92. Look At What He Kept #3
“I don’t have baby-baby equipment,” she admits under her breath.
“Until this year, my most exotic patient was a llama with opinions. But weight is weight, and I thought mama might want her stats.” She holds up a sling.
“It’s weighed one falcon, three raccoons, and a very fat cat. It has been washed. Twice. In Dreft.”
“She’d be honored to follow the fat cat.”
Elena holds her with sure hands and a soft voice. “Hi, sweet pea. Oh, you’re a marvel. Into the sling we go—”
The needle swings. And settles.
“Seven pounds, fourteen ounces,” she whispers. The boys lean in over her shoulders, committing the number to eternal memory. “Seventeen—hold on, she’s doing the scrunch—eighteen inches.”
She runs a fingertip along one wing bud and beams when it flexes. Then she reaches the translucent window above Vaelína’s little heart, and goes still, watching the golden light flicker beneath it.
“Oh, it wasn’t an artifact at all,” she breathes, eyes going wide.
“I used to think hearing a strong heartbeat through a stethoscope was the best sound in the world.” She shakes her head slowly.
“She just… shows you. What a little show-off.” She taps Vaelína’s nose.
“Ten fingers, ten toes, two wings, one perfect heart. Best patient I’ve ever had. ”
She repacks the satchel and presses the gentlest hand to my ankle through the blanket. “You did so good, mama.” She slips out just as quietly as she came.
The door barely finishes closing before it opens again.
Rasen enters quietly, his hood back, and the moment his eyes find her, they close as he releases a long exhale.
Behind him, filling the doorframe in a completely different way, stands the brute of the Horsemen.
Kaeran lingers at the threshold, arms crossed, bell tilted slightly at the opposite wall.
Rasen glances back at him, then to us. “… He would also like to come in.”
“I’m securing the room,” Kaeran says… to the wall.
“He would like,” Rasen repeats serenely, “to come in.”
“Then he’d better get in here,” I say, “before the baby falls asleep.”
Kaeran takes one heavy step inside the room, reluctantly conceding. He posts himself against the far wall and resumes not looking at anyone.
Rasen crosses the room and kneels beside the nest. “May I?” he asks, respectful as always.
“She’s been waiting to meet you.”
Ashán lifts Vaelína from my chest himself and lays her in the Horseman’s arms—the antler-branch on my belly answers before she even settles, gold blooming through the room like a slow dawn.
The mark rises, tracing its branching path from the place it lived above my womb, pouring down Rasen’s arms, and gathers over the tiny girl in his hands, settling across her shoulder blades.
“It held for your mother through everything. Every hour of dark,” he murmurs, bowing his forehead to hers. “It is yours now, little one. And as long as I draw breath, Famine will never touch you—no hunger. No want. No empty winter. Not you. Not ever.”
Vaelína stares up at him and sneezes. “Hih….chu!” A puff of gold dust scatters across Rasen’s face.
“She has blessed me back,” he whispers in awe.
“That’s not—” Sage starts.
“She has blessed me back.”
By the wall, Kaeran hasn’t moved. Instead, he has inspected the crib.
The ceiling beams. The window latches. And the treeline beyond the glass.
He has looked at every single thing in this room except my daughter.
But I’m the only one who can feel the truth of him, and that truth is roaring right now.
The desire to hold her comes off that man like heat off a forge—and wrapped around it, rusted shut, is a certainty so old it has fused to his bones: hands like mine are not for things like her.
He will stand there all night radiating menace at the walls, if I don’t intervene.
I rise from the nest, slowly, waving off both my mates with a look, and I lift Vaelína from Rasen’s arms. I cross the room, and Kaeran’s bell tilts downward.
Then down even further. Panic grips him.
“Hold your arms like Rasen did,” I murmur.
“I don’t—”
“Kaeran.” I look up at him. All the way up. “I know.”
He’s still for a moment, and then he slowly uncrosses his arms. They assemble themselves into an awkward, angular cradle.
A siege engine attempting origami. I place my daughter in hands that have only held a warhammer.
He locks every muscle at once, and holds her the way soldiers hold explosives fully capable of detonation.
He’s barely breathing, his elbows are welded, and he’s staring down at her like she is the single most dangerous thing ever placed in his custody—I think she might be.
Vaelína stares, unblinking. One violet eye, and one black, taking in the scars. Her shadow rises, finds one scarred finger, and closes around it.
His bell tilts upward. “... She’s small.”
“She is,” I agree.
“Hm.” His thumb moves slowly and settles over her tiny fist. He doesn’t say anything else. But I can feel what’s happening inside all that armor, and I will keep it to myself forever—because that’s what you do when a brute shows you where the door is.