Page 201 of May: Bloom & Bane

She stops short, her bright eyes locking on the Horseman standing in our entryway.

“Rasen!”

He freezes, the wicker basket creaking in his grip. His gaze drops to the swell of her belly.

“You’re well,” he says.

She throws her arms as far as they’ll reach around him. His hands hover above her shoulders, his body going rigid as my pregnant mate squeezes him.

If he breathes wrong, I’m taking his spine for a belt, Ashán murmurs.

The Antler Bird is crying, Droot reports from my shoulder.

He isn’t. But his eyes have gone glassy, and when Eden finally releases him and demands he come sit down, he obeys like a loyal hound.

He hands her the basket—bread, honey, small dense fruits I don’t recognize.

Food, brought by a being who’s starving…

When Eden insists on feeding him in return, he eats what she puts in front of him like it’s a sacrament—taking pieces with both hands, his eyes closing on each bite. Droot levies a tithe from the basket and declares the Antler Bird acceptable.

It’s going well until his eyes settle on the curve of her, and something different moves across his face.

“There is a custom among my kind,” he says, his hands flexing on his knees. “Even older than my hunger. A vow, for a child not yet here. It begins with a mark, and it—” he pauses. “I would never presume. Only if⁠—”

“No.” The word is out of me before he can finish his sentence. Frost spiders across the window behind Rasen as Ashán surges up my spine.

“You want to mark her?” My vines drain from green to black, thorns punching through my flesh. “The last time you touched her, you⁠—”

“You’re right.” He’s already bowing, attempting to fold his large frame into something smaller. “You’re right. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have—it was selfish to ask⁠—”

Eden catches his hand, her small fingers wrapping around his wrist. She stares into his eyes, and whatever she senses makes her eyes go soft… and very certain.

“I know what the mark does,” she says. “I can feel it. It’s only protection.” Her other hand rests over our daughter. “And another mark of protection for her is something I will never deny.”

She looks over at us, her gaze steady, defying both the frost on the glass and the thorns currently bristling along my forearms.

“You wouldn’t deny protection for your daughter. Would you?”

Vyn, Ashán growls. We can’t say no, or we’ll seem against our daughter’s safety.

My chest heaves possessively, but my thorns slowly recede, sliding beneath my skin.

“What does this custom require?” I ask.

Rasen glances at me, his eyes filled with a disbelieving hope. “It requires a token of intent,” he says softly. “And a drop of essence.”

Ashán snarls.

“It doesn’t bind her to me, or my hunger. It simply tells the cosmic dark that if anyone attempts to take from her, they must answer to the harbinger that starves worlds.”

He reaches into the basket, his large fingers pulling out a small, intricately carved piece of black tourmaline shaped like a perfectly balanced scale. He holds it out in his palm.

Droot peers down from my shoulder, his nose twitching rapidly. The Antler Bird is making his own nest for the little beastie.

Eden smiles, taking the small stone from him.

“Show us,” she whispers.