Children of Fire Read Free Page A

Not powerful, but powerful enough for this.”
    Nyra could do little but take the old woman at her word. She had never seen a griffin; no one had. No one living. Griffins had been extinct for centuries … if they had ever existed at all. Nyra wouldn’t be surprised if Gretchen was lying to her about the origins of the bone.
    â€œBreak it,” the hag instructed. “Suck the marrow, but do not swallow it. Chew it, gnaw the bone. Then spit it into the fire.”
    The bone was brittle and snapped easily in Nyra’s grasp. She made a bitter face as the sour sting of the marrow burned the cut on her lip and the bite on her tongue. But she did as she was told, chewing and gnawing until the hag nodded her head in the direction of the flames.
    Nyra spit, the gray of the bone mingling with the deep red of the blood still trickling from the injuries to her mouth. The fire flared with a bright orange heat so intense she had to turn her eyes away from the flash. When she looked back she could see a small gleaming white coal no larger than the size of her thumbnail in the center of the now blue-green flames.
    â€œTake it,” Gretchen commanded.
    Nyra remembered the way the hag had earlier reached right across the magical fire without seeming to feel the heat. She thrust her hand into the flames and seized the white coal, then cried out in pain and surprise, yanking her arm back as the heat seared her flesh. But her fist remained clenched about her prize, which seemed to hold no heat at all.
    Gretchen cackled as Nyra studied her burned hand. The skin was an angry red, and there were a few blisters from the heat. But nothing serious, nothing permanent. She felt tears welling up in her eyes: tears at the pain; tears at the cruelty of the hag; tears of fear and despair she had been denying herself ever since she realized the babe in her womb had gone still. But she would not cry. Not in front of this cackling old woman. Not now, when there was true hope for her baby. Nyra glared at the hag, and the evil laughter stopped.
    â€œSwallow the coal. It will give you a healthy child with the coming of the next moon,” the hag instructed. “But understand that there is yet a cost to be paid,” she added under her breath.
    Nyra didn’t hear her … or at least pretended not to. Instead, she popped the small coal into her mouth. It burned with the salty warmth of life going down her throat. She gasped in surprise, then burst into tears of joy when she felt the baby give a sudden kick.
    Two weeks later Nyra once again endured the agony of childbirth, soaked in a sheen of sweat. A cool cloth covered her forehead, but room was hot; the midwife’s assistant had piled the fire high to ward off the fading winter chill. The sticky warmth of blood coated the inside of her thighs, leaking out from between her legs … the same color as the moon in the sky the past three nights.
    The Burning Moon,
Nyra thought, panting in and out with short, quick breaths as she fought to control her contractions.
An ill omen.
    There was a sudden thrust of pain deep within her and she screamed aloud.
    â€œDon’t push!” the midwife yelled from down between her legs.
    Nyra could hear the fear in her voice. She could feel hands down there; grasping, wiping, turning. She wanted Gerrit; wanted to feel his strong fingers enveloping her own, hear his whispered reassurance. But the women had sent him out partway through the birth.
    One of the assistants rushed up to change the cloth on her head. She could see the horror on the teenage girl’s face.
    It’s not always like this,
Nyra tried to tell her.
There’s not always this much blood, this much pain. It’s not always like this—just for me.
But instead she screamed as she was ripped apart from the inside yet again.
    â€œNow!” the midwife screamed, “Push now, Nyra!”
    And she did, pushing even though she could feel