Northlight by Deborah J. Ross

Author:Deborah J. Ross [Ross, Deborah J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: women martial artists, Deborah Wheeler, horses in science fiction, ebook, science fiction, Deborah J. Ross, Book View Cafe, romantic science fiction
ISBN: 9781611380392
Publisher: Book View Cafe

Chapter 20

I dreamed, floating through uneasy shadows. Gradually, as if a mist were lifting, the images came clear...

Below me, the trail twisted downward into icy shadows, sloping along the eroded gully. I tripped and fell to my knees, shredding the leather of my stolen breeches, scrambled to my feet and forced myself to run, to not look back. Terror drove me like a whip. Every pebble, every withered stalk leapt up to trip me. I stumbled again. The makeshift pack jerked and slid across my shoulders. It tore open the scabs beneath my shirt and I felt the hot, answering blood down my sides, but no pain.

No pain, and yet I was screaming as I heaved myself to my feet and down the trail again. Screaming, cursing, anything but weeping, for never again must there be tears, no never again...

Then suddenly I was standing, panting, in a little flat space, powdery steppe dust beneath my feet. I saw palm cactus laden with fruit, and a jort beside the sink-well. The stitched felt drape swept aside and a man emerged — my stepfather, ruddy with health, not withered as the water plague had left him. He smiled at me, his eyes like sunlit honey...

One by one, my older brothers followed him from the jort. They crowded around me, touching their soft bearded cheeks to mine, lifting my pack from my bleeding back. Their fingers were cool and gentle. They stepped aside as my youngest brother approached, holding a swaddled baby.

My son.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. A feeling, so deep I couldn’t tell it from pain, shook me to my roots.

My son, my son.

My eyes blurred over the curve of his cheek, the tiny perfect fingers lifted toward me. My breasts ached. I reached out my arms to him...

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