Page 28

Eyes wide in disgust and shock, she watched them eat. Then she remembered her wound. Considering they were safe and out of danger, she backed away enough to put space between them and turned physical.

She opened her ceramic jar of healing herbs and slapped it over her wound to hide the smell of blood. Then she wrapped her leg tight enough to stem the bleeding, while also acting like a tourniquet to stop the spread of venom as much as possible.

The smell of blood still permeated the air, because they came for her a second time with a snarl.

Lindi tried to squash the fear that clutched at her chest, but no matter that she cared for them, it was difficult to remain unafraid when a rabid beast was coming for her. She shuffled back and prepared to stand, only to pause with her eyes widening at what she saw.

Her bottom lip fell when a white spine began to protrude through their dark-grey flesh.

Starting from between their shoulder blades, which also grew, vertebrae popped up one by one until they reached a set of hips.

Their ability to crawl to her was hindered when their little legs began to fuse together at each new vertebrae that formed, going further down past the humanoid body it originally had until a tail formed.

They fell to the side, unused to not having legs to support themselves, and clawed at the ground as arm and hand bones formed. Regardless of their changes, they kept coming for her, flinging dirt and leaves in their wake.

Then white tipped their oval snout. A skull pushed from within their featureless face, and they snapped at her until a bottom jaw appeared. It was split into two pieces, with a sinew of muscle holding them together in the middle, and they parted their maw to hiss with a set of serpent fangs.

They turned into a snake! Well, partially.

Although a viper-like death adder skull had appeared, and a tail had replaced their legs, they still had a humanoid torso. They looked so strange, so monstrous.

Yet, when they fell headfirst into the dirt and were unable to lift it, wriggling and squirming like they were stuck, they looked.

.. vulnerable. The change had been sudden, but it was obvious they were struggling to handle this new form.

The skull was too big, too heavy for them, and their body flopped in a circle around it.

As wary as she was, she’d watched their transformation. It was her child, even if they were a little freaky now, and they still needed her.

Since they couldn’t snap at her with the top of their flat skull stuck to the ground, she managed to put her hands around them in a way that stopped them from attacking.

At the same time, she noticed that all their fish fins had grown – the back fin had split in two to accommodate their spine, while long, soft frills trailed down their tail.

Their arm fins flared as they roared at her when she picked them up, but the sound was squeaky and pathetic from such a small thing.

Pain twinged her leg as she stood, and her left knee almost caved in.

“Oh shit. I was bitten.” She’d totally forgotten!

As much as she wanted to assess what had just happened, she had a feral creature in her arms, and she had venom coursing through her veins.

Discarding her basket in her panic, Lindi curled her arms tight around their body and sprinted through the forest.

“I need to get home,” she muttered through panted breaths. Sweat dotted her brow, cooled down by the wind that whipped across her face. Her forehead crinkled, and she bit her bottom lip so hard she worried she’d draw blood. “I need to get them somewhere safe.”

Somewhere that, if she died and disappeared, they couldn’t escape.

Lindi hissed in through her teeth at the burning agony that radiated up her leg, and the numbness forming in her toes. She clenched her eyes tight as she broke through the tree line.

“Please,” she rasped with a hoarse voice, clinging onto them tighter. “Please answer me for once.”

Lindi needed his help.

There was no one in her village who could treat venom, and the trek to Rivenspire was just too far. She’d never make it – not without a horse, which she didn’t have anymore. All her family’s farming steeds were taken.

She knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that she’d die this eve.

The question was... what would happen to her child in the meantime?

Her eyes bowed with anguish, and she held them tighter. Damnit... I should have been more careful.

Please answer me, her mind begged, as she opened her mouth to call out to Weldir.

Shivering, Lindi curled her body around a small heat source, and its pulsing radiated against her abdomen.

It was the tiniest, most fragile heartbeat, and she found solace in it.

A hard bed cushioned them as she wound her arms tighter against her child and drew her knees up to the bottom of their new serpent tail.

Flames crackled in the background, but the fading light barely illuminated the room, and the heat didn’t reach her.

It did little to take the chill out of the air that clutched at her bones until aches radiated in her joints and up her spine.

No matter what she tried, her skin crawled, and she rubbed her sweat-slicked forehead against her saturated pillow.

Her tired eyes rolled as she searched her bedroom for no one, only to turn so she could attempt to warm the other side of her body. She took her child with her, needing their warmth despite the flush in her cheeks, her lips chapped with thirst.

“W-Weldir,” she called out, a little weaker than she had before.

She received no answer to her plea and hadn’t in the many hours that had passed.

Then again, the demi-god had been quiet since the night she’d given birth all those months ago.

He was asleep – she knew that. He’d even warned her that he would be falling into a slumber, but she hated that when she needed him, there was no answer.

Cracking her eyes open to look at the fireplace situated in her parents’ – now her – bedroom, she noticed its comforting glow.

She wanted that billowing heat to engulf her if it meant it would eradicate the illness that had befallen her.

Instead, she lay in her bed shivering, incapable of braving the cool air beyond her blanket in case it froze her solid.

She felt awful that she placed her trembling, cold hands against her child, but they didn’t seem to notice as they snuggled deeper into her stomach.

It felt like she was dying. Her bones had been replaced with rods of ice, her skin chilled even though her face burned with delirium. Although she’d never asked for it before, she wanted him to bring her to his realm and heal her of this awful illness resulting from the death adder venom.

This made her feel too human, too mortal – despite her unearthly station in life now.

Lindi had the power of a god on her side, and she felt like she was passing away. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her. Then again, she already, technically, had died multiple times.

Oh, screw it. He’s not going to help me, she thought, climbing out of the bed to drag her blanket to the flames. She lay down on the clay ground with her back to the fireplace and hugged her child.

Only then did sleep grasp her.