have a son, Tira—but you already knew that.” Alan MacDonell had determined that months ago. Hilda brought the clean, swaddled child to the bedside, holding him out for Tira’s inspection.
“He’s a braw laddy,” Rose said, returning to the end of the bed. “And certainly no monster.”
Tira didn’t respond or try to hold the child. Her face was pale, her eyes listless. Rose’s lips compressed, and she glanced at William. The choice had been made; now it was up to her to save Tira. Throat tight, she set to massaging Tira’s abdomen. She moaned pitifully as Rose worked, past the time when the pain should have eased. There was a great deal of blood, and it wasn’t stopping. It had been a very large child and a difficult birth. Rose had been afraid something like this would happen. She gazed over at William again. What had he said?If both mother and child are in danger…there is a way to save them both.Butdamn ithe was insensible now, unable to save anyone but himself.
She tried to stanch the bleeding, packing Tira with linens and giving her an infusion, but the sheets just turned crimson. Eventually, Tira grew unresponsive, and her skin became white and pasty, her pulse weak, her breathing shallow.
Rose crossed to the fireplace and knelt beside William. “William? She’s dying, and I know not what to do. Can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered, then drifted upward. He gazed at her for a moment. “Heal her.”
A small, frustrated sob escaped Rose. “Ican’t. I need you.”
He swallowed and said, his voice weak and thready, “I told you…you don’t need me.”
“But I do. I can’t do what you do.”
“Aye, you can.”
Rose shook her head, her vision blurring. “I can’t!”
His hand slid from beneath the blanket and gripped her wrist. “Remember Wallace. You can do it.” His hold on her wrist slackened, and his eyes drifted shut.
“William, I can’t!” But he could not hear her any longer.
Rose straightened and returned to the bed. She stared helplessly down at her dying patient for several minutes. She did not believe she could do what he did. But they both saw the light. They both felt the ailments. She’d possessed the ability to feel them all along and had not known it. Could it be he spoke true?
She lowered herself onto the stool by the bedside and closed her eyes, summoning the magic. She had used it repeatedly this evening and it was stubborn at first, refusing to gather, but finally it obeyed. She saw it in her chest, a dark ball of light. She opened her eyes. Tira’s pale pink light flickered, fading, blackness and streaks of dark red centered in her abdomen. Rose placed her handsthere, against Tira’s skin. She remembered that when William had healed Wallace, he’d sent his light into the man, then had drawn the ailment out. Rose sent the magic down her arms to her hands, then further, and she gasped, nearly losing it when her color spread outward from her fingers, into Tira’s belly, circling the blackness. Then she called it back.
It happened so quickly that she was not prepared for the pain. She opened her mouth to cry out but made no sound. She toppled off her stool and lay on the floor, trying desperately to curl herself around the deep, stabbing pain in her belly. Her stomach revolted and gray specks danced before her eyes, but still she could not call out. Before the blackness engulfed her, she heard Tira’s voice, panicked and confused…andstrong.“Rose? What happened? What’s wrong?”
