Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Ready?” I ask Sauzon, though my voice is too tight, too high.
I try to ignore how the gleaming scalpels reflect the torchlight like tiny lightning bolts.
My palms are slick with sweat. This is a procedure neither of us has performed before.
Our patient’s life—and her baby’s—depends on us. We cannot fail them.
Sauzon adjusts his spectacles. “I spent all of last night reviewing the diagrams again. It will go well.” His hand comes to rest on my shoulder in a comfortable weight, before he clears his throat and begins unpacking gauze and salves from a nearby cabinet.
“Should we ask Graman to assist?” I ask. Nerves flutter in my belly, and I wring my hands as I pace the stark, white room. “I haven’t seen him since that first day when—”
“You barged in here like it was your father’s infirmary and the prince coerced me into becoming your nanny?” Sauzon drawls, his voice dry. He attempts to look stern, but he can’t hide the twitch of his lips or the mirth in his dark eyes.
“Yes,” I laugh, the weight in my chest loosening. “Since that.”
He hands me a numbing oil and sutures—we shouldn’t need them, but it’s good to have precautions.
“I dismissed Graman.”
“Why?” I frown. “He seemed interested in my powers. He watched me heal every patient.”
Sauzon casts me a sideways glance. “It wasn’t your healing he was interested in.”
Oh.
“I’d wager he remembers the curve of your smile better than any healing you performed. I did the boy a kindness by letting him go. The dungeon would have been a mercy if your husband walked in on him gawking at you. He wouldn’t have lived to see the dawn.”
I suppose he’s right, but guilt pummels my conscience anyway. A man lost his livelihood because I wanted to heal.
“Stop that,” Sauzon mutters, frowning at me. “It’s not your fault. He’s found another job in the capital. That I may or may not have helped secure. You’ve done good here, Mayah. Real good.”
Relief sparks inside, threaded with the faintest shimmer of pride. The foreign emotion lodges awkwardly in my chest, unfamiliar and ill-fitting.
There’s a soft knock on the door where a heavily pregnant woman stands. She shifts her weight, and I rush over to her, helping her sit on a cot.
“Rinaya! How are you feeling this morning?” I ask brightly.
Her smile is dim. “Nervous, Princess. I—I trust you and Sauzon, but—”
“I completely understand. Everything will turn out just fine.”
Rinaya doesn’t look convinced, but she changes into a robe without further comment and lays back on the cot. I set my palms to her belly, sensing the growing life inside her.
Her baby is still turned the wrong way.
We’ve monitored her for weeks, hoping the baby would shift into the correct position. It hasn’t. So Sauzon and I will have to make an incision in her abdomen and remove the baby—something neither of us has ever done before.
Something, no one has ever done. The diagrams in Sauzon’s medical texts are all theory.
“I’m going to give you valerian root now. It will put you into a deep sleep. When you wake, you’ll meet your baby.”
The woman nods, eyes glistening with tears. She downs the entire cup, and within the next fifteen minutes, she drifts to sleep.
Silence blankets the room as Sauzon makes the first incision.
I press steadying hands to Rinaya’s belly, healing as he works—matching his rhythm, breath for breath.
Power hums beneath my skin as blood beads, then stops, tissue knitting together beneath my touch.
The baby emerges, slick and pink and impossibly alive.
It’s a girl.
I hold my breath.
Her first wail breaks the air, and every knot in my body loosens.
We did it.
She’s here.
I swaddle the beautiful, impossibly tiny baby in blankets and cradle her to my chest, rocking the little one until she falls asleep. Her mother should wake soon and feed her—hopefully we won’t need to summon a nursemaid.
“Sauzon,” I whisper, brushing a gentle finger against the baby’s soft cheek. “Can you send for a heartwielder? It’s Rinaya’s first baby—and she’s still grieving her husband. I’ve seen new mothers struggle with the adjustment.”
Sauzon gives me a strange look. “There are none in Arbinj,” he says slowly. “Heart- and truthwielders are put to death as soon as they’re discovered.”
I can’t hide my jolt of horror. It’s barbaric. Inhumane.
In Tundrayn, heart- and truthwielders are bound early—branded with facial tattoos the moments their gifts emerge.
Children, marked before they’ve even grown into their powers.
I’ve never liked the practice, but I understand it.
Their abilities are dangerous. An unmarked heartwielder could bend another’s will, make them believe they consented when they hadn’t.
A truthwielder could easily learn truths they have no right to.
So yes, we draw boundaries back home, too.
But we don’t kill them.
My fingers still. The baby fusses, but my arms are frozen, unable to even rock her.
“Children, too?” I whisper.
“Especially children,” Sauzon says gravely. The way he says it—heavy, resigned—makes something splinter inside me.
My eyes drop to the baby in my arms. Shards of ice lodge in my throat.
It isn’t fair.
Anger rises inside me like a swelling tide.
Things need to change. That’s why I’m here. I need to try harder to make a difference. To accomplish my goals for my people—all my people.
I take deep, steadying breaths, cradling the baby closer to my chest. When I look up, Sauzon is watching me, a strange expression on his face.
“…and this is our infirmary,” a deep voice carries from the corridor. Zev strides in, flanked by three men in flowing burgundy robes.
The Volcan emissaries.
Zev stills when his gaze finds me. Or maybe it’s the baby he sees. A muscle jumps in his jaw. Forgetting the emissaries, he cuts across the room mid-sentence, closing the distance in three long strides, heat and something primal blazing in his eyes.
I present the baby to him. He swallows hard.
The inferno in his eyes softens into something raw—something unguarded—as he steps closer.
“I didn’t realize tour guide was part of your job description,” I tease.
“I may or may not have volunteered—so I could escape the stuffy meetings and come see you. I knew you were on edge about today.” He reaches for the baby, glancing at me for permission, and when I nod, his large hand rests over the entirety of the baby’s chest. He swallows again. “It went well?” Zev asks softly.
I nod. “Yeah. She’s beautiful. And Rinaya did so well, too.”
“The princess is being modest,” Sauzon says. He’d been conversing quietly with the Volcan emissaries. “She is the one who did well. It’s been a blessing to have her.”
My cheeks warm, even as a flutter of pride wafts through my chest. The emissaries turn their attention to me.
The shortest of the group, a bearded man with a stout belly, offers a smile that reaches all the way to his crinkled eyes.
“Princess Mayah. We’ve heard much about your healing endeavors.
And your marriage. Many congratulations. ”
“Thank you.” The baby fusses again, still asleep, and I rock her gently in my arms. Zev’s hand rests at the small of my back, his attention only for me, as if the delegates his father has been courting for weeks aren’t in the room.
Sauzon turns back to the emissaries. “I cannot stress what an asset the Princess has been. She’s a talented healer. And she’s exceedingly kind.”
“Sauzon, please,” I insist, cheeks flaming. “The emissaries must be ready to continue their tour. They’ve heard enough about me.”
Zev chuckles, brushing a kiss to my temple. Warmth blooms beneath my skin. He means it to be chaste, but it unravels something in me all the same.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he murmurs in promise. With one last look steeped with longing, he leads the emissaries away.
I glance at the baby in my arms. I stroke her tiny cheek, etching every line of her pink face to memory. “Tides protect you, little one,” I whisper, willing the words into a shield.