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It started as a slight tremble in the ground, that moment where the truth of her betrayal stabbed between black ribs and squeezed my heart—twisted it, ripped it out, and held it before the eyes of a fool. No, she’d never even tried to return to my side… wicked, wayward mortal.
Liar!
The word dug its nails into a mind racing back, clasping, clawing, containing, but the madness at its core swelled until it spread across the lands. It shook the bone in the ground until the mountain behind me roared, rock crumbling as it sent billows of dust into the sky.
Yarin held his arms out, fighting for balance as he stared at the shaking ground. “Ah, we have no luck with women, brother. Mine run into my arms, only to slit their wrists; yours keep running away from you, only to have their throats cut.”
I mounted, letting an army of corpses rise so they may protect me while I hunted down my wicked, wicked wife. “Oh no, brother… death will offer her no escape from me.”
Chapter24
Ada
Elric.
Elric.
Yes, I liked that.
Pure, unadulterated joy soared through my chest as I smiled down at the sprouted grains, dozens of bright green stems emerging from the seeds. And if she was a girl? Amelia… after her grandmother.
I pressed my hand against my belly, stroking the child growing beneath my palm. Even before the grains had sprouted, I had no doubt I was pregnant. Still, seeing the growing proof soothed over the feeble remnants of guilt and shame, banning it to the deepest, darkest crannies of my core.
Folded cloak in hand, I walked over to the table and placed it beside the provisions I’d stacked there. “I’ll head farther north at first, where fewer people pray to Helfa, which means fewer priests. That way, I can come down this passage here.” I grabbed the map I’d traded for salted fish with a traveling merchant, held it out to Pa, and tapped the crooked line that readWillow Road. “It’ll take a day longer, but I can avoid Hemdale. There’s a small tavern along this road, should I need it.”
Pa offered me a weak smile where he rested in bed, his features as pale as his hair. “Best avoid it… right along with people.”
Because I had no friends out here.
Only small groups of priests who supposedly rode from village to village, spreading word of the woman who might carry the devil’s spawn in her belly. On instinct, my hand went back to my stomach, drawing another protective circle around my baby.
My baby.
No matter how dire my circumstance, another smile stole over my lips. I couldn’t help it. When the morning sickness had refused to abate and my breasts started to ache, making a choice had become simple. It was one thing if I remained with Pa and ended up burned at the stake, but quite another if they wanted to burn me with my child growing beneath my heart.
Another circle.
I’ll keep you safe.
“I’ll bring everything to Thorsten and tell him to ready the mule and lead it here.” Cloak, pouches with dried fish, filled waterskins; I arranged it all in a wicker basket. “All I’ll have to do is climb onto its back and ride off. Even if he boasts about the stone down at the stables right after, I’ll be on my way.” A shadow came over my mood and I quickly kneeled beside Pa’s bed. “I’m so sorry. I should never have come back. You’ll be in danger.”
“Oh yes, they’ll come and cut me down from my youthful prime,” he mumbled, letting his jittery fingers stroke over my cheek. “But perhaps I won’t have to wander after, should you succeed.”
“I don’t know if I will.” Almost a month without a sign from Enosh didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “All I know is that I have eternity to get him to calm down. Per my estimation, it’ll take two hundred years for each month they hold him captive.”
Maybe more.
“Still too good, carrying the weight of other people’s problems, of the entire world, on her shoulders.” His throat bobbed with a stifled cough before he swallowed the blood right back down, as though it would burden me any less with doubts of leaving him behind. “Go now. And don’t let that god husband of yours ruin your damn tenacity.”
I reached my hand beneath his head to fluff the straw in his pillow, then gently lowered it back down, tugging the spit rag to rest right beneath his mouth. “We’re not saying goodbye yet. I want to find this bowl empty when I return from the stable.” I pointed at the fish stew on the stool beside him, tried myself at a stern look, then rose. “I’ll be back soon.”
Knitted scarf draped around my shoulders, I left our crooked hut behind. I headed down the trample path toward the heart of the village. The handle of the wicker basket dangled from my arm, holding everything I needed to make my way back to the Pale Court. Except for my knife, which rested in its leather sheath on my belt, along with a small purse of coins.
Lonely snowflakes drifted on the biting breeze that cut inland from the sea. Not enough to accumulate on the frozen ground, yet their scent climbed into my nostrils. It reminded me of Enosh, crisp and clean, with a cold undercurrent that rose the fine hairs at the nape of my neck. What would he say once he returned and noted my condition? Perhaps he would come when the child was already born? Would he be happy? Even angrier for being kept from it?
At my next footfall, a strange sensation ran through me, as though I’d stepped onto the heave of a boat with one step, and back down at the next. My legs slowed as I lowered my gaze to the ground. And there, right between the toes of my boots, did veins of white crack through the frosty layer atop the hard mud as though the earth wanted to gape open.
Had the ground just trembled?
