Sucked down deep into unconsciousness, she knew herself to be summoned, and she wanted to respond to the call. It was her mate, her beloved, her hellren who was speaking unto her. And yet she could not reach him, her will tethered by some great weight that refused to let her go free.
No, not a weight. Nay, it was something introduced unto her body, something foreign to her nature.
Mayhap the young, she wondered with horror.
But ’twas not supposed to be as such. The bairn she had conceived within her womb was supposed to be a blessing. A stroke of luck, a gift from the Scribe Virgin to ensure the next King.
And yet it had been after her needing that she had taken to feeling the illness. She had hidden the symptoms and the worry as well as she could, shielding her beloved from the concern that had bloomed within her. She had lost that fight, however, had fallen to the floor at his side at the festival …
The last thing she had heard clearly was him calling her name.
Swallowing, she tasted the familiar thick wine of his blood, but the rushing power that came with imbibing from his vein did not follow.
The sickness was claiming her, piece by piece, robbing her of faculty and function alike.
She was going to die from whate’er this was.
Good-bye—she wanted to say good-bye to Wrath. If she could not reverse this, at least she could bid him sweet love as she went unto the Fade.
Summoning the dredges of her life force, she pulled against the rope that locked her unto her passing, yanking with desperation, praying for the strength she needed to see him one last time.
In response, her eyelids lifted slowly and only partway, but yes, she saw her beloved, his head bowed, his body collapsed beside their bedding platform.
He was weeping openly.
Her mind commanded her hand to reach out, her mouth to open and speak, her head to turn unto him.
Nothing moved; nothing was uttered.
The only thing that came of it was a single tear that gathered itself at the corner of her eye, plumping up until it lost hold of her lash and slipped down her cold cheek.
And then it was done, her lids re-closing, her good-bye given, her strength done for.
At once, a white fog boiled up from the corners of the black field of her vision, the wafting rolls of it replacing the blindness that was wrought upon her. And from out of its curls and strange illumination, a door arrived to her, coming forward as if birthed from the cloud.
She knew without being told that if she opened it, if she reached out for the golden knob and opened the portal, she would be welcomed unto the Fade—and there would be no going back. She was also aware of a conviction that if she did not act within a prescribed time, she would lose her chance and become lost in the In Between.
Anha did not want to go.
She feared for Wrath without her. There were so few to be trusted at court—so many to be feared.
The legacy left by his father had been a rotten one. It had just not been evident at the start.
“Wrath…” she said unto the fog. “Oh, Wrath…”
The yearning tone in her voice echoed around, rebounding in her own ears as well as the white-on-white landscape.
Looking upward, she had some hope that the Scribe Virgin would appear in robed splendor and take pity on her.
“Wrath…”
How could she depart the Earth when so much of her would be left behind—
Anha frowned. The door before her seemed to have moved back. Unless she had imagined it?
No, it was retreating. Slowly, inexorably.
“Wrath!” she shouted. “Wrath, I don’t want to leave! Wraaaaaaaaaath—”
“Yes?”
Anha screamed as she wheeled around. At first, she had no idea what was confronting her: It was a little boy of mayhap seven or eight, black of hair, pale of eye, his body so painfully scrawny, her immediate thought was that she must feed him.
“Who ever are you?” she croaked. And yet she knew. She knew.
“You called me.”
She put her hand upon her lower belly. “Wrath …?”
“Yes, mahmen.” The young focused on the door with eyes that seemed ancient. “Are you going to cross unto the Fade?”
“I have no choice.”
“Untrue.”
“I am dying.”
“You do not have to.”
“I am losing the fight.”
“Drink. Drink of what is in your mouth.”
“I cannot. I cannot swallow.”
The cadence of their words was increasing, faster and faster, as if he knew she was running out of time … and by extension, he was, too.
Those eyes of his, such a pale green … and there was something strange about them. The pupils were too small.
“I cannot drink,” she repeated. Dearest Virgin Scribe, her mind was muddled beyond measure.
“Follow me and you will be able to.”
“How?”