something soft and delicate. Pulling the object out, she laid it in her hand, a large flower that covered most of her palm. Though the light was too dim to tell for sure, its seven petals looked white, each one protruding from a golden center. The petals felt as soft as the pod of a newborn spawn. She held the blossom by its thin green stem, turning it in the dim glow. It had to be from the tree in Morgan’s room. She pressed her ear against the cold wall. Obviously Elam got out of Morgan’s room safely, but where was he now?
Feeling the sting in her cheek again, Sapphira set the blossom on her bed and stepped quietly back to the hovel entrance. The oozing cut seemed to get worse and worse, even though she had washed it every evening. Tired as she was, it had to be washed again. There was probably time to hurry to the spring and still get a few hours of sleep later.
After shuffling sleepily through the corridor and into the spring’s cavern, she set the lamp at the edge of the sulfur pool and gazed into the still waters. The flickering light cast waves of orange over the mirror-like surface, a glare that shimmered across her reflection. Sliding the lantern farther away, she kept her eyes on the water until she could see her image clearly. She touched her wound, feeling the ugly gash that scarred her face. Seeing her cheek made it sting even worse. It was more than a physical blemish; it seemed to expose her soul, an ugly rut in her smooth skin that undressed her wounded heart.
Sapphira pressed her lips together, trying not to cry. The empty cavern reminded her of her cruel slavery. Morgan hated her. Naamah wasn’t much better. Mardon seemed to view her as a science experiment that could be thrown away whenever she was no longer useful. Even her spawn now glared at her in disgust, learning more hate from Morgan every day. And the king of all the upper realms, who once sang the praises of her beauty, had delivered a cutting blow, scarring that beauty forever.
Taking a handful of water, she dabbed the cut, tears beginning to flow as heat surged through her face, making it feel as though a bat had dug its claws into the wound and was tearing it wide open. Now, every lash, every cut, and every bruise Nabal and other slave drivers had gouged into her skin began to throb. She pulled down the shoulder of her dress, exposing the whip laceration Nabal had delivered just before Acacia died. It burned like fire.
She knelt again at the pool and gazed at her tear-stained face. Resting her hands in the shallows, she sighed. Who could ever love an ugly little slave girl, an underborn who scarred her body chiseling rocks all day in dark, lonely caverns? She wasn’t a king. She wasn’t a scholar. She knew nothing more than what she read in dusty scrolls salvaged from haphazard piles and squirreled away for clandestine reading during the chilly hours of the night.
While shivering at her own memories, she imagined Morgan catching her out of her hovel after bedtime. In her mind’s eye, the swinging hand of King Nimrod appeared in the pool’s reflection as it ripped across her cheek, pounding her to the floor in agony. As she writhed at Nimrod’s feet, the sound of Morgan’s haunting laughter echoed, joining a chorus of others as they chanted in mocking hatred. The pitiful girl in the pool could only gaze up at her conquerors and cry.
Sapphira slapped the surface of the water. “You deserved it! You’re nobody! You’re just a dirty, ugly slave!” As her reflection began to congeal again on the surface, she pointed at her rippled image. “You’re not Sapphira Adi. You’re just Mara, an ignorant underborn! Nobody loves you! Not Morgan. Not Mardon. I’ll bet even Elohim hates you!” She spat into the water. “If you had been alive back then, he would have kicked you off the ark, and you would have drowned in the flood with all the others.” Covering her face with her hands, she wept bitterly, her body heaving in wave after wave of sobs.
As her convulsions began to ease, a familiar warmth penetrated her thigh and radiated slowly across her skin. Still kneeling, she reached into her pocket and withdrew the Ovulum. It pulsed, sending crimson halos toward her that expanded into