I try to keep my voice level. ‘We must keep going.’
‘Can you make it?’
I ignore her question as I unwrap the sling and give Raina some fresh water from the pouch around my waist. She spits it up. Oh, my girl, I’ve taken all the softness from your life.
‘I need to feed her,’ I tell Ris.
Ris lets out a frustrated noise but stops when she hears her own breathlessness.
‘We need to conserve air and move deliberately, as well as quickly,’ I say.
‘All right, we can rest for a moment,’ she concedes.
When I don’t move, she asks, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I... need you to see this,’ I take Raina and cradle her in my arms.
Ris looks at me warily as I unlace my gown and bring Raina to my breast. For a moment I doubt the energy I’ve felt in the cave. Perhaps I’m wrong, and I can’t feed her anymore. My mind begins to reel. Biba was able to placate Raina for a time, but without her here now, I don’t know how long she’ll survive without nutrients.
Raina latches on and feeds deeply, even more greedy than back at the Bastion, before I was bound. It feels different, too. Perhaps she’s taking from this energy source in the same way. Those teeth are just as sharp, and I wince. When the princess is sated, she pulls away, her lips painted by that same dark mixture of crimson and green.
‘What is that?’ Ris asks, wide-eyed and pushing away from me. ‘She needs to feed, or she’ll die. They all do.’
‘Who? What are you talking about?’
‘The royals,’ I say, trying to keep my voice even. I look down at Raina, stroking the peach fuzz of her soft cheek. ‘I saved her. She’s more mine now than theirs.’
‘What do you mean? Isn’t Raina your daughter?’
‘She’s the queen’s,’ I confess, wiping blood and mulch from the child’s mouth.
Ris looks down at the baby. ‘That’s the princess?’
I nod.
Ris’s face contorts in a flash of anger, then hurt. ‘What else have you been lying about?’
‘I only did it to protect us. You’re on a quest for the queen, sailing under the royal sigil. I didn’t know if I could trust you,’ I insist. ‘Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your child?’
Ris stares at Raina as though she is an abomination. ‘Is that what they teach you at the temple? To suckle monsters?’
I close my eyes slowly. ‘The priestess is at the mercy of the Bastion, to be used any way they see fit.’
‘Did the queen do that to you?’ Ris asks, indicating my arms, the scars barely visible even as our eyes adjust to the darkness of the cave.
‘No, I did,’ I admit.
‘Why?’ she asks, horrified.
‘I wanted to practise healing,’ I say, placidly.
She looks appalled. ‘And this too?’
She points to the royal brand on my thigh, visible through a rip in my dress. The outline of the brand is glowing as though it is white-hot.
‘It hasn’t looked like that since the day she marked me. It happened the first time the queen fed from me.’
‘That’s disgusting.’
