Out of the woods, hazy dawnlight washes the world in an elegiac blue. A hive of hundreds of camps crowds the clearing, their shapes pressed tightly together.
Believers drift through pools of misted lantern light, an undercurrent of distress stirred by the guards' routine movements.
Above, on a stretch of even land leading toward the woods,
Neva breathes in the cool air, scented with dew, pine, and rain-soaked earth.
"Are you sure about this?" Jacob's voice comes from beside her, two armed guards' lingering behind them.
Neva pulls her shawl over her head, murmuring, "Yes.''
A young guard glances over as the mist thins with each steady step,
but, recognizing the familiar faces with her, returns to his post.
A haze of smoke drifts from the open kitchen, the smell of vegetable stew carried through the tightening air,
where a few believers tend to the cooking.
A woman bent over the fire catches sight of her and straightens abruptly.
"Prophetess!" The dark, curly-haired woman points at her. "The prophetess is here!"
Word of her presence spreads at once, a hubbub among the believers as a man runs through the camp, shouting of her arrival.
A guard barrels into him, sending him crashing to the ground.
He raises his gun as if to strike, when Neva steps forward, her voice cutting through the clamor. "Don't hurt him!"
The guard, gruff-looking, a scar slicing down his eye, turns to Jacob.
At his nod, he lowers the weapon.
''Why have you come here?" A middle-aged man with a sun-spotted,
wrinkled face limps toward her.
"It is the Lord's will for you to return to Him," Neva declares to the growing crowd,
the guards standing vigilant among them.
"And heal your sick," she adds.
A woman, not much older than her, steps forward as the crowd parts.
A small figure, wrapped in a threadbare blanket, lies limp in her arms.
Neva meets the woman's blood-rimmed eyes, the dim, unfeeling hurt in them reflecting a despair too deep for words.
"You have arrived late." Her voice is hollow. "My child has passed."
Neva's fingers curl subconsciously against her abdomen, as pain, like a stake driven through her heart spreads within her.
"Can you bring her back to me?" The woman drops to her knees, shifting her child in her arms.
Neva sinks to the grass before her, fingers reaching for the child, all life and color bleached from her.
Yet she falters as a small, steady voice, her Father's, stirs the cold pool of her soul.
The woman looks up at her, hope scattered across her tired face.
"I can't." Neva's mouth goes dry. "It's not her time."
The woman clutches her child closer, her eyes unseeing.
"Are you not a mother yourself?" The man drops to his knees beside his wife.
"Take it," his voice breaks. "Ask the Lord to take it back—"
"I'm sorry." Neva swallows. "I'm so sorry."
The man covers his face with his burned, scarred hands,
sobs shuddering through him.
A woman stumbles forward, eyes wide, breathing hard. "My son—"
Neva rises to meet her, when the woman says, "And my daughter."
She grips Neva's hand tightly. "Prophetess, they… they aren't—"
"Take me to them." Neva gently squeezes her shivering hands.
The woman nods hurriedly and pulls Neva along as the crowd parts.
Eyes follow them as bodies shift aside, until they reach a faded yellow tent.
As the woman pulls the curtain aside, Neva's gaze falls on an elderly, white-haired woman hunched beside two small figures wrapped in threadbare blankets.
"There, Prophetess," the woman's voice turns ragged. "I beg you."
Neva's nose stings with the sharp smell of herbs,
unwashed bodies, and mold as she kneels before the children, pale and unmoving, their breaths shallow and uneven.
She rests her hands on their burning foreheads.
Her eyes close as she shuts out the mother's prayers, the clamor of the crowd, and the shadow of death at the threshold, creeping closer and closer…
She surrenders herself fully to God's will in prayer. A warm flame ignites within her as a sacred power rises, flaring, until the Spirit's fire flows through her.
It moves through her like soothing ripples of spring water, yet burns like reeds whispering in flame.
The Spirit restores the two weary souls of the sleeping children and their withering flesh, as they drink from the living water of God until all pain flickers away.
