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A chorus of voices wailing in unspeakable grief was drifting through the dark. The anguished cries of parents weeping for their infants.
We turned a corner and I raised a hand to shield my face as a stifling miasma of blistering heat rose up. A massive bonfire raged in the road. There were bodies piled high at its center.
The thud of armored boots on cobblestones came from ahead. Draven pulled me back into the shadows of a building just in time as a troop of soldiers came marching down the street. Many were bleeding. Their faces were drawn and soot-stained.
I watched the faces in silence. Many were no more than youths. Had they participated in this madness? Had they done as their king had asked tonight and slaughtered the offspring of their neighbors, their friends, even their own families?
I choked back a sob as I caught sight of a woman sitting on the steps of a house across the way. Her gaze was anguished as she cradled a small bundle, rocking it back and forth in her arms.
Beside me I felt Draven's body tense as he saw her. Waves of pain radiated off his hulking frame. I understood. Camelot’s pain was his pain now, too, as it was mine.
A hand touched my shoulder and I gasped, whirling around.
Draven’s blade was already out, but as his eyes took in the figure beckoning to us, he began to sheath it.
A woman stood in the doorway behind us, a finger to her lips. Her eyes were wide and panicked.
“Please. Help me. There is a child.”
Hearing that last word, Draven was already moving past me into the house. He glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed us, but the street was empty.
Inside the house, it was dark and quiet.
If there was a child there, I wondered, should it not have been crying?
I glanced at the white apron the woman wore and noticed it was flecked with spots of red.
My heart sank. Perhaps there had been a child. But it must already have been dead.
“This way,” the woman urged.
We followed her into the back room where a single candle burned in a lantern that had been placed on the floor to avoid casting any light out into the street.
The woman hurried across the room to a cradle and then turned back to us holding a wrapped bundle.
“I couldn’t help the mother,” she said. “But the child thrives. Here. You must take it. I cannot keep it safe.”
But my eyes were already looking past her at the form of the woman who lay, very still, on the small bed in the corner.
The woman’s face was ghostly, drained of all warmth. Even her once rosy lips were pale. Only her hair was still bright and vivid. The sweat-soaked amethyst strands lay spread out over the white pillowcase.
“Orcades!”
I flew across the room and knelt by the bed, taking one of her hands in mine. It was very cold.
“I think she’s already gone,” the woman said softly, moving to stand behind me. “She came to me in distress, far into her labor. I’m a midwife, you see. Something had gone wrong. She had tried to take care of it herself, but she was bleeding too heavily. I brought her inside and did what I could. But I could not stop the blood.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you know her?”
“DidI?” The words were a bare whisper. “Is she truly dead then?”
The midwife wavered. “I believe so. She is of fae blood, is she not?”
I nodded.
“I know they are different from us, but still, she has not drawn breath in a very long time.”
I turned back to Draven. He was holding something in his arms. An infant in swaddling blankets.
“The baby is alive, Morgan,” he said, his deep voice rasping. “A girl. A little baby girl.”
