He was trapped.
The body was nearly blind, blood burning as it poured from one eye and coated his cheek. More blood flowed over his lips, streaming from his nose. No amount of magic would help him heal the body from within it, Semaj knew, it was impossible. Someone else would have to— the wife. The body had a wife. The wife was a Healer. Semaj turned his head towards Bethcelamin, forcing the body’s hand to extend, pleading.
“Heal,” he gasped, choking on the blood in his mouth as the sharp, piercing pain increased in his head. “Help.”
Bethcelamin looked down at her husband, still stunned. He was in agony, he was dying - and he was on his knees before her. He was begging. Blood outlined his teeth, one side of his face was completely slack, his hand shook uncontrollably where it was reaching out to her—
“Help me.” He couldn’t hold himself upright anymore, and slumped to one side in the thin snow, his eyes still searching Bethcelamin’s face.
She swallowed, hard. “No.”
Semaj was still trying to regain control over the body when the life bled out of it.
Melody tried to keep the words going, it was all she could think to do, but it seemed there was no breath left in her. Senna had caught her when the pain crumpled her knees, and was cradling her like a mother, stroking her hair. Why was the Healer weeping? The world seemed to go all wrinkled around the edges, and Melody furrowed her brow, trying to understand.
The second chant, instead of fading with her unexpected silence, was growing louder, swelling with power that Melody could almost taste. How could that be? She tried to sit up straighter, to better hear where the sound was coming from, but her body was reluctant to obey, and there was a strange soaking heat in her back. Her belly clenched, her vision swam, and Melody closed her eyes against the wave of dizzy pain that swept through her.
“Melody? No, Melody, come back, stay with me, open your eyes, stay with me…”
She frowned, not wanting to listen, but Senna was insistent. Melody looked up at her friend, and saw the most amazing thing … Lianodel was behind Senna, and it wasn’t a dream. Behind her there were others, too many to count, all of them small and delicate and shimmering blue in her dark-edged vision.
It was quiet now; the chanting had stopped – had it worked? She could not form the question to ask it. There was another, she remembered. The third chant, The Banishing. It had to be spoken, or everything would have been for nothing. She tried to take a breath to speak and coughed helplessly, writhing as the pain took her again. She tasted blood on her lips.
“Jovan!” Someone was screaming, no, more than just one voice - it was so loud, she wished they would stop it, she couldn’t think clearly.
Melody found no more strength within herself, her voice would not come, but she would not give up.
Elee. The child’s mind was full of fear and nameless dread. All she could think about was her father. Elee, please. The last chant. We practiced it. Please?
Elee’s face appeared in her vision, pale and scared and curious as she looked from Melody to the elves and back again. “I can’t remember,” she confessed, tears streaking her cheeks.
I’ll … tell you. Repeat after me.
Melody fought to hold on to consciousness, guiding the little girl through the words she herself couldn’t force from her lips.
Lianodel laid a comforting hand on Elee’s shoulder and added her voice to the girl’s. Soon the chant was echoing on the ridge, resonating between child and elves and humans. Melody could feel the power of it, see the strands of magic swelling and shifting in her fading vision.
It was hard to determine which happened first – the ground beneath Melody began to shudder, and Jovan appeared in the limited field of her uncertain vision. He fell to his knees at her side, splattered with gore and blood, his eyes wide and staring in disbelief. She saw him framed in the pale purple dimness of twilight above her, and wanted desperately to tell him it was all right, she was certain she was just having the baby – but his face told her a different story, and her voice just would not come.
She coughed again, wishing she could rid her mouth of the bright metallic taste of blood, wishing she could breathe. Jovan moved up and took her from Senna, tenderly draping her body against him so the Healer could move down to see about the birth. He brushed the tangled curls from Melody’s neck.
“It’s all right,” he told her, gritting his teeth against the obvious lie. He braced her as the ground became more active; throbbing in time with the rhythm of The Banishing until it seemed the grinding howl of the moving land was the chant, inseparable from it. An impossible shuddering of the ground threw them all to one side, and then there was a deep, echoing rip – the sound of something tearing, or collapsing, or both.
