Gingerly straightening her legs, she eased herself over onto her back, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply. She heard Rave’s sigh of relief and then felt his hand on her forehead. Surprisingly, his palm felt cool on her skin—either she was still burning up, or he had nearly extinguished his inner fire. She suspected it was probably a combination of both.

  “Are you okay?” Rave asked. “Have you blocked it?”

  Leesa opened her eyes. She hated the look of worry that twisted his handsome features, hated knowing that she was the cause of his concern.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “The shield’s in place.” She forced a smile onto her lips. “It’s not working quite as well as in the past, but I’m okay.”

  Rave’s hand moved from Leesa’s forehead down to her stomach. “And the baby?”

  Leesa turned her focus inward. Her bond with Ralin remained intact.

  “He’s fine,” she said after a few moments. “He’s ready to come out, though.”

  Rave slid his hands beneath Leesa, ready to pick her up. “We’d better get you home, then.”

  Leesa reached down and grabbed one of Rave’s forearms before he could lift her.

  “There’s no time. He’s ready to come. Any minute now.”

  Kaila knelt down beside Leesa, gently pushing Rave out of her way. She slid her hand slowly over the swell of Leesa’s stomach.

  “She’s right,” Kaila confirmed. “This baby is ready to be born.”

  Ever since her most recent “hibernation,” when the baby had doubled in size, Leesa had taken to wearing loose-fitting maternity dresses. Kaila reached down and grabbed the hem in both hands. Using her volkaane strength, she ripped the dress up the middle from hem to neckline, exposing Leesa’s skin to the chill spring air. Kaila allowed the material to remain beneath Leesa as protection from the ground.

  She put her hand back on Leesa’s belly and then looked up at Rave and Balin, who were both hovering over Leesa near her head.

  “I’d ask one of you two to keep her warm,” she said, “but that doesn’t seem to be a problem. She’s awfully warm for a human—warmer than I would like.”

  Leesa smiled up at the volkaane midwife. “It’s okay. I’m fine. It’s just that my shield isn’t quite blocking all of Ralin’s heat. Let’s get this over with.”

  Kaila grinned. “That’s a sentiment I’ve heard more than few times over the years.”

  She moved down by Leesa’s feet and gently took hold of her ankles, lifting them and bending Leesa’s legs at the knees. At the same time, she spread Leesa’s legs apart.

  Rave knelt with his knees touching Leesa’s shoulders and gently stroked the sides of her head as Kaila moved up farther between Leesa’s legs.

  “Push, Leesa,” the midwife instructed. “Take deep breaths and push. As hard as you can.”

  Leesa sucked in a deep breath and then pushed down with her stomach and diaphragm for all she was worth. The pain immediately intensified. She stopped pushing, and the pain subsided. She waited a few seconds before trying again, with the same distressing result.

  She had no experience with childbirth, but she knew pain was part of the deal, of course. Still, she sensed that something was wrong here. Shoving down the panic she could feel welling up inside her, she told herself she could do this. The thought that she was doing something that had never been done before—giving birth to a waziri/volkaane hybrid—was not helping, however. She needed to make sure everything was all right in the only way she knew. She sucked in another couple of deep breaths to steady herself.

  “Hold on,” she said finally. She immediately felt a little bit foolish, because she was the only one doing anything right now. Everyone else was just waiting for the chance to pitch in. “I need to check something,” she added by way of explanation.

  She closed her eyes and turned her focus inward again, the way she had countless times in the past six months, scanning the baby first. Ralin seemed fine—anxious to see the world, she sensed, but in no distress otherwise. His magic continued to burn, however.

  If the problem wasn’t him, then it had to be with her. She switched her focus to her womb, cervix and the rest of her birth canal, checking everything carefully. It took a few moments, but she soon recognized what was wrong. It wasn’t Ralin, and it wasn’t her—not exactly, anyhow. It was her magic; her shield, to be precise. This was not good…not good at all.

