Heretics

Chapter 27: Karma

This chapter is dedicated to @justareader54346

     It was one week till the Winter Fete. Or at least I thought it was one week. I wasn't exactly sure. I had found out the place Aleksander had taken me to wast Bagrah's hut. I found this out the next morning after the woman stormed into the room and berated me for about an hour until Aleksander had come to my rescue.

Apparently Bagrah had been told that I was ill and would be resting with her for a while if people came asking after me. In which they did. Alina, Zoya and even Ivan had come looking for me.

No one had tried forcing me to talk about what had happened yet and I was thankful for that. Bagrah imposed on me every moment she got though. When Aleksander wasn't there. When she wasn't training grisha. When he wasn't doing god knows what else. She was with me.

There was something odd about it though. The questions she would ask were never to intrusive. They were things like my favorite color or animal or food. I answered all of them honestly and thought she was exhausting I rather liked when we were talking like that.

Aleksander had been getting increasingly worried though by the fifth day of me refusing to leave the hut. He had come down on the morning of the sixth day to find Bagrah and I sitting on the bed just talking to one another about those things. For a while he just stood and listened.

"Mother may I speak with you for a moment?" We we're both very caught off guard by Aleksander's presence and both have of little jump at his voice. I visibly calmed when I realized who it was though and Bagrah grimaced. I couldn't help but give a little chuckle and Aleksander's spirits were lifted slightly when he heard me laugh. I sent him a sad smile and Bagrah got up to leave the room to talk.

I stood and stretched my aching limbs. I stumbled at first since I hadn't moved from that bed other than to use the bathroom for almost a full week. My joints cracked and popped as I stretched. I looked at my kefta dress that lied on the chair in the corner of the room and then down at my clothes.

The dress had been taken to be washed and dried a few days ago but it probably smelled musty and old from just sitting. I sighed and walked over to it running the fabric through my stuff unused fingers.

I had spent most of the last five days crying and falling into nightmare filled dreams about the little boy. He plagued me everywhere I looked and went. I heard his yells when nothing was making noise. I saw little glimpses of his bloody face as Zoya and Ivan picked him up and carried him to the grave yard.

The nightmares were filled with my own screams as the little boy would yell that I had killed him and that I had ended his life. My hands were covered in dark oozing blood every time I would yell for him to stop. I would pull them from my ears and see them dripping with it. Every time a drop hit the unseeable floor beneath me I heard it like a stone being thrown into a lake. It vibrated my head and ears every time the sound cascaded around me.

I sat in the chair and sighed brining the fabric to my face and letting a sob go into it. I looked up and saw the little boy. He was standing in the other corner of the room. Blood dripped from his neck slowly. Like everything was in slow motion. "You did this. You monster." Hi whispered hoarsely and I screamed as he came at me incredibly fast.

It was like a stiff breeze flew around me as we made contact. The door flew open and my eyes found Aleksander's as he fell to his knees in front of me. His hand caressed my cheek and I sobbed as he pulled me into his chest. "Shhh Milaya. Shhh I'm here now."

"Aleksander." Bagrah tried to get his attention. Something was invisibly wrong and he wasn't paying attention enough to see it.

"Has she been eating?" He asked his eyes shot towards Bagrahs scared face. He then looked back to me and saw what she had been looking at. There was a small window in this room of the hut and in the grounds outside the hut the word murderer were burning slowly in the grass.

"Get Ivan. NOW!" He yelled at Bagrah who went running to find the heartrender and I tidemaker to put out the flames. He pulled me closer to his chest and let me sob. "You need to tell me what happened that day Milaya."

"I killed him. It was Ana Xcode to. He wasn't even supposed to be out that late. Zoya and I," I choked back another sob. "She asked to see what the cut looked like. I figured we were far enough away. I didn't see him. I didn't- I didn't mean. I didn't know Aleksander." He pulled my face to look at him and cupped my cheeks. He placed a soft kiss against my lips and I cried.

Aleksander watched as the tidemaker had put the flames out. The ground below was scorched beyond repair now. Nothing was going to fix that any time soon. Aleksander would talk to the fabricators about a paint or something for it but, for now he was here with his love.

"Aleks?" My voice was broken and cracked and beyond repair. I looked up at him and put a hand on his cheek. It had only been a month since we were at the fold kissing like there was no tomorrow. Only a month but in that month so much had changed and I couldn't keep up. I thought I could but I couldn't and now everything was changing again.

I hid my secret. This secret. The secret his mother and I only together knew. I would have been out of here days ago if I didn't realize this. If I didn't realize that I had just killed a child when I myself was with one. A small little darkling was growing inside of me and I didn't have the heart to tell him yet. I wanted to but with every happening I couldn't.

Bagrah had realized something was different before I did. She said she felt a shift in my power and I had no idea how or why she felt it and not Aleksander but what she told me about how she felt when he was with child only brought my worst fears to heart. I was going to be a mother and Aleksander was going to be a father. Unless I got rid of the baby.

He or she could grow up happy away from this. But when Aleksander looked at me the way he did in bagrahs hut I knew I couldn't. I couldn't take this baby from him. I couldn't not tell him that he was going to be a father but I had to be sure first. And it needed to be the right time.

I put my forehead against his and sighed. "I love you." I whispered. Everything in me knew this was right. Because I did love him and he loved me. I knew it. Everything we had was right here with us in this room. All we would ever need was each other.

"I love you too."