David Dalglish - The Shadows of Grace

An hour passed. He checked her only once, and saw nothing resembling a baby. Her cramps worsened, and it seemed she clung to life by a single, vicious thread of pain and determination. Every wave she leaned forward, tears flowing from her eyes as she moaned and screamed and pushed. Every wave he thought she would die, her tiny frame breaking under the stress. But she was strong, so much stronger than he had ever given her credit for.

Another hour passed. He checked her, and saw what he thought was a head. He kissed her fingers and told her.

“I know,” Tessanna said between deep, labored breaths. “I can feel her when I push.”

“Her?” Qurrah asked, a tiny smile pulling at his lips.

“I know it’s a her,” she said, leaning back and trying to relax even as her lower back throbbed in agony. “I just know.”

The night deepened. Every few minutes her screams pierced the silence. Tessanna felt the baby’s shoulders push through. The pain was beyond immense. The pain was everything. Blood poured out of her. Qurrah knelt at her feet, a blanket in his hands. She had to be close, she had to be. Her body couldn’t take anymore. She felt herself tearing. The contractions worsened. She pushed and pushed.

“Get it out of me,” she sobbed, her dark hair matted to her face.

“One more,” Qurrah said, same as always. “Just one more.”

She gave him one more. She pushed, and Qurrah cried out as he saw the child’s head push through. Fluids rushed over his hands, but he didn’t care. He grabbed the little form and pulled.

“A girl,” Qurrah said as he lifted her to his chest. The forest turned silent but for Tessanna’s gasps of air. The silence turned cold.

“Qurrah?” Tessanna said, trying to sit up but unable to muster the strength. “Qurrah? Say something!”

The child wasn’t moving.

Qurrah used his dagger to cut the umbilical cord, then dropped it. He put his finger into the baby’s mouth, clearing out what he could see, but it didn’t matter. He held no life. He held a shell. He stroked the girl’s face with a trembling hand. Her eyes were closed. Her nose was scrunched against her face from the birth. Red splotches covered her slimy pink skin. But she was beautiful. And she was stillborn.

“Qurrah!” Tessanna cried amid a deep sob.

“You bastard,” Qurrah whispered, tears pouring down his cheeks. “How dare you? How dare you…”

“Give her to me,” Tessanna screamed. Qurrah wrapped the body in a cloak and handed it over. Tessanna clung the child to her chest, weeping. Qurrah stood, his whole body shaking, his heart swirling with too many emotions to understand. Above it all, above the pain and the betrayal, he felt anger.

“He promised us a life,” Qurrah said. “He promised.”

He gestured to their child.

“Is this the promise of Karak?”

“Don’t leave me,” Tessanna said between wracking sobs. “Please, don’t leave me.”

He knelt beside her, and into his pale, shriveled hands he took the baby’s small fingers. The pain inside him seemed unbearable. The sense of loss, beyond anything.

“What have I done to you, brother?” he dared ask. “Is this it?”

He stood. Tessanna lay there, blood pooled about her as if she were some sacrificial offering to a craven deity.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded.

“He promised,” Qurrah said, stumbling north. “I have to.”

The forest was red to him. Red with death. Red with anger. High above the stars were drops of blood, like that which covered his daughter, his divine curse. Everything he had done. Everything he had offered and lost. Cruel. Cruel and vicious and horrific. Someone had to pay. Someone had to suffer, as he suffered.

The trees suddenly cleared, and Velixar waited by a fire amid a circle of stones. He stood, and at the look in his disciple’s eyes he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

“What happened?” he asked.

Qurrah did not answer. Instead, he hurled a bolt of shadow at Velixar’s chest. Stunned, Velixar staggered back as the magic crushed his bones and tore into his rotting flesh. The second bolt, however, he did block, batting it aside with his hand as his glowing eyes glared in the darkness.

“How dare you strike at me?” Velixar said. “Tell me what happened!”

“You are a liar!” Qurrah shouted. Purple flame poured from his fingers. Velixar crossed his arms and summoned a shield. The fire rolled across it, unable to penetrate. Qurrah’s whip lashed out next, cracking across the shield with loud sparks of flame. Velixar released his protection, leaped away from the whip, and then clapped his hands. Shadows shot like arrows from the sky, each one piercing Qurrah’s flesh and dissolving into mist that flooded his body with pain. Qurrah ignored it with ease. He had felt more pain that he had ever thought imaginable. A few stinging darts meant nothing.

He braced his wrists together and stretched his fingers. A solid beam of magic shot forth, sparkling with stars and planets of a lost galaxy. Velixar crossed his arms and raised them high. A wall of stone tore from the ground. The beam shattered it like glass. Velixar rolled, barely dodging the beam, which continued on through several trees, exploding their trunks and burning their leaves. The trees collapsed, and from their branches the grass set fire. Smoke billowed as the two glared, their forms demonic in the flickering red and yellow light.

“When have I lied?” Velixar asked as he staggered to his feet. “I promised you Tessanna would conceive, and she did!”

“The child was dead!” Qurrah shouted back. “You promised us a lie. A cruel joke. Everything you are, everything you claim, is a lie or a joke.”

“I am the only truth this world has ever known,” Velixar roared. He grabbed a clump of dirt and threw it. The dirt melted into a black goop that burst into flame, slamming into Qurrah’s chest with the force of a bull. Qurrah collapsed to the ground, gasping for air and rolling along the grass to put out the fire.

“What truth do you know?” Velixar asked. “Tell me, oh wise one.”

“Truth?” Qurrah gasped on his hands and knees. “I know one. My brother loved me, and I hurt him more than I ever knew.”

“Your brother,” Velixar said, throwing his hands up in disgust. “He was weak, a fool. He turned his back on the both of us, Qurrah, you once knew that as well as I!”

Qurrah stood and raised his hands high. Spells slipped through his lips. All around the fire grew in strength, fully surrounding them. It was as if they were in their own personal piece of the Abyss, reserved just for them. From within the fire, bones tore up from the ground, the remains of many sacrificed hundreds of years ago in the name of Karak. Gripping them in his mind, he flung them like spears at Velixar.

Karak’s prophet made a noise akin to a growl as the bones smacked into his face and chest. He pointed at Qurrah, his patience ended.

“ Hemorrhage, ” said Velixar.

Qurrah gasped as a large portion of his chest exploded in a shower of blood. He collapsed to his knees, his arms clutched tight against his body. He tried to cast a spell, but his head was dizzy, his vision blurred through tears and exhaustion.

“Kill me,” Qurrah said as Velixar approached. “Kill me, and let the weight of the portal crush you as well. I am too damn tired for this.”

Velixar paused, fighting for words.

“I promised you a child,” he finally said. “But even I do not hold the gift of life. If it was denied to you, then it was denied to you by Celestia, or Ashhur, not by me.”

Qurrah wiped tears from his eyes, smearing blood across his face.

“I will never trust a word you say,” Qurrah said, glaring through his blurred vision.