Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(40)

My heart slows to a crawl, the waning beat becoming a whooshing thud, the only sound, until I hear nothing at all. I see nothing. The pain is gone, and I just want to sleep.

I wonder if I’ll meet the real Sage now. I wonder if that other baby, the human one, is mad that I stole her life.

It was sort of a shitty life.

It won’t be mourned. And neither will I . . .



I watch the flames snapping in the hearth, wishing for a sign, but the golden fire remains silent.

Even now, after I’ve obeyed, Mother still shuns me. Three moons have passed since my Bonding to the King of Ravens, and my punishment is complete, my captivity in this bitterly cold place now etched into the annals. I would have thought the goddess would be pleased with my submission—it’s so unlike me. But, instead, I feel farther from her than ever before.

Perhaps it’s the dark energy in this place. The Morrígan’s powers are thick in the king’s shield house, a vast keep perched on the icy edge of Mount Na Ndeor, many leagues from the misty green trees of Caledonia.

And now I belong to the King of Ravens.

He has yet to claim my body since that first time during the Bonding ceremony—a quick joining in the clover to seal the Bond—but he is slowly trying to wear down my soul with each silver glance and attempt at a gift. Since the winter fox, he’s brought me many things: doves for my greenhouse, a black steed he calls Spark, and two nights ago ruby beads for the winter pixies to weave into my hair. His steady energy seems always close, a patient and watchful shadow. And his attentive manners are disarming when they surface.

He still frightens me, with his large form, his firm hands—a warrior’s hands—but he seems more familiar now. I don’t tense as much when he comes close, now that I know he won’t push me.

He says I’ll come to him in the night when I’m ready, that he’ll allow me my stubborn ways and eventually I will succumb. “Only a matter of time,” he says every night when we part outside my bedroom door. His battle-roughened fingers brush the line of my jaw. He kisses my cheek, whispering into my ear, “And we have an eternity.”

Last night, after his gift, I was weakened enough that I nearly gave in. He presented me with a white owl fledgling, and I was overcome by the beauty and innocence of the bird. I took the cage from him and almost turned my head, letting my lips brush his.

But it’s only because I’ve been lonely. So lonely . . .

Now I shiver and hug my woolen shawl around my shoulders at the memory. Wishing I could understand what’s happening to me. I am the Daughter of Fire, and I cannot get this cold to leave my bones. It’s been there since the Bonding ceremony. It won’t shake off.

My human watcher, Lailoken, says it’s the king’s energy lingering from the new connection, that it will pass and the worst is over. But it feels as if I’m being taken over. And I’m terrified of what this Bond is doing to me, who it’s making me become.

Perhaps I’m being foolish, still the silly girl who thought lust was more fun in secret, only worth pursuing if it was forbidden. And then a boy paid for my folly with his life. The only reason I’d pursued him was because he was the son of the human king in the south. I didn’t mean to fall in love. Or to kill him. And now I carry that with me. Always.

But for a time, just after the Bonding, I thought a miracle had happened and a piece of my love had returned to me.

My courses had been absent—each moon I waited, but there was no blood show. At first I thought nothing of it, then my bodice felt as if it were suffocating me, and my cheeks grew plump. My powers became unpredictable—I burned the curtains in the gallery on an afternoon when I accidentally spilled my wine. It was as if I’d become a novice again, in need of a torque. I’d seen this happen in women before. I knew I’d been blind. I denied the reality too long and needed to face it.

I was with child.

I didn’t speak of it to Lailoken, not even him. Certainly not to my king—he would surely have had the child ripped from my womb. He would have seen it as a betrayal, even though I would never be able to give him children, no matter how many times I came to his bed, our origins making such a thing impossible between us. But I don’t see him as a man to share his playthings. No, he’d wish for my womb to be as cold and dead as this icy keep.

It seems his wish has been granted.

“Where are you, Mother?” I ask the flames, my loneliness threatening to consume me now, thinking of the babe. “Tell me what I should do. I can’t let myself surrender to this place.” I put my palm to my belly, my throat aching.

Three nights ago, I began to bleed, and the child within me was lost. I feel as if my Bond with the son of death sealed the poor babe’s fate. I ensured its demise.

“You warned me of my foolishness,” I say to my mother, “how it would lead me to a broken heart. And I didn’t listen.” Tears fill my eyes. I let them come, as if my lover has died all over again. “But I’m listening now. You are the keeper of the hearth, the home. You know how to help me. Please, goddess, I wish for the child’s life to return to me. I wish for my heart to be mended. What should I do, Mother? I will obey you, I swear it. Just speak to me.”

I wait, expectantly. Still, I’m shocked when the embers shift, sparks rising up in a rush.

Surrender to him, the fire whispers, drawing out the sound with the sizzle of wood. The fire born within you shall bring rebirth. Surrender, child.