  She opened her eyes to find everyone staring down at her. She could tell they were all trying to mask their concern, for her sake.

  “Uhhh, I think we have a small problem,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even.

  27. DRASTIC MEASURES

  “WHAT’S WRONG?” Kaila asked. Her voice was calm and matter of fact, disguising any anxiety she might be feeling inside.

  “It’s my shield,” Leesa replied. “It’s preventing Ralin from going where he needs to go.”

  “What do you mean?” Balin asked. “Preventing him how?”

  Leesa drew another deep breath. “It’s wrapped around him, keeping his magic inside, but it’s also keeping him where he is. I’m not sure I can explain it, but I don’t know how to adjust the shield so that it will slip out of me with him.”

  Rave’s fingers stopped moving on the sides of her head. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern.

  Leesa nodded. “Yeah. As long as I keep the shield in place, Ralin’s not going anywhere. I have to remove it.”

  “But you can still feel his heat, even through the shield, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m not looking forward to dropping it, believe me. But I have to try. It’s the only way.”

  Kaila gently pried Leesa’s legs a bit farther apart. “If you’re going to try, it might as well be now. Take five slow, deep breaths, then remove the shield and push at the same moment.”

  Leesa did as Kaila instructed her, focusing her full attention on her breathing. It reminded her of when she was first learning the everywhere/nowhere technique from Dominic, way back at the beginning of all this. Somehow, the thought comforted her and gave her confidence.

  When she finished inhaling her fifth breath, she dropped her shield and pushed. White hot pain immediately shot through her, like someone had stabbed her with a flaming poker. She twisted her body in agony, her right knee slamming into Kaila’s side and almost knocking the midwife over. It was all Leesa could do to get a shield back in place, sealing Ralin’s magic inside once again.

  The whole thing lasted mere seconds, but her skin was now drenched with sweat. Her breathing had become rapid and uneven as she struggled to recover from the onslaught of unimaginable pain.

  There was no longer any pretense of calm in the faces she saw looking down at her. All three were fraught with worry, Rave’s worst of all.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” he said, softly stroking her head. His expression gave lie to his words.

  Despair deeper than any Leesa had ever known welled up inside her. Despite all the dangers and tribulations of the past two years, she had never felt so helpless, so hopeless as she did at this moment. She wanted nothing in the world more than to hold little Ralin in her arms, but she saw no way that could ever be.

  “I think we’re going to have to cut the baby out,” Kaila said. “Right now, before he does any harm to Leesa or to himself.”

  Rave looked up, shocked. “Here? We should get her to a hospital. I can get her there in minutes.”

  Balin laid a hand on Rave’s shoulder. “And what will you tell them? That’s there’s a baby inside encased in a magical shield? How do you think they’ll react to that? You have to trust Kaila. She’s done this before.”

  Rave looked from Balin back to Kaila. “You have?”

  Kaila nodded. “Not often. And not recently. But every now and then a volkaane birth goes awry.”

  Leesa listened to them talk about her as though in a dense fog, barely comprehending the words.

  “We don’t even have a knife,” Rave pointed out.

  “I don’t need one.” Kaila held up her finger. Blue fire flared from her fingertip, sharp and intense, like a laser. “I’ll use my fire. It’s better than a knife. It cauterizes as it cuts.” She let the fire go out.

  Rave was still not convinced, though his resistance was melting. “What about afterward? What about infection? We’re out in the middle of the woods, damn it. We’ve got no bandages, no nothing.”

  Kaila’s words provided Leesa the one thing she needed—hope. She forced herself up out of the depths of her depression.

  “Let her do it,” she said, her voice once again barely more than a whisper. “Ralin is the most important thing—the only thing.” She reached her hand up and found Rave’s, squeezing it gently. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Torn by his love for Leesa and his love for his unborn son, Rave nodded to Kaila.

  “Go ahead.”

  Kaila placed her fingertip above the edge of Leesa’s lower abdomen. “This is going to hurt, but it shouldn’t be too bad. The heat will seal the nerve endings almost as soon as it burns them.”