"Ma," a small, hoarse voice follows a mother's sharp cry.
And death, a black wraith of smoke and claws, recoils, shrinking from the light radiating from the children.
The mother cries out in gratitude to the Lord, her children wrapped in her embrace.
Two men peer into the tent.
Wide-eyed, they pull back, crying out the news of the healing.
Before Neva steps out the tent, she hears voices rising, bodies colliding.
"Those with the sick, gather around me," Neva's voice rises, steady and clear over the chaos, the crowd pressing close, heat flaring despite the chill.
Believers push forward, parents, relatives, neighbours carrying their sick loved ones, but a voice cuts through the crowd, questioning her authority.
It doesn't take long before others join in, anger rising as accusations of evil, and of Ishmael, whom they still blindly believe to be her husband, spread through them.
A young girl reaches for her through the crushing crowd, when a violent shove knocks her forward.
Neva reacts instinctively, catching the child as she collapses into her arms.
"You'll be okay." She brushes the child's brown hair. No older than fourteen, so young, so alone. The girl watches her through heavy lids, her breath shallow as she lies still in Neva's arms.
Neva lifts her eyes to the believers, calm and chaos divided across the sea of people, and tells those with the sick to kneel.
"This is heresy!" someone cries out.
"The king sent her to destroy us all!" A finger jabs toward her.
"Her wretched bastard feeds on our children's lives!"
The child's head rests against her chest as she prays, the Spirit warming her from within.
The believers' murmurs rise into a miserere of prayer,
weaving together and muffling the warped grumbles that seek to sever her devotion to God.
A numbing weakness seeps into her bones as the Spirit flows like a river through the sick believers, scorching away their sickness.
The child in her arms opens her bright, ocean-blue eyes with renewed life. A beat of held breath passes, then cries of joy, praise, and gratitude swell through the crowd.
Tears slip down the child's cheeks as color returns to them.
She presses a grateful kiss to Neva's cheek, as more believers come forward, kissing her hands.
The believers weep as they witness their sick divinely healed by the Almighty Lord.
Voices of malice, distrust, and shock slowly fade beneath the rising faith in God.
Then the sea of believers parts as guards force their way through, ordering them back to their tents.
Force follows command, and reluctant bodies press and stumble into one another.
Her heart stutters as Ishmael steps forward, flanked by guards, their weapons drawn.
Yet, with calm apathy, she meets his gaze, cold with hatred.
His gaze remains fixed on her as she rises, brushing the grass from her skirt, her knees slightly wobbly.
His hand clamps around her elbow, and she stumbles as he yanks her toward him.
His voice drops, meant only for her. "Had enough, goddess?"
She doesn't respond as he drags her forward, but the venom in his words hums like frantic bees inside her.
The guards shove back against the crushing press of the crowd with the butt of their weapons,
as the believers cry out, reaching for her.
A spiraling pressure of thousands surges in, the passage narrowing into a smothering gap as her breath grows heavy.
Ishmael's grip on her elbow tightens into a crushing ache while hands tug at her shawl, grazing her ankles and skirt.
Jacob waits ahead, beyond the chaos, and as Ishmael nearly drags her clear, the world slows.
A man crashes through the guards' barricade. The line buckles, guards stumbling into the surging crowd, as hands reach through the opening.
She will always remember that weathered face, now warped in blind rage, the father of the child she couldn't save.
Wild-eyed, dagger in his scarred hand, he screams and hurls it at Neva.
Ishmael's hand snaps up, seizing his arm mid-strike.
The man freezes, the dagger falling to the ground.
A guard slams the butt of his rifle into the man's back, forcing him to his knees as he stumbles forward.
Ishmael holds her close as he pulls her away, but she glances back, the man hunched over, shoulders shaking.
A shot slices through the clamor.
The air stills for a heartbeat.
Then a scream breaks it, followed by more, swelling in horror.
A crack splinters through her heart as chaos erupts, shots ringing out.
The image of the man, blood pooling around him, sears into her mind as she's dragged into the shadowed woods.