“Heal her!”he demanded, eyes pleading to Huck and Pudge.
Pudge was already crouched next to her on the bed. Red curls fell over his brow as he leaned over, closing his eyes in concentration. Golden light spilled from his palm into Maura’s chest. A moment passed before the light started to flicker, but it snuffed out.
With crinkling eyes and rosy cheeks puffed, he growled in frustration as he placed both hands on her, trying again. The light blazed, reflecting off her skin, but just as before, the light was suddenly extinguished.
Tears streamed down his face as he looked up at David and Huck, motioning a small, grave shake of his head.
Huck covered his mouth, attempting to muffle his own sobs.
“No.” David’s voice was a broken whisper.
Her chest was shallowly rising and falling at a slow pace. Blood pooled down the side of her mouth and both ears.
As if consciousness was giving her a last wish, her eyelids twitched. Ever so slowly, they opened to slits.
“David,” she breathed.
“I’m here, Maura. I’m here.” He kissed her icy hand. “I’m so sorry,ma cherie. I’m?—”
Hot tears dripped down his cheeks, chin trembling, as he tried to hold himself together. For her, he would try.
“You. . . were . . . right,” she labored.
“What do you mean?”
“About true—true love bonds. Existing.” Each word was pained, but her eyes were determined. “The moment I saw her. Iknew. . . There’d be no greater love I’d ever feel.”
She coughed, another trickle of blood spilling past her lips as a single tear traveled down.
“She’s perfect,” she said with a ghost of a smile.
“Of course she is.” Gently brushing her hair back, David took a shaky breath in and gave a sad smile back. “We need to get you to a healer. I’m going to have to carry you, okay?”
Her head slowly lulled to the side and the corner of her mouth sadly pulled up.
“I’m dying, David. I’m—I’m not afraid.” She put a weak hand up before David could interrupt. “After I hid her, he had them give me tea. Quietus Leaf. Too late—by the time I realized. Protect—protect her, David.Carwynn.”
David’s face waned.
Quietus Leaf.Of course the demonic bastard would use an incurable poison. None of the Hallow Land people wouldquestion fowl play since it would be so convincingly disguised as childbirth mortality.
“Body and soul, I swear it. I will protect her.” He paused. “Where is she?”
Maura offered her hand, slowly opening it to reveal the small purple gemstone ring.
With tears still slipping free, David let out a quiet breath of relief as he picked it up.
“Honey,” he said, softly.
She had foreseen this. Had arranged for the Cherub Commander to hide the child away when the time came—the child she was certain would change the world.
Gazing down at the gemstone, David’s vision blurred, not just with grief, but with memory.
“You think she’s only a child,”Maura had whispered to him once, long before this night, when her belly had begun to swell.“But she’s more than that. The Soothseer told me a prophecy—herprophecy.”
The words sounded like a bedtime fable then. But now, they burned with terrifying truth:
“Before lands. Before gates,
