Chapter 8: A Song For The Dead
For an instant, Apollo thought the child had died in the interim. But Othra barked out, "She sleeps!" and the sound cut through the mob like a thrown axe.
The mother lunged to the cradle, hands frantic as she searched the child’s chest for movement.
When she saw the rise and fall, the faint, healthy flush eking its way into the baby’s cheeks, she gave a low, incredulous sob.
The hush that followed was thick as pitch, broken only by the slow realization rippling outward, the child had survived.
For a moment, the crowd hovered at the pivot between relief and suspicion, then suspicion asserted itself, as it always did among the desperate.
"Healing root," someone hissed, a woman with a bent nose and a baby bundled in her own arms. Her voice carried wild, bright accusation.
"She used the willow and the feverroot on the babe. That was meant for all of us."
A murmur caught and multiplied, hands tightening on stones, faces collapsing into the familiar grimace of those cheated by fate.
Another man, shoulders hunched with the violence of his years, spat into the mud.
"You hoard it for your favorites. My brother’s child is burning, but you said there was none to spare."
He glared at Othra, then at Apollo, and Apollo understood in that instant the old, old logic of sacrifice.