by E A Comiskey
"One of the nomads?"
"A nomad, yes, but part of no group."
"Why are you alone?"
He didn't hesitate in answering. "I killed a man and was exiled."
I looked him over. He was younger than I would first have guessed. He'd been very kind to me. "You don't seem like a killer."
"Neither do you, but I bet if someone threatened that child you wouldn't hesitate to raise a gun."
"I have killed. I will not do it again."
He made a strange, laughing, scoffing huff. "Well, there you go then. I guess you were quicker to learn than me."
"Why are you here? There is a city being built, you know."
He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. "I know. It's all the talk for a hundred miles. The Fae will destroy this place. They won't stand for a man having technology that gives him greater power than they have through their magic."
Hala told me once he would find a way to avoid war. I was no longer certain that he felt that way. He believed That Which Is had given him a mission. If it took a war to accomplish it, he would reason that maybe it was the will of his God. "You didn't answer the question."
"I'm not here. I mean, I didn't come to this particular place with any intention, and I don't plan to stay any longer than it takes to ride out this storm."
Nuttah was warm and calm in my arms, looking around the cave with wide eyes.
"Thank you for helping us."
He coughed hard into his hand and waved the words away. "I was glad to not be eaten by the beast."
Wolf had settled down with his head on his paws, but his eyes still watched the stranger.
"He thinks I'm his Alpha."
"Are you?" He raised one bushy eyebrow at me. "You seem like the kind of woman who could be an Alpha if she decided to be."
I stared at him, his words etching themselves into my mind. All my life I had submitted. As a child, I had no choice. I submitted to Hala because I wanted to know family, and that had seemed like the best way. But did I have to keep submitting? Could I be the master of my own future?
"How do you survive on your own?" I asked him.
"I think ahead. I watch the skies so I don't get trapped in the storm. I eat what makes me strong. I go where I please and find joy in the earth under my feet. What do I need that I don't have?"
"Humans seem designed to thrive in community."
"Has that been your experience?" he asked. He coughed again, so hard this time that his eyes watered.
I had no answer.
"I walked through the night. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep." Like that, he turned his back to me and laid his head on his pack.
The storm raged through the rest of the afternoon and into the night. I ate the soup Marco offered and spent my time worrying about Hala's reaction when I returned. Not only had I gone missing again, but during a terrible storm and with his daughter in my care. Thoughts of being locked in the house, shackled to a chair and kept under guard raced through my mind. Sometime after midnight the storm tapered off, and I drifted into a restless sleep. When I woke, the eastern sky was smudged with orange and Marco was gone with his pack, off to wander alone until… what? When did wandering stop if you started with no destination in mind?
With nervous cramps in my stomach I returned to town.
Hala sat at the table, hands clenched around a cup of water, knuckles white.
Carefully, so as not to wake her, I laid Nuttah in her crib next to Risa's side of the bed and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind me.
I faced him, swallowing my nerves. "Where's Risa?"
"She's with the healer. Jared recommended a special massage to help her sleep and settle her stomach."
I chewed on my lip. "I'm sorry if you worried."
"You're sorry?"
"I didn't realize it would storm," I said.
He rose from his seat. "You didn't realize? I told you to stay home. You deliberately disobeyed me. If you had listened, you wouldn't have been in any danger. Our daughter would not have been in any danger."
"You have no right to order me around. You're not my…"
He came toward me fast and, all attempt at bravado gone, I shrank back against the wall.
His hands gripped my upper arms, vises from which I could never escape. "You are my woman!" He shook with rage. Sweat broke out across his brow. "You are mine no matter what others…" He trailed off, seeming to lack the words for what he was trying to say. His chest rose and fell rapidly with his breath. He turned hard, throwing me against the table. I fell across it, knocking the flowers over. He had my pants down around my knees and he was inside me, punishing me for frightening him, proving to me that I was his, and he was in charge. His body slammed against me, again and again, pressing my hips against the table. With one hand he squeezed my thigh, so hard I knew there would be a bruise in the shape of his powerful fingers, and he wound the other in my hair, pulling.
When he'd spent himself within me, he collapsed on top of me, the weight of his body familiar, no different from that of my father or his so-called friends.
After a long moment he stood and moved away. I straightened my clothes, and I turned to face him. Confusion had replaced his fury. His anger had poured into me with his seed. Now I was the one trembling with rage.
"Don't ever go out like that again," he said.
With all the strength I could muster I slapped him across the face. "Risa is right. Something inside you is broken. You are no better than the beasts who raised me. You have no claim on me. You made it clear from the beginning that I would never be your woman. Never touch me again."
I held his gaze, even when I felt the vibration of the door shutting against its frame once more. "Thank goodness! We're so glad you're back, Jax! Is Nuttah OK?
The muscle in his jaw jumped once before he focused on her. "Jax kept her safe in the storm. Everything's OK now. Did everything go well at the healers?"
"Yes. He's a miracle worker. This is the best I've felt in days."
"Good." He kissed her on the head. "Excuse me for just a while, will you? There's something I wanted to discuss with James now that you're back."
