Page 45 of Hellfire to Come
She did not ask if I wanted it.
“You came for my help,” she said at last, her voice low and unhurried, yet sharper than my blades. “For your Alice. The girl who nearly knocked over three generations of my grandmother’s pottery while bleeding on sacred stone.”
I flinched despite myself. “Yes.” The word slipped out smaller than I intended. Too humble. Too raw.
The truth was, I had nothing polished left in me. No argument prepared, no clever plea. Just desperation curled tight behind my ribs.
Laughing Crow took a slow sip from her cup and studied me with those wide, dark eyes that seemed to look through skin and bone to whatever soul might still remain. She did not blink. She did not sit. She merely stood there, childlike and quiet, like the storm that hadn’t broken yet.
“Then tell me,” she said eventually, tilting her head just so in a birdlike manner. “As much as I’ve been dying to meet you…Why should I offer aid to someone likeyou?”
Her words were not cruel. Not even scornful. Just... factual. Precise. And devastating.
I tightened my grip on the cup, grounding myself in the warmth. “Because I am willing to pay any price for her life,” I said, voice steady even though I felt anything but. “Because I’ve watched her fight for others long after she had nothing left for herself. Because I would bleed out in this kitchen, on your ancestral floor, if it would buy her one more chance to live. If anyone deserves to be saved, that’s Alice.”
“And what,” Laughing Crow asked, tone sharpened by something colder now, “makes her life more sacred than the thousands of others your kind have taken?”
I swallowed hard. “Nothing,” I said. “Not a damn thing, yet here I am begging for your help.”
That seemed to catch her attention.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness for my kind,” I continued. “Not from you. Not from the land. I know what I’ve done. What Iam.You feel it in your bones…I don’t belong here. I’m poison to your soil and your air and your wards. But Alice… Alicedoesbelong. She chooses kindness always. She chose hope. Even when it nearly killed her. I didn’t drag her into this. She walked with me willingly because that is who she is. And I would damnmyself ten times over to save her from the consequences of that choice.”
A long pause followed.
Her stare didn’t soften, but something behind it shifted. The air grew heavier, like the room itself was listening.
“So,” she murmured. “You offer your blood. Your life. To pay a debt if needed.”
I nodded once. “Willingly.”
“And what if the cost is not yours to bear?” she asked, her voice turning quiet as snowfall. “What if the price falls onher? Or worse, what is the payment is asked at a later date, unexpectedly, costing you something or someone you are not willing to part with?” her gaze flicked for a split second to Dominic and back. If I was not watching her like a hawk I would’ve missed it.
That struck like a knife between my ribs. I searched her gaze for any inkling that she was messing with me but something ancient stared back. “Then at least I will know she was given a choice at life. She can decide if she wants to pay or not. I will decide how to deal with whatever is asked of me, as well. For now? She will get help. Not death disguised as mercy.”
Laughing Crow exhaled slowly, setting her mug down without a sound.
“You speak with pain,” she said. “But not just for her. You speak with shame. With the guilt of one who has tasted ruin and dared to ask for something better.”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing left to say. I had no defenses to offer, no lies, no shields, no claws. Only the jagged, bloody truth laid bare before her. I was a monster. She knew it. I knew it.
The land knew it, too.
Another long silence stretched between us.
Then, with the same unhurried grace as before, she turned and gestured toward the hallway.
“Come,” she said. “You’ll help me prepare the circle.”
I blinked. “You’re agreeing to help?”
“I’m agreeing to listen,” she corrected. “And that’s more than most like you have ever received.”
Then, just as she stepped out of view, she added over her shoulder, “And if your friend lives… it will not be because you begged well. It will be because something in the bones of the earth answered for you.”
Dominic reached for my hand from behind me. I didn’t realize how hard I was trembling until our fingers met.
It took a long moment before I felt comfortable to stand up without worrying that my knees would give out and I’d collapse. But with each step I took to follow the shaman, I was certain that all our lives were about to change forever.