  Leesa didn’t trust herself to speak. She gritted her teeth tightly together and nodded that she was ready.

  “Rave, hold her shoulders,” Kaila commanded. “Don’t let her move.”

  Rave grabbed Leesa’s shoulders and held them tight while a sharp point of intense blue flame shot from Kaila’s finger, extending scarcely an inch from the tip. She pressed her finger against Leesa’s skin and began to slowly draw it across the lower part of her swollen belly. The smell of burnt flesh rose into the air, but there was very little blood.

  Leesa groaned, but the pain was bearable, especially given the potential reward.

  “Balin, sterilize your fingers,” Kaila ordered when the cut was complete.

  Balin let blue fire flare from all ten of his fingers, burning away any potential germs. Kaila did the same.

  “Now hold the cut open for me,” Kaila instructed. “As wide as you can.”

  Without hesitation, Balin grabbed the top and bottom edges of the wound and spread them apart. Kaila carefully burned another cut through the wall of Leesa’s uterus, eliciting another low moan from Leesa. The midwife reached inside and wrapped her hands around the baby. It was a strange sensation, grabbing the child without actually touching it, since it was still protected by Leesa’s shield. She marveled that Leesa was able to maintain the protective barrier even with all she was going through. Her admiration for her wizard/human patient shot up several more notches.

  Even through the shield, Kaila could feel the heat emanating from the baby as she lifted him carefully out of Leesa’s midsection. Once the baby was clear, Kaila studied him carefully. His skin was bronze, though not as dark a hue as a typical volkaane child. His hair, fairly thick for a new born, was the same—coppery, but brighter than was usual. He smiled happily up at her, as if he was aware of everything that had just happened to him. He didn’t utter even a single cry.

  Satisfied that Ralin seemed to be completely healthy, Kaila handed him to Balin, then burned though the umbilical cord close to the infant’s stomach.

  Balin looked up from the tiny baby in his hands to Kaila. “The heat is gone. As soon as you cut the cord, the heat disappeared.”

  Kaila smiled. “That’s good news.”

  Balin handed Ralin to Rave, who took him into his arms with a big smile on his face.

  “Say hi to your son, young Rave.”

  As Rave gently rocked his newborn son in his arms, Kaila turned back to Leesa. “Leesa, did you hear that? Ralin is fine.”

  A faint smile curved Leesa’s lips “I heard,” she whispered.

  “You can hold him in a minute. Rave’s got him now. I have to close your wounds first.”

  Leesa shook her head. “No…wait.” Strength was slowly returning to her body. “Don’t.”

  “Huh?” Kaila said, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can do it better—with my healing power. As soon as I get a bit more of my strength back.”

  Kaila looked down at the open wound. There was very little blood, but it was still not a pleasant thing to look at. While she watched, a small insect buzzed toward the cut. She shooed it away with her hand.

  “Are you sure?”

  Leesa nodded. “Yeah.” Already her voice was growing stronger. “I can do it. I promise. I want to be as good as new when I hold my son.”

  “When she sounds like this,” Rave said, smiling, “there’s no point arguing, Kaila. I’ve learned that from experience.”

  Leesa smiled. “Darn right you have.”

  Feeling ready now, she placed her hand just over the cut in her stomach, not quite touching it. When she had first tried healing almost a year ago, she had pictured a scrape on Cali’s elbow actually healing, with painful results for Cali. The trick, Dominic had explained, was to visualize the area as it had been BEFORE the injury had occurred.

  Now, she concentrated hard and visualized herself with a completely untouched uterus and abdomen. She felt a bit of heat pass from her palm into her body, telling her the healing was proceeding. The wounds were serious, and took almost a full minute to heal. When the heat finally faded, she moved her hand away.

  Kaila, Rave and Balin had been watching closely and anxiously, but all they could see with Leesa’s hand positioned the way it was were the two ends of the cut, which had both closed up as if they’d never been there. When Leesa removed her hand, they could see no trace of the wound at all.