"Sure. Will you be home for lunch?"
His eyes flicked to me and back again. "Probably not until later. Go ahead and eat without me."
He stalked away, leaving me alone with Risa, trying to act normal while her match’s seed trickled down the inside of my thigh.
Nuttah must have started crying. "I'll get her!" Risa said, rushing to the sink to wash her hands before disappearing around the corner to the room where my daughter slept.
My daughter. The child of my body. My body whom no man held any claim to. My breasts tingled as my milk ran down.
I went into the washroom, closed the door, sat on the floor, and sobbed as I never had in my entire life. My body convulsed with the ferocity of my pain, fear, disappointment and, above all, my burning black anger.
I had been a fool to believe these people were my family. Risa had used me to get a child. It didn't matter that I had planted the idea. She would have gone along with it anyway. She was greedy, selfish, prideful, and now that she would have a child of her own, my Nuttah would never hold the place in her heart that her own son would. And I was sure it would be a son: a beautiful brown-eyed, dark-haired boy.
Hala was…
I barely had enough time to lean over the toilet before I began vomiting. If it was possible to do so, I just might kill him, vows be damned.
My stomach settled, and I sat back on my heels. My tears dried, stiff on my hot cheeks. Molten anger cooled to steely resolve.
I would not let these people be a part of my child's life.
I was no longer trapped in the snowy north. The frightened pregnant girl was a distant memory. I had learned a great deal in the past two years. Just yesterday I learned that it was entirely possible for a person to survive all on their own.
I pushed myself to my feet, washed my face in cool water
, and changed my milk-stained shirt for a fresh one on the shelf. With a slow, deep, breath to steady my nerves, I left the washroom.
Risa paced the front room, bouncing Nuttah gently.
I forced a pathetic smile and held up my wet shirt as proof that I understood the baby was hungry. I dropped the shirt over the arm of the chair, took my child from Risa, and sat down to feed her. Her greedy little lips tugged on my nipple, as though she pulled on a direct line to my heart.
Risa began chattering about pregnancy and the healer and all that he'd told her. I stared at her quick-moving lips, but my mind was a thousand miles away--somewhere safe, and warm, and peaceful. Somewhere where there were no rumors of war and I could live out my days loving my daughter.
Twenty-Nine
I stood at the counter slicing potatoes for soup when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Risa stand up and go to the door. I turned to see one of the women who helped Jared. She wore a cloth over her mouth and stayed for only a moment. Risa closed the door and turned to me with wide eyes.
"Everyone has been quarantined. A group of nomads came in and brought a terrible illness."
"Don't they need help at the healing center?" I asked.
Her chin trembled a little, and she shook her head. "Nearly half of them are already dead. Jared is sick."
I leaned against the counter and stared at her. In my mind, I saw the man in the cave, coughing into his hand. I raced into the other room to check on Nuttah. She lay sleeping peacefully in her crib. Relief washed over me.
Risa stood at my shoulder. "She'll be OK. We just need to keep her in here, away from those who are ill."
I nodded, for once convinced the best place for me to be was locked in that little house.
Hala came before dinner. He opened the door and stood on the step. "Don't come over here," he told us. "This sickness can't touch me, but that doesn't mean I can't carry it on me. They need all the healthy hands they can get at the healing center. I’m going back there. Stay in the house." He met my eye. "I'm begging you. Don't go out for anything."
Rage pricked at my heart. Razor-sharp awareness of the guns in his room sliced through my mind, but I pushed it away. He was right. This was bigger than my anger. I nodded my understanding. I didn't need convincing.
"If you need anything, put a note on the door. Someone will check at least once a day. Don't go out. Not for anything," he said again before jogging off to the next house.
In the distance, I saw smoke rising. The smell hadn't touched me until I realized something was burning, but I instantly knew what it was. They were burning the dead.
Risa pressed the door shut and dropped the little bolt in place. Her hand passed over her stomach. I knew how she felt. There was so much to lose now.
We spent nine days alone together in the little house. Most of the time Risa was ill or sleeping, so I had Nuttah almost entirely to myself and I delighted in the time with her. Her enormous, toothless smile was brighter than the sun. When she wrapped my hair around her fist and tried to eat it, laughter bubbled up in my soul. Risa chided me for holding her too much. "You're going to spoil her, you know." But I wasn't about to put her down. The days of holding her would come to an end soon enough. She would want to run and play, and this tiny moment in time would be gone forever.
During the times they were both asleep I slipped into Hala and Risa's room and found something I'd remembered from our time as travelers. Hala had two enormous books of maps. I opened them on the kitchen table and tried to make sense of them. Obviously the blue lines were rivers. Were the oceans really so huge? I remembered standing on the sandy beach watching the waves rolled in and had to admit that it wasn't impossible.
A tiny pyramid had been drawn just a bit southwest of a large body of water. A little winged being near the eastern ocean. A horse and wagon between them. Tower City, New Faerie, and the Amish. I found Orleans and even the place we'd met Alma. West of there were two concentric circles, the outer marking off a significantly larger portion of land than the smaller. I stared at it for a long moment, realization of what he'd noted slowly dawning on me. The smaller was our little settlement as it was. The larger was what he envisioned. It was an empire that stretched from the edge of Orleans to the mountains of the west, from Tower City, halfway down the narrower land mass to the south. It was a kingdom larger than my mind could comprehend.
