Page 83 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

Ler waited to die with each agonizing breath, but Eru did not extend Her hand and call him home. She had saved him from the draig fire, but only just.

She’d enabled him to draw upon Her earth and summon enough water to turn the red draig’s flame into steam.

But not for the entirety of its blast. He’d thrown his arms up over his head, losing his hair but preserving his good looks.

Such vanity served no purpose now. Now, he lay supine on an ashen waste, his skin from the chin down cracked like brittle bark, sloughing like candle wax.

Every lift of his lungs released a swarm of hornets to stab his cooked insides.

He tried holding his breath, tried to die, but that insufferable spark of life that still beat within his breast refused this suicide.

So he endured the pain, nearly mindless with it, as the stars wheeled by and the sky lightened to herald a brand-new day of suffering.

Shuffling.

Oh Eru, that was his skin flaking off and skipping across the ashy meadow, wasn’t it? That was his thready pulse finally stalling. Maybe it was the wheezing, reedy rasp of his lungs taking their final breaths.

The shuffling turned to steps. There was no mistaking the individual, deliberate footfalls. They were coming across the Field of Black Stars.

Impossible.

A soft startled noise, a coo like a dove’s. “Papa?”

Papa? He had no wife and he’d sired no bastards.

His father and his oldest brother were in the River Court, his second oldest married off into the Solstice Court.

The only other close male relation he had was Great-Uncle Ronan, the former captain of Ouzel , but he and his ship and his crew had all perished when the Blight had taken the Court of Shoals.

So who was this idiot calling him Papa ?

Scorn, spite, and superiority, even in his disgraced state, were the motivators to crack open one of his brilliant blue eyes.

A child.

A female faeling, no older than three, stood upon glittering black sand.

Unaffected . She was in rags—shredded as if she’d experienced a massive growth spurt within the blink of an eye.

Her little body was shockingly pristine except for the grime her feet had accumulated on their walk across the Blighted land.

Golden curls, violet eyes, pointed ears—definitely fae. A fae child that definitely should’ve been dead if she’d come from the Twilight Court.

Yet so very alive, her cheeks tinged with pink from the cold sea breeze.

“You’re hurt,” she said in that clear voice all children use when they’re boldly stating the obvious.

As if you could do anything about it.

Biting down on her lower lip, she hesitated as those violet eyes swept over his burns. The last shreds of himself that identified him as fae.

With a little huff, she marched off the Field of Black Stars, across the strip of unscorched trefoil meadow, and to his side in the ashes. She didn’t need to kneel to place her tiny hands on his body.

Agony erupted from where she touched him, so acute his scorched windpipe opened into a shrill scream.

Golden light radiated from the fae child’s hands. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as her focus sharpened, and with it, the intensity of her magic. Golden sparks joined the glow, white motes rising and floating off into the sky like soap bubbles.

Through the insanity of his pain, one thought forced its way to the surface: Eru blessed her with healing? And not just the trifling amount She normally parceled out. This was nothing short of the divine.

“Ugh,” she cried out. She fell onto her backside, hands limp in the ashes between her knees. “You were hurt bad, Papa.”

Ler sat up in astonishment, brushing the ashy scraps of clothing away from his flesh. It was warm and firm and flawless and his blood was actually on the inside of his body where it belonged. Even his hair had returned, albeit a few inches shorter than how he usually wore it.

“By Eru,” he whispered, surprised he could even speak. Though, if this faeling could heal his body, why not his voice?

“Are you better now, Papa?” the child asked.

“Much better, my darling. Come here.” He despised these little brats, but he forced his arms out wide.

She crawled into his lap. “I’m hungry.”

“We will get you something to eat very soon. Do you know where you are?”

The girl sniffled against a runny nose and looked around. “No. It looks scary.” She leaned into his chest. “Where’s Mama?”

“Mama?”

Those violet eyes looked up at him pleadingly. She was so lost, but she did not yet realize just how very found she was.

“Do you remember your mama’s name? Do you remember mine?”

She nodded. “Ro-an.” She pronounced it as two distinct syllables, but there was no mistaking the name she spoke. This child was Great-Uncle Ronan’s, or perhaps the bastard of one of his sailors he’d taken into his care. But how had she survived the Blight all this time?

“What is Mama’s name?” he asked again, impatient.

She shook her eyes, tears welling in her frustration.

Ler forced a gentler tone. “What did she look like?”

That, the child did know. She brightened. “Brown hair. Long, like mine, but a different color. Green eyes. Like this.” She pointed to the darker stems of the trefoil flowers.

“That’s ivy green.”

“Ivy green,” she repeated dutifully, storing that detail away in her fledgling mind.

Ler seized her arms, pinching. “That female is not Mama. That is a witch who killed your mother.”

The faeling gasped first in pain, then in suffering. Her tiny mouth opened into a wail.

Drown me, what an insufferable sound.

But Ler made himself cradle the little child close, stroking her back as she bawled and bawled. He rocked her until her tears became sniffles and mastered his revulsion when he felt her snot dribble down his bare stomach.

“There, there. Mama is lost but we will remember her always. We will have vengeance, won’t we, my darling?”

The faeling didn’t know what that word meant, but she understood the intent as clear as the dawn that was brightening this very auspicious day.

Calming some, she nestled against him, seeking his warmth. His protection. “Is that my name, Papa? ‘My dar-ling?’”

“No.”

She stiffened at the harshness of that single word, but she didn’t burst into tears like before. She was strong, a true faeling.

Ler took a breath to remind himself that he needed patience.

This was too good an opportunity to pass up—a divine intervention by Eru, actually—and he would not spoil this with the rashness of his old self.

He would be methodical, deliberate, deny immediate gratification for the larger satisfaction years from now.

And what satisfaction he would have. Against his sister Shannon, against the high lady of the Green Court, and most of all, against that miserable, conniving witch Misty Fields.

For he knew something many did not—not even his fellow Erusian Blades.

As the third son of a prestigious lesser court, there had been no opportunities for him outside martial or scholarly pursuits.

Despite his other faults, Ler was not lazy.

So he had learned. And he learned that what could be called upon to heal, could also be used to siphon away.

“No, my darling,” he purred, rocking her again. He must have her unwavering trust from here on out. After a second or two, she relaxed, believing. “Your name is Trista, for you will be the woe of many.”

The End of the Homesteader Hearth Witch Series.