Page 72 of The Orc Outcast's Miracle

Arms came around her. Warmth. Strength. She clung to it.

“They killed them. They did. And I don’t even get to know who they are. I’ll never get to hit them or scream or claw their eyes out or make them see what their worthless, horrible greed did to me. To all of us.”

“I’m sorry,” Govek whispered against the top of her head, rustling her hair. “I’m so sorry, Miranda.”

“It’s not fair!” Her voice was so shrill it didn’t sound like her own. “Why do I get to live when my babies didn’t? Why couldn’t they have gotten here too? Why do I have to be the one to live without them? I don’t think I can do it, Govek! How am I supposed to just keep going when they suffered, and I never went back for them?”

She sobbed so hard she started coughing. Her nose was clogged, her cheeks wet with tears, her eyes burned and her vision was so blurry she couldn’t see anything but the precious faces of the babies she’d loved so dearly. “Why did this happen? Why do I have to accept that I’ll never know? It’s not fair.”

Govek moved to sit down on the couch and dragged her into his lap. He rocked her and she gripped his shirt in her fists.

“I want to go back,” she wailed. “I want to go back and make sure they don’t need me. What if they lived? Oh god... I’m horrible, but fuck, I hope they died. I hope it was quick. I can’t live with the thought that they suffered. I’m a monster.”

“You are not.” Govek gave her a little shake. “You are not.”

“I want to check the daycare... to find their bodies and... oh god.” The images her mind conjured were too painful. She was going to vomit.

“Breathe,” Govek demanded of her. “Just breathe, Miranda. Breathe.”

“I can’t,” she whispered like a mantra. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“Try. Just try. Right here.” His hand pressed gently into her chest and the pressure helped her take a breath.

“Why didn’t I die too?” Miranda pressed her head onto his shoulder. “It’s not fair.”

“I know. I know it isn’t. Fades, I wish I had answers, Miranda. I wish... I’m so sorry.”

The tremor in Govek’s voice brought her a sliver of control. Enough to stop the waves of agony from crushing her. She sobbed and shivered and allowed her mind to dip into the blackened chaos. Allowed every emotion she’d locked away to bellow out in one massive surge. Govek was soaked in her sorrow and only held her tighter. He rode it out with her like a buoy in the storm.

She concentrated on her breathing as the grief swelled and ebbed in waves. This grief she’d tried so hard to hide from by creating a new life, by sleeping on Govek’s chest, by concentrating on the trade and the trial and every other distraction Faeda could give her.

By succumbing to the desperate delusion that her babies could somehow have survived and made it to Faeda like she did.

Her babies were gone. She wasn’t getting them back. She would not be building a new life for them here.

The vision of the future she’d clung to disintegrated, and in its wake, she was left with uncertainty. Of numbing darkness growing behind her eyes. Exhaustion laced with icy cold sorrow.

“Just breathe,” Govek said, voice thick. “Just breathe.”

“What do I do now?” Her voice was hoarse. “Where do I go from here?”

“With me,” he said firmly. “You go with me.”

She shuddered and coughed to clear the phlegm from her throat so she could gulp air, but she didn’t bother with the streaming wetness on her cheeks or under her nose. It didn’t matter.

She let out a long breath and whimpered. “I don’t deserve you. I should have died, Govek. I should have been the one to die instead of them.”

“No,” he said so forcefully she felt the word vibrate through her whole body. “No. I do not believe that. This was in the hands of the Fades, Miranda. I know it. I can feel it. I’m certain you can feel it too.”

He was right. She could feel it. Like a pulsing at the back of her mind, the beginnings of a blooming headache she could not escape.

“I don’t want to do shit for them,” she said, anger slicing through her like the jab of a poker. “They could have saved my babies, and they didn’t. They let them die.”

He tightened his hold on her. “And you don’t have to. In my mind, you have already fulfilled your duty here tenfold. Now you get to choose where you want your life to go.”

She already knew where she wanted it to go, but that life was snatched away from her. Ruthlessly destroyed by the seer’s truths. “I don’t want to choose. I just want my babies back.”

“I know,” he whispered, and she clung to him.

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