#zuvi

»Where is he, huh? Where is my moonbright son?« He circled back around to where she lay on the floor of his luxurious tent, and she could barely brace herself against another kick, sending another explosion of pain through her body, hottest in her womb that felt as if it was coming apart. Which, for all Zuvi could tell, it had been.

This time had been worse. For his goals, that was — for her it had been, if nothing else, mercifully brief, comparatively. Tears were still streaming from her eyes, with no hopes of stopping them. Between her legs was sticky with blood and whatever else had seeped out of her.

This time, she hadn’t just failed to produce a child with skin as ghostly as her own — they’d been earthy brown, both of them, a tone halfway between his and that her long-gone family — it had been little more than a lump of bloody flesh, born months before it had hope to survive.

The Emperor’s plan had been simple. Take control of the prophecied child who was to end his reign of terror from birth, twist the words into the opposite of what so many hoped them to be. His scouts had found Zuvi, killed anyone who might have come to her rescue, and taken her into captivity, in hopes her child would inherit the very trait the prophecy spoke of.

Hopes she had disappointed time and again. It must have been over two years now — two years of the Emperor’s attempts to force the moonbright child into her. At this point, she would have done anything to make it happen, if it only meant it was over. But it seemed the curse struck the members of her family at random, and none of her children had inherited it yet.

»Take this useless whore out. I don’t want to look at her. But watch her.«

A cruel hand gripped her arm and dragged her up to her feet. The Walking Armour, all steel and cold. She whimpered in pain as it — they — dragged her out. There were those who claimed the Armour was only a machine driven by evil magic, but she had seen what was underneath its — their — helmet. She had to remember there was a human being in there, however distorted.

However heartless.

The cold outside assaulted her sweaty skin, drawing goosebumps up her limbs almost instantly. The flimsy, now filthy tunic she had been graced with did little to protect her. A light drizzle muddied the ground, not enough to wash her clean, only to assure she would remain wet and miserable through the night.

The Armour dragged her through the camp, over to what she only identified as a cart when she was already collapsing against it; the falling darkness hid what little her cursed eyes might have made out under the best of circumstances.

She crept under the cart for whatever protection it could offer from the elements. Her toes were already freezing. Everything hurt. She curled up in a desperate attempt to preserve warmth, and sobbed quietly into her knees.

The Armour’s iron legs stood still before her little shelter, just as if they were truly lifeless.

At times, she had pitied them. She’d seen them suffer under the Emperor, as well. Could she really blame them for not fighting back when she herself only wished to oblige the Emperor to avoid more of the same any more?

But it was hard now, when she was in so much pain.