Chapter 4

The deafening crack of thunder faded, leaving a ringing silence in the forest. The only sound was the hiss of rain hitting scorched earth.

The shockwave had thrown Kamala three feet backward. She lay in the mud, her ears bleeding, her vision swimming with black spots.

She forced her heavy head up and looked at where her husband had just been standing.

There was only a crater. It was thirty feet wide. The dirt had been superheated into glowing, jagged glass.

Josue was gone. Not a bone, not a drop of blood remained. He had been completely obliterated into ash.

Near the edge of the glassed earth, his obsidian ring-the one he wore to channel shadow magic-lay half-melted in the mud.

Kamala stared at the smoking crater. Her brain refused to process the image.

"Divine retribution..." she whispered, a broken laugh tearing from her throat. "The heavens actually saw."

The adrenaline holding her together snapped. The massive blood loss caught up to her. Her eyes rolled back, and her head hit the mud. She blacked out.

Inside the womb, Emerson exhaled a long, silent breath. She severed her connection to the outside world.

The backlash of forcing a Master-tier core into a fetal body hit her. Her soul felt hollowed out, scraping against her ribs. If she kept this power active, the sheer radiation of her magic would cook her mother from the inside out.

Emerson grabbed her glowing Master-tier core and crushed it down. She sealed the power behind mental walls, shrinking it until it barely registered as a Novice-tier pulse.

She checked on Jaden. The thunder had terrified him. He was curled into a tight, trembling ball in the corner of the sac.

Emerson pushed a tiny wave of soothing Aether into Kamala's bloodstream to keep her heart beating, then let the exhaustion take her.

Hours passed. The rain stopped. Sunlight pierced the pine branches.

Heavy boots sloshed through the mud. A patrol of mercenaries, drawn by the unnatural lightning strike, stood at the edge of the glass crater.

"Boss, we got a bleeder here," a rough voice called out.

The squad leader, a massive man with a scarred jaw, walked over to Kamala's unconscious body. He reached down to check her pockets. His fingers brushed against her wrist.

He paused. He wiped the mud off her skin, revealing a delicate, silver defensive bracelet.

The leader's eyes widened. He knew quality. That metal was worth more than his entire squad's yearly pay.

"Pack her up!" the leader barked. "She's highborn. If she lives, we get a massive payout. Move!"

Rough hands lifted Kamala onto a canvas stretcher. Someone forced a bitter, chalky blood-clotting paste down her throat.

Emerson felt the movement. She sensed no killing intent from the men, only greed. She stayed dormant.

The cart bounced over deep ruts in the road. The jolting woke Kamala for a fraction of a second.

She gasped, her hands immediately flying to her stomach. "My babies..."

"Relax, lady," the gruff leader said from the front of the cart. "You're lucky. The kids are still kicking."

Kamala's tense muscles went entirely slack. She slipped back into a deep, healing coma. Emerson let the darkness pull her under, falling into the longest sleep of her new life.