Page 15 of A War Apart

Reprieve.

“Again.”

Tearing. Burning.

Breathe.

“Once more, dear.”

I couldn’t do it.

“You can do it.”

Sheer torture. Nothing existed but pain.

“I have him.”

Have him? The baby? I didn’t hear his cries. Was he healthy?

“One more push.”

Sight, hearing, taste, smell disappeared in the face of the white-hot agony ripping me in half.

A soft hand touched my cheek. “It’s over, Mila.”

The baby. Where was the baby? I looked around. Everything was blurry. “My son?” I croaked.

“I’m sorry, Mila.” Anna’s eyes were wet. Was she crying? “He didn’t make it.”

Didn’t make what? Before I could process the meaning of the words, I fell into blessed oblivion.

Chapter five

Grief

Han

Isat by the bed, holding Mila’s hand. She lay naked beneath piles of quilts—we hadn’t wanted to move her more than necessary, so no one had dressed her. We’d moved her as she was into the guest bedroom. I’d sponged off the worst of the blood and dirt, but she still looked awful. Her golden-brown skin was mottled with blue and purple bruises.

I’d been in Selyik with Kyril Kyrilovich, haggling with the baker, when Yakov had burst in, a frantic look on his face. “It’s Mila,” was all he’d said, all he’d had time to say before I’d rushed out the door.

I’d come home to find my wife naked and battered, unconscious on the kitchen floor. Anna held my stillborn son. Marya Ivanovna’s body lay in Mila’s garden. Blood made a trail from the sitting room to the garden, and no one knew what had happened. No one but Mila.

She’d regained consciousness several times in the three days since we’d found her, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t even seem to recognize us. She swallowed whatever we put to her lips—water, broth, tonics—but other than that, she lay staring at the ceiling, unmoving. The doctor had said her injuries weren’t life-threatening, but he couldn’t say when—or if—her mind would return.

I reached for the Blood Bastard book on the nightstand and rifled through it again. I hadn’t found any remedies yet, but maybe I’d missed something. If anyone knew how to cure my wife, it would be a Blood Bastard.

I flipped past “Tonic to Speed Bone Healing” and “Salve for Broken Skin”—the latter was familiar, a recipe Mila used on me frequently. I stopped on a page that read, “For the Reduction of Pain in Childbirth,” and my heart stuttered. She had mentioned it to me just a week ago, a new tonic she was planning to make for the birth of our baby. Our son.

I’d already lost him. I couldn’t lose Mila, too. We didn’t have the money to pay a Blood Bastard, but if she remained like this much longer, I’d sell everything I had. Anything to heal her.

I set the book to the side and took her hand again, squeezing it slightly.

She squeezed my hand back.

My breath caught. “Mila?”

She opened her eyes and looked around, her gaze landing on me. “Han?”

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