20 vouchers

bChapter /bb214 /b

b*/bbJiselle/b*

“It’s too quiet,” Eva muttered, staring out the window like the silence itself was a threat.

She wasn’t wrong.

The war had receded, but the hush that followed wasn’t peace–it was waiting. It was a breath held too long, a drumbeat without a war song. Three days had passed since the Hollow–born tore through the stronghold, since my body split open in blood and me to deliver a child not entirely of this world. And still, the fires hadn’t gone out. Not fully.

I turned my head slowly on the pillow, my limbs leaden, my skin pale and waxy. I was alive. I shouldn’t have been. I knew that. The midwife had died in a scream of smoke. The walls had fallen. Ethan had knelt, possessed. But somehow, I’d lived. Somehow, the baby had too.

Nate was sitting in the armchair by the hearth again, the same way he had for three nights now–elbows on knees, cradling her like she was thest thing on earth worth holding. Her head rested against his forearm, her eyes half–lidded in that strange, knowing way of hers. She looked older already. Not in size–her limbs were still soft and tiny–but in the way she watched. Quiet. Intense. Too alert. Too… ancient.

“She’s not sleeping,” I whispered.

Nate’s head turned immediately, eyes locking with mine. The way his breath caught–it stole mine too.

“You’re awake,” he rasped. He stood in an instant, his body tense, like if he moved too fast the moment would vanish. He crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside the bed.

“I didn’t want to close my eyes,” he said, tears already lining hisshes. “I was scared I’d miss it. You… waking up. Breathing. Speaking.”

“I’m here.” My voice cracked. I didn’t recognize it. “She’s here.”

“She looked at me,” he said softly, voice shaking. “And I swear–Jiselle–she knew me. Like she knew everything.”

I looked down. Nate had turned her toward me, and for a second, I forgot the weight of my bones. Her little gaze settled on mine like a me made eye, steady and unsettling. Her violet–tinged irises seemed to glow faintly, and as I blinked, I could’ve sworn I saw stars spinning in their depths.

“Have you named her?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Nate shook his head. “Didn’t feel right. Not without you.”

The baby didn’t icoo/i. She didn’t cry. But when Nate set her gently down beside me, she reached for my finger. Just one.

And her touch was warm.

Not baby–warm. Not skin–againstb–/bskin warm.

12:22 bSun/bb, /bbSep /bb21 /b

me warm.

:

I nced at Nate. “Is that normal?”

He didn’t smile. Just ran a hand down his face. “Define normal.”

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I could feel her energy moving through the room–threading the seams of the walls, pressing against the space where the leyline had once cracked and now pulsed faintly under our feet. I could feel it because it was my power. Or had been. Now it was hers.

Eva stepped inside with a bowl of crushed herbs, her eyes dull, shadows under them like bruises. She looked thinner than she had a week ago. Worn in a way magic couldn’t heal.

“She won’t eat unless it’s from you,” she said without preamble. “She drinksb, /bbut no milk. No form. Just skin.”

“She’s not fully wolf,” I said aloud, though no one had confirmed it.

“No,” Eva said quietly. “But she’s not not wolf either.”

I reached to lift the baby, but Eva stopped me. “Not yet. You’re still healing.”

“She’s mine,” I bit out.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Eva said softly. “Just… give it a few more hours. Please. Let Nate help.”

Something inside me wanted to fight, but the truth was my limbs were still weak. My body trembled when I tried to push myself upright, and Nate had to catch me again before I tipped sideways.

“Let me,” he murmured, lifting the baby again, swaddling her in the ash–woven cloth that somehow hadn’t burned in the birthfire.

“I keep having dreams,” Eva said as she lit a fresh sage bundle and circled the bed. “Not of war. Not of death. Of her. Alone. Standing in a field of stone and remembering things she shouldn’t know.”

“What kind of things?” Nate asked.

Eva didn’t answer at first.

Then: “She is fire and memory. That’s what I heard. Like the words were threaded into the dream itself.”

A flicker of unease passed through the room.

Ethan hadn’te in since the birth.

bI /basked Nate once where he was. He didn’t answer.

But now I asked again. “Where’s my brother?”

bNate /bdidn’t move.

b12:23 /bbSun/b, bSep /bb21 /b

Eva did.

:

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“He’s still here,” she said carefully. “But not really. He barely speaks. He walks the halls like a ghost.”

“The possession?b” /bbI /basked.

“No,” Nate said. “Not anymore.”

“Then what?”

“He saw her. That moment… when she looked at him. I think it changed something in him. I think he’s afraid.”

“Of her?b” /bI whispered.

“Of what she chose,” Nate said.

The silence that followed was heavy, but not cruel. It was filled with truths none of us knew how to name. Nate sat again. The baby drifted, though her eyes never quite closed, like she didn’t trust the dark.

I tried to eatter, but my stomach rejected everything. My body was still adjusting. I’d survived something that should’ve killed me. We all had.

But that afternoon, as Eva helped me wash and Nate held the baby outside under the shaded arch of the courtyard, a courier arrived.

He was panting. Bleeding from a sh at the waist, and his eyes were wild.

“Message,” he gasped, pressing a sealed parchment into Eva’s hands before copsing at her feet.

Eva caught him. Nate darted inside. I tried to rise, but my legs shook too hard.

“What does it say?” I asked.

Eva turned it over in her hands, expression unreadable.

Then she froze.

I knew that look.

Knew it like breath.

“Eva?”

She turned it toward me slowly.

My heart skipped a beat.

Because I knew that handwriting.

Rushed.

12:23 Sun, Sep b21 /b

Bold.

Slightly nted.

It was Bastain’s.

…

“But he’s-” I couldn’t finish it.

Nate stepped closer, reading over Eva’s shoulder.

And then he swore.

“What?” I demanded.

Eva met my eyes, voice barely a whisper.

“He’s alive.”

b12:23 /bbSun/bb, /bbSep /bb21 /b