Page 71 of The Orc Outcast's Miracle

Her babies were gone.

They . . . they hadn’t lived.

Her chest felt like it was being ripped in two, like her heart was cracking apart. Her mind reeled and her throat closed around a wail?—

“Miranda, stop!” Govek demanded, even as she picked up the pace. The houses here were vacant, and the stretch leading to Govek’s home was lonely. Desolate.

Just like how Earth had been in those final days.

“Miranda!” Govek gripped her shoulders and forced her to turn around. She looked at the middle of his chest, trying to push the burning guilt down so she could speak past it.

Please go back to the hall. Please talk to your friends. Please celebrate the way you deserve to. Please leave me to wallow and scream and fall apart on my own.

But Govek didn’t. It wasn’t in his nature. “My love.” He got to his knees before her. “I—” He stopped when his eyes met hers. She was certain he could see her soul cracking apart as sorrow ripped her to shreds.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

“What did he say? What did Evythiken say?”

His voice was clipped with rage and she could not answer him. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want him to be lost in her grief. He should be reveling in his victory.

“Come.” He rose to his feet and pulled her along. It helped distract her. The icy air in her lungs tasted too sweet. The world around her was too vivid. The colors were too real. The scent was too lush.

Govek did not say anything until they were home and he’d closed the door behind them. “Speak, Miranda.”

She would have laughed at such an order had she been of a mind to do so. Instead, the idea of laughter sent a torrent of horror down her spine. Children’s laughter. Young and innocent and turning into horrific screams.

“Come here.” He took her hand and brought her to the couch. “Look at me.”

She did and in his eyes, she saw true heartbreaking worry. Her eyes flooded. “God, I’m so sorry. You should be celebrating. Please, please go back. Don’t let me drag you into this.”

“Miranda, you could not drag me anywhere, even if your life depended on it. And there is no other place I would rather be than here.”

She shook her head, eyes flooding. “You won’t think that when I tell you.”

“You’ve heard my worst, Miranda. Listened to my truths about Clairton. You held me through it. I will do the same for you. I will not leave you.”

She gulped and looked over at the bare embers in the fireplace. The heat of them barely registered. “I’m jealous.”

Govek shifted and his brow pinched as if in disbelief. “I love you, Miranda. I would never even dream of choosing another over you. Not Viravia, or Yerina, or any other in the village. And I certainly do not want Iytier’s company over your own.”

“No.” Miranda pressed her palms into her stinging eyes. Her skin prickled and her muscles bunched as she hunched in on herself. “I’m jealous that you... that you won. That you got to win.”

He was silent a long moment before clarifying. “You hoped that the judgment would not be in my favor?”

“No.” She began to tremble. “No, it’s not that. I’m so glad you won. I’m jealous that you... that I can’t...”

Govek’s hands wrapped around her wrists and pulled her palms from her face.

The dam broke, and her tears coursed hot tracks down her cheeks. “I can never have that. God, Govek. Earth is gone and so are my babies and I’m never going to get any justice for it.” She broke off in a sob that wracked her whole body, shivered from the top of her head down to her heels.

And her words flooded out. “It’s not fucking fair. The people who killed my planet won’t ever have a trial or a judgment. They won’t ever come to justice. They got to die quickly and uselessly at fucking best, never to know what happened or what they did. Or worse, god, Govek, what if they lived?”

The word came out as a wail and she dug her hands into her knees, rocking and rubbing at the wool skirt as if that might ease the pain. “What if they got to live? What if destroying everything but their perfect little corner was the goal and—oh god. They killed all those babies. My babies.” She covered her face with her palms again. “Josephine and Taylor and Robby. Oh, Robby had a brother who was ten months like Haysik. He’d just started babbling his first words. I can’t?—”

She couldn’t get the image of those tiny precious babies out of her fucking head. Their laughter swelled like a sea of fire.

“What if they didn’t die quick?” She rocked herself for comfort. “What if they got trapped like me? Without their mommies. What if they screamed and cried and no one came to save them?”

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