She was lost and alone. Frightened. Pregnant. Caoirse curled up in the cell they had placed her in, and remained very, very quiet. It took every ounce of her self-control. As long as she didn’t cry out when the contractions came they would not know she was in labor. Not yet anyway.
The sweat was running down her back as she crouched in the corner, straining to both hold back her groans and give birth to her daughter. She knew it was a daughter. She’d heard her tiny thoughts; mostly thoughts of comfort, warmth and desire for life.
Her mother, long dead, had been a midwife in their village, and Caoirse was now grateful for all those births she’d witnessed, however unhappily, as a child. She’d never thought she would have to use the experience she had gained on herself, alone and in the shadows. However the daughter she’d never wanted to have was coming soon. As a Deacon, few expected to have children, but as a captive she’d had no choice.
No, she couldn’t afford to think of the drone who had taken her into the cell, his blank stare, his unnatural strength, and how she’d been unable to resist either. Not today. Caoirse couldn’t afford to think of anything but what lay ahead. Her plan.
Luckily it was night, and the Wrayth were elsewhere, terrorizing the population of their kingdom no doubt. Though which kingdom or province she was in she’d never found out; there was only so much she could get from the terrified women that occupied the other cells. All of them were Deacons, and all of them had similar experiences. Unfortunately the Wrayth were clever. The cells were carefully crafted with thick walls to keep the woman from touching and forming a Bond.
By the Blood, she missed the Bond. She missed her old life, and her partner—even if he’d been the lucky one.
She’d been in Sousah province in Delmaire, exploring a strange ancient temple with her partner. An earthquake had revealed a new section of tunnels beneath the temple, and they’d been sent to investigate it to see if there were any geists lurking there. Delmaire was mostly a tamed continent, but old places were still feared. Rightly so as it turned out. What they had found was a twisted creature of flesh, lurking in the water. The creatures that boiled out of the tunnel when they approached she had not been able to sense. They had killed Klanasta immediately—having no use for men. And they had taken her Strop. She was a Sensitive, alone in this place, with no Active to help.
Except the one she was birthing.
Caoirse breathed deeply but as quietly as she could, and pushed. Reaching down, she felt between her legs for her daughter’s head. It was there, but also a lot of blood. When she raised her hands, she could see it traveling between her fingers and gliding over the marks on her arm. Ink and blood. She had known they would be a powerful combination.
The engravings on her arm were an idea that had come to her in her sleep. If she believed in gods she might have thought it some kind of divine inspiration. Her plan had to work. The leather that the Gauntlets and Strop were made out of was essentially skin anyway, and it also pleased her that she would never be separated from the runes again. Not even the Wrayth could take them from her now.
She had hidden her plans so very well from her captors. Luckily they cared little for the Deacons once they were impregnated, and did not examine the women. In fact, they only ever came into the cells to deliver food. The blank stares of the peons were her protection. If any of the elder Wrayth had bothered to examine her, they would have seen the marks she had carved in herself. The quill and ink pot had been in her belt pouch, and she’d hidden them in her cell for months.
Caoirse knew all the runes, but she’d only been able to carve three into the skin on her arms before the ink ran out. Voishem, Seym and Pyet. It was probably best that she’d only managed those. Her Active power was minor, and she’d be acting as a conduit for Daughter’s.
Daughter. That was the only name she would give this little creature, until they were safe; until she could tell if the Wrayth had made something horrific or miraculous with her, and if either of them would survive. Naming things was of great importance, and something she dreamed of doing in the sunlight. She missed sunlight.
It was time to find out what Daughter was. Her body was telling her to move, to push and uncover the truth. Everything went still, perfect and still. She felt open and alive, poised for a perfect moment in this darkness. Caoirse pushed, feeling her whole body open, and bright white light flashed behind her eyes. Then Daughter lay in her hands, not twisted, not malformed. Beautiful. She stared up at Caoirse with tiny, bright blue eyes, while her new mother cleaned her with the least stained cloth she had in the cell. Daughter had a beautiful crop of reddish hair, and, as if knowing the situation they were in, didn’t cry.
The desire to nurse her was intense, but Caoirse resisted it. If she lay back and coddled Daughter there would be no going back. The Wrayth would find them both there, and take her baby away to whatever fate it had planned. Then there would be no escape for either of them, and what they would do with Daughter could only be a nightmare.
She swiftly tied a thread she’d worked loose from the sheet about the umbilical cord, and sawed it free with a rock she had sharpened over long months for this particular purpose. Finally she waited for a time, until she had birthed the placenta.
Then she carefully wrapped Daughter up in her sheet. The little girl wriggled a little, but her eyes never left Caoirse’s. The once-Deacon had to smother back a sob. She took a moment to compose herself and to put all the pieces of her plan together one final time. So many things could go wrong—not just the Wrayth stopping her. A Sensitive using an Active power could burn out like a snuffed flame, or up like oil thrown on fire. She was not familiar with the runes, and they could turn and devour her.
Yet it was the only way. She had to warn the Order that this was happening; that not all their Deacons that went missing were killed. She could do this. One last time, Caoirse went over her plan.
First, Voishem to get her out of the cell, then Seym the Rune of Flesh to give her the strength to run. She’d race to the right, out of her cell; that was the direction all the women came from, and she remembered coming that way from the strange tunnel. The gleam of weirstones had been the last thing she recalled. If the tunnel had taken her far from Delmaire then it could take her back there. Then to the Abbey, if Seym would carry her that far. If any Wrayth got in the way or tried to stop her then she would use Pyet on them. She smiled grimly. Maybe she would use the cleansing flame on them anyway.
Gathering up Daughter, she called on the child’s power. It was so much more than she could have expected. The rune’s power scampered up the marks on her arms, and it was like pouring liquid lead into her veins. Her muscles spasmed and it felt like her eyes would burn out of her head. So much pain, but she couldn’t afford the time to stop and feel it. For the Order’s sake. For Daughter’s sake.
Caoirse held up her hand, trembling and thin as it was. Voishem made the world pale and insubstantial. She liked that. Clutching Daughter in the crook of her arm, she stepped forward and out into the corridor.
Raed was watching Sorcha, who had only just placed her hand on the bloodstain, but he was also keeping an eye and an ear out for anything coming along the corridor. She’d said Aachon was near, but he heard no reassuring pistol shots or sounds of victory to tell him that this assertion was true. He wished Merrick were here to tell him what was going on with Sorcha, and perhaps to provide a little levelheaded sanity to this situation.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute since Sorcha touched the blood before she let out a tiny gasp and slumped back. It was only his hand on her shoulder that kept her from falling over completely.
Her fingers clutched onto him, and then, most remarkably of all, she buried her head against his chest. Just for a moment, even considering the dire place they were in, Raed spared time to cradle her head there, stroking her hair and making noises of comfort.
“She got away.” Sorcha pulled back, wiped tears from her eyes and looked up at him. He had never before seen that expression on the Deacon’s face; true wonder. He wanted to kiss her even more now; to make her eyes stop crying, and her chest stop struggling to find breath. This was not Sorcha—at least not the Sorcha he
