Page 141 of Between Fear and Favor

A flicker of heat rolled around in my stomach. I didn’t care if we were moments from death; I wouldn’t tolerate rude words about this man who had become so important to me. “Then you’d know he’s loyal and kind and?—”

“No ill words about him were keen to leave my gob, girl. Calm down. Saski only told tales to embarrass a younger brother. I find it amusing, is all, the subject of those stories being in charge. Nothing more.”

“Good,” I said awkwardly. She grunted, using her divinity to push her shift down once more. I stared at the writhing mass of destruction in front of me, the shadows looking somehow both solid and transparent, mixing like oil and water. Like my hand could move right through them.

I startled, taking a few steps toward it, mind racing.

“What are you doing?” Katherine asked.

“It...I don’t think it’s solid,” I said, before looking over my shoulder at the woman behind me, eyes wide and wild. “Hand me the boy,” I demanded.

“To hell with that, girl,” she argued.

“Give him to me. You might need your hands,” I said, mouth working faster than my mind. It could work. It might not save everyone, but it could make a difference.

“What in Rhia’s name?—”

“Your divinity. Use it,” I demanded, and then I stared. The goddess she’d chosen to invoke could be no coincidence. “Rhia. Skies above...” I breathed in awe. “She brought me to you.”

Katherine stared at me, blinking, understanding dawning in her grey eyes. “Where?” she asked, gently detaching the baby from her body and bundling him.

“There, over the water,” I said, pointing toward the coastline on the other side of the armory. Abruptly, I realized Katherine hadn’t once asked about her husband or other children. Perhaps she suspected they’d leave without her. I frowned, thinking of how often a mother’s role was to raise children to be independent and strong, sometimes at their own expense. How often women took care of their husbands and how rare it was for that type of care to be returned.

When my thoughts drifted to Dewalt—the patient demands when he’d taken care of me in the earth lodge, his soft touch and consideration afterward, how different he was—I shook my head to clear my mind.

“If you can’t get it to the water, perhaps lift it into the sky,” I suggested as she pressed the bundled child into my arms.

Katherine grinned at me before rolling up the sleeves of her stained gown. “Pay attention, girl. If this works, they’ll write songs about me. I don’t want any details spared.”

With no shoes on, Katherine ambled farther into the courtyard. Her steps were slow, but the heavier air likely helped her move easier. I could imagine her hips and pelvis hurt, but she didn’t complain. I held my breath as Katherine unleashed a breeze upon the dark orb, a desperate hopefulness lighting my soul. And when it moved, her divine air going beneath it to lift it the smallest amount, I nearly wept. The baby stirred in my arms, the dark blond hair of his mother only the faintest wisps on the top of his head, and I gently caressed his cheek.

Katherine hadn’t been wrong about his conception. This little one should have been small and sickly, barely alive. But instead, he was healthy—arguably perfect. And Katherine, the woman who had invoked Rhia’s name, had gone into labor moments before I’d needed her. Only the divine could have orchestrated such an event. My chin wobbled, emotions I’d been tamping down bubbling to the surface. Ever since I’d been taken to Folterra—before that, truly—I’d questioned everything I’d ever known. Abandonment and anger and sorrow had all twisted together to form this resentful creature in my heart. I couldn’t find space within it to hope the gods were listening, especially after everything I’d done to serve them without yielding pleasant results. But perhaps I could foster something new and different with the understanding that the gods were imperfect and mercurial. I wouldn’t dismiss the idea just yet.

Katherine stood in the center of the courtyard, using a gift from the gods to remove this horrific scar on humanity. Her braid lifted above her, arms outstretched, and she didn’t bother fussing with her lifting shift. Sweaty and spattered with blood, exhausted after giving birth, Katherine was making all the difference in the world. Because I’d been brought to the right place at the right time.

The mass of shadows grew wilder as she lifted it over the armory, angry almost, as if they’d been disturbed. Amidst the spinning and twisting shadows, something shimmered. As it grew brighter, Katherine and I both realized what it was at the same time. She speared the breeze of her divinity upward, forcing the shadows to move with speed. I didn’t have a chance to step back before the blinding flash of divine fire had erupted.

Above us, it appeared as a new sun. The devastating ball of blinding light grew and expanded—slowly, as if the air refused to part ways for its destructive force. With it, the divine fire began to fall. Slowly at first, as if it were a flower shedding its petals, hot licks of flame separated from the rest, gradually sinking to land on the slate tiles of the armory roof. Some of the flames extinguished quickly, shadows dispersing as if they were waiting beneath the fire.

It might have continued like that, Ciarden’s Flame slowly disintegrating into nothing, if it had been allowed to hover in that weightlessness. But suddenly, the air grew denser, settling heavy into my bones.

“No!” I screamed, stumbling a step backward. The enormous orb dropped, no longer floating, slamming down atop the armory. I turned my body, trying to catch myself and protect the baby in my arms. “Please,” I whispered, a desperate plea to whichever god might be listening. I expected searing hot air to slam into my back, shadows coated in divine fire spearing out to destroy, but instead, I was thrown bodily into the ground. My shoulder twisted, and I shrieked in pain as I kept my weight off the child in my arms.

I waited for the burn, for the intense pain of death by divine fire, but it never came. The babe was screaming, and I blew out a shaky breath. That noise meant life. Grimacing, I rolled, having to shove half of the armory door from my body. Using my uninjured arm, I pushed myself up. I couldn’t see anything.

“Katherine!” I screamed, coughing and blinking, trying to find the woman through the smoke.

“Here,” she said, choking. “You all right, girl? My boy?”

“We’re fine,” I said. The smoke wasn’t dark, easier for the light to penetrate, and when I finally made out her form, a sob heaved up my throat. We were alive. “You did it,” I said, voice rough. “You saved us.”

“Wedid it,” she replied. “Wouldn’t have thought to do it without you.” Her arms wrapped around me, babe pressed safely between us.

And then the screaming began.

Chapter 64

EMMELINE

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