Page 310 of May: Bloom & Bane

And then it’s quiet. Just us. The fire. Our daughter drowsing against my chest. Droot curled in the petals at her back, and my two monsters looking down at me with identical expressions of tender, affronted concern.

“Sore,” Sage repeats softly, settling on the edge of the nest. “Where?”

“Everywhere I did the work,” I admit. “It’s not horrible. It’s just… loud.”

“You should have told us the moment⁠—”

“You were busy watching our daughter being held by every person we love,” I whisper. “I wasn’t going to interrupt that. Not for anything.”

Ashán crawls closer. He kneels, taking my face in both hands, thumbs tracing my cheekbones. This close, I can see the venom already gathering. His whole body wanting to fix what hurts.

“May I?”

“You never have to ask.” I smile. “But I love that you do.”

He kisses me slowly, deeper than gentle, and the sweet heat of the venya blooms across my tongue and spreads through my body. The soreness loosens, letting go of me one knot at a time, until I’m melting back against the pillows with our daughter.

“There we go, ílyen,” Sage murmurs, brushing my hair back.

“Better?” Ashán asks against my lips. “I can give you more?”

“Mm,” I murmur. “Not right now. There’s still a couple of people who need to meet our daughter.”

Ashán quietly opens the door just wide enough for one person.

“Elena. Quietly,” he whispers.

She slips in with her satchel, takes one look at me lax against the pillows with Vaelína rising and falling on my chest, and her whole face goes soft.

“Oh,” she whispers. “Hi, mama.”

“No Penelope?” I chuckle.

“Penelope wanted to come.” Elena kneels beside the nest, unpacking her things. “I told her no. She’s currently expressing her feelings to my porch furniture.”

Sage snorts.

“I don’t have baby-baby equipment,” she admits under her breath. “Until this year, my most exotic patient was a llama with opinions. But weight is weight, and I thought mama might want her stats.” She holds up a sling. “It’s weighed one falcon, three raccoons, and a very fat cat. It has been washed. Twice. In Dreft.”

“She’d be honored to follow the fat cat.”

Elena holds her with sure hands and a soft voice. “Hi, sweet pea. Oh, you’re a marvel. Into the sling we go⁠—”

The needle swings. And settles.

“Seven pounds, fourteen ounces,” she whispers. The boys lean in over her shoulders, committing the number to eternal memory. “Seventeen—hold on, she’s doing the scrunch—eighteen inches.”

She runs a fingertip along one wing bud and beams when it flexes. Then she reaches the translucent window above Vaelína’s little heart, and goes still, watching the golden light flicker beneath it.

“Oh, it wasn’t an artifact at all,” she breathes, eyes going wide. “I used to think hearing a strong heartbeat through a stethoscope was the best sound in the world.” She shakes her head slowly. “She just… shows you. What a little show-off.” She taps Vaelína’s nose. “Ten fingers, ten toes, two wings, one perfect heart. Best patient I’ve ever had.”

She repacks the satchel and presses the gentlest hand to my ankle through the blanket. “You did so good, mama.” She slips out just as quietly as she came.

The door barely finishes closing before it opens again. Rasen enters quietly, his hood back, and the moment his eyes find her, they close as he releases a long exhale. Behind him, filling the doorframe in a completely different way, stands the brute of the Horsemen. Kaeran lingers at the threshold, arms crossed, bell tilted slightly at the opposite wall.

Rasen glances back at him, then to us. “… He would also like to come in.”

“I’m securing the room,” Kaeran says… to the wall.