Melody wasn’t sure the sound didn’t come from her, so intense was the pain that shot through her at the sudden motion. From a point somewhere above her body, Melody saw the ground beneath the ridge begin to slide, faster and faster, taking what remained of Cabinsport with it. It dropped, and in a crescendo of rumbling, several miles of land sank beneath the water of the bay.
“The baby is coming.”
Melody heard Senna as if she was long distant, and tore her attention away from the devastated landscape to look back at herself. There was blood everywhere, Senna’s dress was soaked in it, Jovan was covered with it, the ground was drinking it in underneath her body … Melody slammed back into herself at the shock of the sight, and was once again breathlessly enduring the seemingly ceaseless contractions. Dusk had fallen, and the full moon was coming as insistently as the baby.
Oh Goddess let this work, she prayed silently, and weakly fumbled for Jovan’s touch. He clasped her hand tightly and held her against his chest. She could read the desperation in his eyes. There were simply no words for goodbye.
Melody slipped into herself and down to her son, meeting him where she had met him so many nights prior. He was right on the edge of transforming, all heat and hunger, and she wished with all her heart that there was any other way to ensure he lived.
Anything but this. Aggravain had shown her the way. His own curse was gone after the attack by the wraith that should have killed him— but could she really use her last breath of life to kill her son?
Jovan was screaming somewhere above her in deep, wordless agony. She could hear him as if she were underwater, and her heart felt as if it would break in her chest. She knew that pain. It overwhelmed her as she wrapped her infant son in the magic, filling them both with the same intangible power she had used with Logannus. She poured every last bit of power she had into the effort, focusing until she and he were consumed, indistinguishable from each other.
Take care of our son, Jovan. I love you.
She released the magic, and there was nothing.
35
Jovan saw the light in Melody’s red-gold eyes dim, and flicker, and suddenly he could not breathe. It was as if the bottom had dropped out of him and he was falling out of control, spinning and dizzy and sick to his stomach. He called to her with everything he had, desperate to make her hear him, make her come back – but he could feel the slick heat of her blood between them and knew that she could not.
Take care of our son, Jovan. I love you. Her not-voice was soft in his head, barely a whisper, but the finality of her request struck him harder than he thought possible. The small glimmer of life in her eyes extinguished too quickly.
Jovan wept. For the first time in his memory, the warrior’s eyes stung with the salt of his pain. There had been no tears for his father, or his mother, or any of the friends he had lost in the arena. He had not allowed himself to weep even for his precious brother, but now the memory of Kaeliph had joined with the unthinkable pain of losing Melody and the tears soon soaked his face.
“She can’t push,” Senna snapped. “Hodren—”
The former blacksmith leaned forward immediately, putting his hands on Melody’s belly. “Lean her back,” he told Jovan.
&nbs
p; Jovan, lost in grief, didn’t move.
“She’s dead, man, but we can still save the baby. Move!” Hodren shouldered forward, pushing Jovan back into the right position, and put his weight to the task. It didn’t take long before Senna sat back, cradling the baby in her arms.
“He’s human,” Senna said softly, astonished, looking up at the moon.
“He’s stillborn.” Hodren shifted position again, moving to help Senna with the motionless infant. He took and cradled the boy in his massive hands while Senna leaned forward, breathing life back into the baby’s lungs. Soon the air was filled with the baby’s small, sharp cries, yet Jovan could not bring himself to look up.
She was dead. He drew Melody closer to him, feeling the awful truth in her limp, unresisting body. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe for weeping, great howling gasps that he was powerless to stop. The wracking sobs would not cease, the pain was simply too enormous. Dead. The tears seemed to come from the bottomless depths of himself in a flood he could not deny, streaming down his cheeks to land on Melody’s face and hair.
