According to the terms of the pact Heaven made, they are due more time.
I must do all I can to see to it that they have it.
Which is easier said than done.
Some days, despite my efforts, my thoughts venture elsewhere. They stray—unbidden—to a white-haired woman with feral eyes and a mocking smile, as if part of me is always subconsciously scanning the city and the surrounding area for any evidence of her return.
She longed to know about my brother’s arrival. Surely, now that he’s here, she’ll reemerge. It’s a thought that brings me some measure of comfort.
Except as the days go by, as the weeks unravel, and one month stretches into another, she does not make an appearance. Each day dawns with hope, and each night falls as the one before. With no sign of her on the horizon.
And though the city stabilizes beneath my hand and Kahill’s fury dulls into something manageable, the absence of her grows louder with time.
Chapter Fourteen
Fever Highs
The Chosen
An unknown torment grips me in sleep.
I wake writhing in bed, thighs pressed together as I try to fight off the ache. It feels as if the fiery pits of hell are boiling beneath my flesh. The heat is all-consuming, moving through me like something alive. I swear it’s threading through muscle, bone, and vein—until my own body feels foreign as it worms its way into every limb and organ.
Sweat coats my temples and chest. The sheets beneath me are damp and sticky. Even the fabric of my nightgown, once soft and light, now abrades and clings.
It’s entirely too heavy.
Suffocating.
Giving up on it altogether, I drag it over my head and toss it to the floor.
I breathe in shallow pants. The air, for whatever reason, is restricted from fully entering my lungs.
Worse, I have no idea what’s happening.
It came on quickly after finishing the final line of my newest sigil. One moment, I was fine. The next, agony. I could barely make it inside before the pain took hold. I’d used more elixir than normal, yes. A new compound—but I tested it multiple times. There had been no indication it would cause such ill effects.
Today I was meant to return to the city. With heightened predatory senses, I thought I could slip in and out unnoticed. Hunt out the Red Horseman within the city and study my new adversary.
Instead, something went wrong.
What… I don’t yet know. This has never happened before.
A cramp twists low in my gut—abrupt and insistent. My insides knot tight. I turn onto my side, drawing my knees up to my chest as the pain crests and recedes in violent waves.
Each release sends another surge of heat through me.
Not fire, but a fever I’ve tried to quell with water, cold baths, and damp cloths. Nothing works.
As the hours pass, the cramps settle lower and become a constant throbbing. In my fitful half-sleep, it deepens—bleeding into something else entirely.
Understanding begins to dawn.
Yet putting a name to it feels as if it might lend it power.
I know this craving.
My vivid dreams take me back in time to nights with Grand Minister Judiah, when he visited my private room and took my body. More so, the times near the end when his touches weren’t merely for the task of completing our union. When he’d palmed my face as his hips circled and drove forward slowly, with intent.
