“It will be over soon.” At least, I hoped it would. I needed to be getting back to the manor. “Then you can have it. Bear down...”
“Aiiiiiiieeeee!” She pushed.
I watched. I thought I saw the baby’s head, but I was not sure. “Keep pushing, Glenna.”
Her only response was anguished weeping.
I could not stand to see her in such pain. “Calm ye,” I crooned, “rest ye. Your time of toil shall not last long.” Something stirred beneath my skin, akin to the sensation when I had comforted the ailing Douglas boy, and when I bent Thomas to my will. I took a deep breath and pictured spring again. Gentle breezes. The soft glow of the sun on my skin. The scent of new growth. Birth and renewal.
Glenna’s eyes were glazed, staring entranced at my face.
“That’s a good girl,” I murmured, reaching down. “We’re almost there now. Oh, Glenna, you are brave, and you are strong enough to do this. Push for me one more time.”
And she did.
Then screamed. The cheese in her fist crumbled.
Glenna fell back, exhausted, upon her bed.
At last, I held her child in my arms.
She was tiny. And she was perfect, with slightly pointed ears and ebon curls, tinted golden at the ends.
There was no denying she was Amadan’s child.
Oh, the little misfit. Trickster’s child. Cuckoo’s egg.
I kissed her on the top of her little red forehead, while she twisted her face like a wizened imp and shook her tiny fists. “Child of two worlds,” I whispered. “Mab keep you safe in this one and beyond the Veil, wherever you choose to roam. May you be treasured, may you be wanted, and may you know home.”
This one—she might have a rough path before her, even as I did, outsider to the mortal world.
“Thank you for your blessing and baptism,” Glenna said.
I glanced over at her in surprise. The words did not repel me, as they usually would.
She offers thanks for what I have not done.
Glenna stared at me thoughtfully. “I know,” she said softly, “this child could have no greater benediction than the words you just spoke.”
There it was again, unexpected wisdom, as if Glenna saw more than she let on. With a secretive smile, she held open her arms to take the child.
Amadan’s words echoed in my head as I gave her over:I will not have my offspring baptized. I know not what it would do to a child of the fae.And so, this daughter of his had not been. My promise to him had been kept.
Twenty-Eight
I stumbled back to the manoras dusk painted the sky in shades of lavender and rose. One could almost forget the storms of the night before, the sun shone that brightly, hitting the fallen leaves like a path of gold. I was footsore from the long journey, and yet my spirits remained light.
I brought new life into the world.
My hands, months away from the fieldwork that once had calloused them, had delivered a child. I was like one of the gods in the old stories pulling life from the roiling chaos, like a farmer bringing a tree to blossom and flower all in one day. Not even Mairi Grieve had always delivered a child successfully. Queen Una, who wore her mortality so lightly, had lost her life when she gave birth. Mairi, stolen from her own world to attend her, had been able to do nothing at all.
Except perhaps steal the child from those in Faery who would do her harm.A child born of a mortal father; as Amadan put it, “mongrel she might have been.” If she had survived, that child would be grown now, old enough perhaps to claim her throne.
If she had not thrown her lot in with a human shepherd. If she dared to cross the Veil.
Far too many “ifs.” My head swam with them, making it hard to think. I wished only to stumble to my new chambers or, even better, to greet my shepherd king and fall into his arms. I would look in upon the boy Malcolm after I had a chance to clean myself and rest. If I succeeded in saving him, and I had no reason to believe I would not, Thomas Shepherd could be my life mate by mortal custom as well as the fae claiming. We would never have to sleep apart again.
This was the life I chose. Everything I wanted was now in my view. A purpose, a place in the world, and a lover. I could not ask for more.