One of those tears, after lingering on the edge of Jovan’s jaw, splashed beside the pendant he had bought for her, the pendant she wore constantly— the pendant that was now glowing bright in the darkening night. He did not see. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear to see the shell of the woman he loved— it was all he could do to keep breathing.
It was the baby that eventually drew his attention. His son, who had been loudly protesting Senna’s ministrations, fell curiously silent. Jovan looked up, but before he could focus on the baby, a gleam of amber caught his eye. The simple teardrop pendant was aglow with rich, warm light.
“Jovan?” Senna too, was entranced by the pale shimmering radiance, and stared in awe along with the baby and his father.
Others stood witness as well, those who had approached at the sound of Jovan’s grief, or to offer help, or to get a peek at the baby. They watched as the glow spread from the pendant to Melody herself, seeming to sink under her skin in ever-widening waves. At first there was a rush of whispering, but gradually, silence took them all – save one.
Crestus had pushed his way through the crowd, and his constant muttering echoed loudly in the sudden quiet. He stopped talking to himself only when he caught sight of Melody’s body, softly glowing in Jovan’s arms. Crestus blinked, and raised a hand to rub at his eyes, to make certain he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
His eyes showed him the same thing as before. The light shining from within the clearly dead girl was focused in her pendant. The pendant. The Havenstone. Crestus nearly fell, his knees went so unexpectedly weak. Rhodoban, who had pushed to the front of the crowd and then stopped with his own face wet with tears, caught the old scholar. He tried to help the scholar to his feet, but Crestus grabbed at the front of his tunic, so excited that he could barely form the words that wanted to spill in a jumble from his lips.
“The amber,” Crestus was saying, pointing back towards Melody and the strange light. “The Havenstone, the blood of the Goddess, don’t you see?”
Jovan heard the man speaking, but the hurried words did not make any impression. Of course it was hers, some small part of him responded to Crestus. He had bought the pendant for her, though he had not known it had a name at the time, and he had given it to her after they had—
Sorrow shook his body again as he remembered, but only for a moment. All he could seem to focus on was the deep amber light that was filling Melody’s body, and the shivering tingle he could feel wherever the light was touching him. It was … invigorating, somehow, like the water that had saved them in the Haven - reassuring and renewing at the same time.
Crestus, hushed by Rhodoban, had fallen silent, watching the scene that played out on the ground before him. It was difficult to look anywhere else. The glow had spread and intensified. Melody’s body now shone light in every direction, on every face. None of his research had told him exactly what the Havenstone did. Crestus had studied artifacts for half of his life before he saw so much as a hint to its existence. If he hadn’t found a description by now, there was not one to be found. But to be witnessing the effect, in person – it was almost too much.
From even the short distance that Crestus and Rhodoban stood, it was difficult to see what was happening - but Senna and Jovan had a perfect view. Senna, still cradling the newborn boy against her, stared in amazement as the damage done to Melody’s body from the difficult childbirth simply disappeared. Her belly returned to its normal flat state, and there remained no trace of the tearing that had marked her son’s violent entrance into the world. Jovan watched in equal amazement as the thick, twisting scar on Melody’s face vanished, along with the odd notch in her ear. It was as though the attack in Tregon had never happened.
Even the dark circles under Melody’s eyes from the long travel and countless sleepless nights faded, leaving her face as clear and peaceful as he had ever seen it. The white streak in her hair darkened back to black, and still the light pulsed within her.
Jovan had to shift her illuminated body to one side to allow Duke Korith’s knife to somehow slide out from between her ribs, though he did not touch it. The skin beneath the hole in her dress was as clear as if the wound had never been there, though the blood between them remained.
As much as he had seen that was unbelievable yet true, Jovan was having the hardest time with this. Melody was dead, his mind kept insisting - even as his heart protested, and shivered in the hope that this light, these changes in her could mean something miraculous. Jovan was a practical man. Her body was already cooling under his touch. Melody was dead, and light or no light, there was no room for hope. He had a son to think of.
Melody opened her eyes.