The Fae would never let it happen, I thought.
On the other side of the mountains a little strip of bright green ran alongside a narrow gulf. I ran a fingertip over the page, imagining lush green growth permeated by the fantastic smell of salt water. I had survived the snow of the north, two different great swamps, and the terrible storms of the southeast. I could cross the mountains, I told myself. With a baby. Alone. Fear slithered through my veins.
From his place by the fire Wolf rose, stretched luxuriously, and came to sit next to me as if to remind me that I wasn't really alone. I scratched his ears and stared at the map, wondering if this boiling stew of emotion: hope, fear, wonder, and doubt, is what it felt like to Hala when his vision first came to him.
On the sixth day, an explosion shook the house. Risa sat across the table from me and her startled eyes met mine. We both went to the windows and looked out, but from where we were nothing could be seen other than the dragon, circling overhead as she often did. No soul moved in that part of the village. With no answers to be found, we went back to our tasks, me writing in my leather notebook. Risa, knitting tiny blue clothes.
It was another three days before Hala came home. He burned his clothes outside the house, scrubbed his body with soap and water on the doorstep and went straight to the washroom where he took a long, hot shower that sent steam through the entire house. When he came out, he pulled Risa into his arms and held her. I stood apart, holding my baby against my chest.
"Do you have food? I haven't had a proper meal in days,” he said.
We heated stew and sliced the fresh bread and joined him at the table, neither of us asking anything of him. He ate slowly, as though raising the spoon to his lips were a task of monumental strength.
Finally, without looking at either of us, he said, "The nomads died. All of them. Jared died, and most of his helpers. James is dead. Two of Dragon's children. Thirty-two others. All dead from the sickness."
We sat motionless at this news. What could be said? I thought of Stella's beautiful children and James, who had been an ally and a friend, now gone forever. Tears burned my eyes.
He looked up then, at Risa. "The Fae heard we were weak and attacked. They set fire to the storehouse and it burned to the ground. They killed nine of our strongest, healthiest warriors, but we captured six of them."
"Captured? You didn't kill them?"
The fire in his eyes seemed cold. His jaw was set in a hard line. I was as afraid of him in that moment as I had ever been of anyone.
"I locked all six of them in an empty house. It was empty because the family who lived there were all dead. We had only that morning carried the bodies out. I left them there for two days, gave them a warning for their king, and let them go."
"But…" Risa swallowed hard.
"Let them die as our people died. They deserve no less for what they did to us."
"Is the sickness gone now?"
He shook his head. "Not gone, no, but the worst has passed. Those who are still ill are recovering. No new cases were reported in the last two days. We were able to save many with the quarantine. It won't be lifted until everyone is healthy and the sick-houses have been cleaned."
It had been peaceful, if confining, to be in the house with Risa. With Hala home, the facade of peace within me was shattered. I excused myself to wash the dishes, just for a reason to move away. I had no desire to sit at the table with Hala.
Not long after that, the two of them disappeared into the bedroom. An hour later, Hala came out. "She's resting. Has she been sleeping a lot?"
I closed the book I'd been reading -- the stor
y of the boy wizard. I nearly had it memorized, and the pages were beginning to fall away from the binding. "It's not an easy pregnancy, but she seems OK."
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, facing me. "I'm so sorry, Jax."
"You can't take it back."
"I know."
I waited for him to say more. I had no words to share with him.
He played with the string that held the gourd around his neck. "I promised you that I would tell you what this is." Lifting the string over his head, he held the ancient container in his hands, turning it gently. "My mother told me that, in the beginning of man's time on Earth, the Creator ordained that humans should live two hundred years. Anyone who grew ill to the point of death before that age should be given a draught of life that would restore them to health. The drink was held by the eldest member of the tribe." He shifted, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Long before my mother's birth it was decided that the legend was only a story, but in a skirmish with my father, the angel, Raziel, tore this from his neck. He gave it to my mother and told her she was the chosen guardian. Before she died, she gave it to me."
My curiosity was piqued. "Is it real?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea." Finally, he lifted his eyes to look directly at me. "I didn't use it, Jax. I held Dragon's little baby in my arms and watched him take his last breath, and I chose not to use it."
"Why?"
"Because there's only one drop left."
"Then you couldn't have saved them all."
His gaze shifted back to the object in his hands. "There's a story in the Bible of a prophet on a mission from God. He sought protection from a woman who had only enough flour and oil to make a single loaf of bread. Her plan was to eat it and wait for death. He told her to share it with him. She did, and when they were hungry again, they had just enough flour and oil to make one more loaf of bread. Again and again they used the last of what they had, but they never ran out. That Which Is would not let them die, because they were walking in the Light." Again, his green eyes met mine. "I didn't have that kind of faith. Perhaps if I did I could have saved them all."
