A Crown Of Fire And Wrath (The Shadow Walkers Saga #5) - Sloane Murphy Page 0,55

just need to take it out, and I’ll be fine.” He reaches around me and snaps the back of the spear away, before tugging the front so it leaves my body. Blood rushes down from the wound, but I can feel it already starting to heal. I just need to be alone for a minute. I need to find out if I hurt him. I don’t know it’s a him, but it’s just a feeling I’ve had since I found out I was pregnant. That I was carrying our son.

“Amantara…” Leviathan starts, but I shake my head.

“I’ll be okay, Nevin has all of the details, I just need a minute,” I say, and walk away from him and his all-seeing stare. If I stay, I’ll break, and then I’ll have to tell him. I walk as quickly as I can manage back to the wooden house we’ve been calling our own, and head straight for the bathroom. By the time I strip out of my clothes, the wound is sealed, and there’s not even a mark on my body to show that there was damage, just the dried blood.

I place my hand on my stomach, willing for the movement I had felt before, but there is nothing. A sob wracks my body as I climb under the waterfall Leviathan created for us in here, letting the water hide my tears, and wash away the blood staining my skin. I refuse to believe that he’s gone, not until I have proof. I step from underneath the water and dry off, dressing in clean clothes, and go in search of Elysiel. She was the healer who confirmed the pregnancy. Until she tells me all is lost, I refuse to let go of that small spark of hope.

I move with purpose towards her tent. I swore her to secrecy with a blood vow when we found out the news. Pregnancy is a wonderful thing, but it’s also a very dangerous time. It makes people of our kind do insane things, so it is safer to keep it as much a secret as possible.

I enter the tent silently, and find it empty. So I sit on the bed and I wait.

It feels like days until she returns, and when she sees me, she looks to my stomach instantly.

“Is he gone?” I ask when she looks back up to meet my eyes.

“Lie down,” she says as she moves towards me, but I can feel it in my heart, the truth I’m unwilling to accept until she says the words. I lie back, and she lifts the hem of my top, placing her warm hands on the flatness of my stomach. She hums softly as light emanates from her hands. I want to close my eyes, but I can’t. I need to know.

She pulls back and a tear slips down her face. “I am so sorry, Amantara.”

I shake my head as I sit.

No.

This can’t be happening.

Why did I do this?

“There will be some bleeding, so you will need to stay close for a day or so. The infant was too young to be able to survive such an injury. I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

I shake my head again as I stand, unable to speak. Guilt floods every part of my system. Our baby is dead and it’s all my fault.

The days pass, and I’m unable to function. The day after I saw Elysiel, I bled, and I sobbed the entire day, hidden away from everyone so that no one else would know the truth.

That I killed our baby.

I can’t bring myself to tell Leviathan. It would break him. And to say the words, it would break me too. I’m still unsure as to how I’m going to survive this. I know that Leviathan knows something is wrong, but I pretend to be asleep when he returns at night, and I pretend to sleep when he awakens in the morning. I have never hidden from anything in my life, but this… this I hide from. I can barely function.

It’s been a week since I killed our baby, and I nearly got myself killed again yesterday. This guilt is eating me alive. I don’t know how to cope, how to not get anyone else killed when so many rely on me being Leviathan’s right hand. So this morning I made a decision, one that I can barely live with, but I can’t see another way. It’s why I left our camp hours ago