The child was dead before Elara reached her.
She lay on a cot in the clinic, her small chest still, her lips blue. The plague had taken her an hour ago. Sarai had already covered her face with a cloth.
But Elara couldn't accept it.
"Move," she said.
"Elara—" Sarai began.
"Move."
She pushed past the old healer and placed her hands on the child's chest. The void inside her stirred—reluctant, tired.
She is gone, the void said. There is nothing to consume. Nothing to heal.
"There's death. Consume the death."
I cannot consume death. Death is not a sickness. It is an absence.
"Then fill the absence."
With what?
"With me. With the void. With anything."
Elara poured golden light into the child's body.
---
The void screamed.
Not aloud—inside Elara's mind, inside her bones, inside th