She blinked up at Jovan, who was trembling uncontrollably and holding her so tightly she thought she might bruise. Those couldn’t be tears on his face, Jovan did not weep. What was happening? Her body felt so strange, weaker but somehow stronger … and there were memories, but they were veiled and hazy.
Melody wriggled free of Jovan’s embrace and sat up, looking around in an attempt to remember. There had been a knife … shouldn’t there be pain? She barely heard the sudden wave of astonished whispers that burst from the crowd of onlookers, she barely even noticed they were there. She saw Senna, though, Senna was close by, sobbing and smiling and holding a tiny, perfect baby boy. Melody held out her arms.
The child weighed practically nothing, and was so small his head seemed to nestle perfectly in the palm of her hand as she supported him. She lay him on her chest and he gave a small sigh, wrapping one tightly clenched fist in the curls of her thick black hair. Despite the slight wind, despite the crowd, he was asleep in mere seconds.
Melody looked up at the moon, shining so full and bright that she could see everything around her as if it were daylight, and back to her son – her perfectly human, perfectly normal son.
Memory returned.
“I did it.” Her voice, though it was uncontrolled, did not carry the weight of magic behind it. Jovan put his arms around the two of them, Melody and his son, and breathed deeply for what felt like the first time.
“You did.” The curious sounds of the crowd were getting louder, and Jovan knew the questions would soon be overwhelming. He doubted even Melody could answer them. “Let’s get you two to shelter.” He stood and helped Melody to her feet, and they turned toward the treeline where the tents and wagons waited. Before they could take a single step, a cheer went up from the crowd, startling the baby and Melody both.
“The Havenstone,” Crestus said, practically shaking with excitement as he approached Melody. “That’s what it does, that’s what it did,” he breathed. “Resurrection.”
“I’m glad,” Melody murmured, laying her cheek against her son’s fluff of jet-black hair.
Crestus pointed a trembling finger in the general direction of her neck, his watery eyes shining. “It’s changed,” he said. “The stone’s gone black, it’
s used up. What I wouldn’t give to study it. It’s too late, of course, but to perhaps understand it, or even attempt to duplicate something like that—“
“We’ll talk later, Crestus. They need to rest,” Jovan said, ushering his wife and son past the old scholar without further excuse. Almost immediately they came upon Bethcelamin, kneeling beside Duke Thordike along with Sophie and Lady Marina. Elee was weeping in the arms of her twin brothers. Jayden Korith lay a few feet away, unquestionably dead, in a pool of his own blood.
“Mother?” Melody asked. “What happened?”
“I’m so sorry,” Bethcelamin breathed as Senna, who had followed close behind Jovan and Melody, immediately knelt to lend what aid she could. Thordike groaned in pain as the Healer laid hands on him, and Bethcelamin lifted her own hands.
“The Duke is badly wounded,” she said, collecting herself. “It … it was Jayden. He went mad with rage, like … like I’ve never seen. He stabbed Lord Thordike. The twins dropped their shield. Jayden threw the knife at Melody, and then…” She looked over at her husband’s body, her face cold.
“It was his headaches, I think. Something in him just … broke. He bled out.” Bethcelamin did not volunteer how he had begged for her help as he died, or how she had refused. “I believe Duke Thordike will live, though.”
She looked up at her daughter, noticing for the first time that Melody was standing as though the knife had never connected. Her face was somehow unscarred, and in her arms was cradled a perfect, human, sleeping infant. Bethcelamin could barely speak, so impossible was this new vision. “I was afraid Jayden… I feared you were … dead.”
“I was,” Melody said, offering no other explanation as she turned and handed Jovan his son. The baby protested only slightly. “Keep him warm.”
She knelt beside Senna, intending to add her power to the others’ - but the magic didn’t come. Melody frowned. She began to hum softly, reaching deeper for the magic, calling it with her voice as she always had. Again, there was nothing. She blinked, trying to shift her focus to see the currents of power she knew were all around, but nothing appeared. The magic was unresponsive.
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