  “That’s amazing!” Kaila said. “There’s not even a scar.”

  “I know,” Leesa said. “Pretty cool, huh? Help me sit up, please. I’m still a bit weak.”

  Kaila and Balin helped Leesa up into a sitting position. She turned toward Rave and smiled.

  “Now give me my baby.”

  Rave grinned and carefully handed Ralin to his mother.

  As soon as Ralin was in her arms, Leesa dissolved the shield that still encased him. As she felt his smooth, unblemished baby skin against her own, she was flooded with a feeling of boundless love she had never imagined possible.

  “Hello, little Ralin,” she cooed, gazing down at his cherubic face. “Welcome to the world. You probably don’t know it yet, but you are for sure one of a kind.”

  Ralin replied by smiling up at her and giggling.

  28. SURFING BABY

  BABY RALIN GREW even more rapidly than he had inside Leesa’s womb. By three months he was as large as a human child twice his age, and by six months he was pretty much the size of a one-year-old. His physical abilities were equally accelerated—he started walking at four months, and within days was toddling easily around the house, keeping mom and dad anxious and on the alert. Not long after, he could jump from a standing start up onto the bed. Once he learned that trick, he began leaping up and down off all the chairs in the house. His favorite landing spot, though, became the old round end table still stashed away in the corner of the living room.

  The first time Leesa saw her tiny infant son leapt up onto the creaky table, she was beside herself with worry that he would miss or fall or suffer some equally disastrous fate. She soon learned that his balance and coordination were as advanced as his strength, and her concern turned more to the furnishings in the house, wondering which would be the first to give out under his gymnastics. Her money was on the old table.

  After a few days of watching Ralin perform his new trick, Leesa thought it might be a good idea to teach him a little lesson. She waited until he was perched atop the table, then used her telekinesis to lift the table five or six inches up into the air. She expected to see at least a brief look of alarm flash across his almost always happy face, but all she got was an expression of excitement and the loudest, most sustained giggle she had heard from him yet. When she finally lowered the table back onto the floor, she was pretty sure by the way he was looking at her that if he could talk, he’d be saying “More, Momma, more!”

  She obliged him a couple of times each of the following few days, loving his obvious joy when the table rose into the air. Soon, she added a new dimension—she floated the table across the room. The result was the same. Instead of alarm or concern, Ralin simply laughed louder and looked happier than ever. He easily balanced himself by holding his arms out to the sides as the table moved through the air, reminding Leesa of the young surfers she had watched riding the waves back in San Diego. Grommets, she remembered they were called. Of course, none of the grommets were nearly as young and small as Ralin.

  He wasn’t speaking yet, seeming to follow a more human schedule of development in that area. Leesa wasn’t all that surprised—volkaanes were not the most loquacious of beings, so speech would not be a heightened ability like strength or speed. He never cried, either, not even once. Just like on the day he was born, the only sound anyone ever heard from him was his baby giggle, which they heard quite often. As he grew, the giggle turned more into a joyous—and somewhat mischievous—childlike laugh.

  Only one thing seemed to be missing—Ralin’s magic. They had not seen a hint of it in these first six months, which was a total surprise considering how regularly his magic had erupted while he was still inside Leesa, including the outburst that nearly killed her the day he was born. Balin’s description of volkaane babies and children as little hellions, with streams of blue fire sprouting from their hands or mouths without warning or purpose, had not come to pass, either. Leesa had no idea why Ralin’s magic seemed to have gone dormant. If she put her mind to it when she held him, she could sense that his magic was still there—it just wasn’t appearing. She supposed that was for the best, since uncontrolled magic was unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Maybe Ralin’s powers would even wait until he neared eighteen to reappear, as her own magic had done. That didn’t fit with the volkaane part of his magic, though. Volkaane children possessed their fire right from the start, hence Balin’s warning about spontaneous blue fire eruptions. It was a question that had no answer—this was all uncharted territory—so she tried not to worry about it.