Chapter 13 - Ayla
AYLA
With my newfound freedom, it’s not hard to get away from the stronghold, especially with Kallus attending a summit of Reaper clan leaders.
I have business in the jungle. Business with one of the rare female Reapers. I need to know if my suspicions about the changes in my body are correct.
The jungle presses in like a secret. Thick vines curl around ancient stone, the scent of wet earth and blooming bloodpetals cloying in the air.
Every breath tastes like thunder. Every step crunches over roots older than memory.
I move like a shadow, swaddled in one of Kallus’s cloaks, the hood drawn low. No one sees me. No one dares follow.
They wouldn’t, even if they knew. This place isn’t on any map. It isn’t meant to be found.
Khari’s den is hidden beneath the tangled canopy, a hollowed-out ribcage of a long-dead beast now overgrown with moss and phosphorescent lichen. Bones are strung like beads over the threshold, clinking softly in the breeze. It smells of herbs and fire and old blood.
The old Reaper healer is already waiting. She sees me before I make a sound.
“You came,” she rasps, her voice like sand dragged over stone. Her hair is bone-white and tangled with dried flowers. Her eyes—blind, milky—still manage to pierce me.
I nod. “I had to know.”
Khari doesn’t waste time. She gestures, and I follow her into the chamber.
It's dim, lit only by the faint bioluminescent glow of hanging fungi and the flicker of low-burning flame.
A stone slab waits. I lie back, bare my belly.
Her fingers are like claws, gnarled and steady as they trace over my skin.
A silence stretches—long and taut. I think I might scream.
Then she speaks.
“You are with child.”
The words drop like a boulder in my chest. I can’t breathe.
But then—slowly—I can. Because the terror, the disbelief, the holy fuck of it all… it morphs. It twists. And what rises isn’t fear. Not entirely.
It’s pride.
My hand flattens over my stomach. There’s nothing to see. Not yet. But I feel it. The faintest flicker of something foreign. Fierce. Mine.
Khari isn’t smiling. “You do not understand what you carry.”
I blink. “It’s a baby. My baby.”
“It is not human.” Her voice is harder now. “It will have fangs before it has fingers. Bone spurs before bones. It will tear you, girl. From the inside.”
I swallow. My pulse trips. “But I can carry it?”
“With help. With luck. And with these.” She lifts a bundle of dried herbs, tight-wound into tight sachets. “You will take them. Daily. They will suppress the child’s traits. Delay the pain. Shield your womb.”
I nod, reaching out with trembling fingers. The sachets are warm. They pulse faintly against my palm.
Khari catches my wrist before I can pull away.
“But know this, Ayla of Earth. The suppressant will not last forever. It will work only as long as your blood permits. After birth, the child will grow quickly. The bone will surface. You must be ready.”
I can’t speak.
She leans in, blind eyes close. “Reaper babes do not coo. They hunt. Even in their sleep.”
I nod once, because it’s all I can do.
Later, when I slip back into the shadows of the jungle, the sachets tucked beneath my cloak, I don’t feel weak.
I feel ready.