Chapter 4

I planted myself in front of the altar, glaring at them.

"Get out."

"Anyone who lays a finger on my child fights me to the death!"

But my mother-in-law screeched back:

"You still have the nerve to protect that cursed thing?"

"Candy nearly lost her baby yesterday!"

"Her pregnancy was fine all along. It only went wrong after you dragged this unlucky child home!"

The clan elder's face was grim as he brought his fist down on it:

"This child cursed the Gilberts while it lived, and dead its ill fortune is even heavier. It cannot stay."

"We have already asked the ancestors! The ancestors have spoken! This cursed thing must be brought back to the ancestral hall. Seven warding nails driven into the coffin, given to the strays to devour, the bones burned as an offering to heaven, to soothe the ancestors' wrath."

"And the ashes scattered into the sewer behind the family hall, so this evil washes away with the water and never sets foot in the Gilbert household again."

My eyes went bloodshot as I clutched the box tight.

"You had no room for him alive, and now that he's dead you won't even let him leave in peace!"

My mother-in-law sneered.

"Being able to take the fall for Candy's baby is the last bit of use he'll ever have!"

Several of the Gilberts rushed forward at once to snatch it.

In the shoving my wound tore open again, blood soaking through the hem of my dress.

Boris clamped a hand around my wrist.

"Tabitha, stop this."

I stared him dead in the eye.

"He's your child too! You killed him once for Candice, and now you'd give up even his ashes for her?"

His face went white, but he still said in a low voice:

"He's already dead. Candy's child is still alive."

"I can't risk a living life for the sake of a dead one."

A chill went through me.

Yesterday he was still crying, saying he couldn't bear to let go.

One day, and just because it was Candice's baby in danger, our child had become a dead thing that meant nothing.

While they held me down, the Gilberts wrenched the box away and tied me up and hauled me back to the ancestral hall.

Candice leaned against a chair, her face pale.

"Tabitha, I'm sorry, I didn't want this either…"

Boris stepped in front of her.

"This has nothing to do with Candy."

"The elder has already cast the sacred ritual cups again. This is the ancestors' will."

The sacred ritual cups again.

He crouched down in front of me, his voice almost gentle.

"Tabitha, be reasonable."

"Once this cursed fetus is burned as an offering to the ancestors, your sin of offending them is wiped clean."

"Once the ancestors' anger is gone, the next child will naturally be a blessed one they grant you."

"And then we'll bring the baby safely into the world."

I swung my hand and slapped him hard across the face.

"Boris, you truly make me sick."

"You think that after killing this one and burning him to ash, I'd still go on bearing another for your Gilbert family?"

The whole hall erupted.

The clan elder roared:

"Defying your husband, desecrating the ancestors!"

"Bring the sacred cups, hand down family punishment!"

The cups came down.

The elder announced at once:

"The ancestors are enraged. Twenty strokes of the cane!"

My mouth was full of blood, and suddenly I laughed.

"The ancestors are enraged again?"

My head snapped up.

"You've gotten addicted to lying, haven't you!"

Their faces changed in an instant.

I turned toward the wall of tablets and screamed until my voice broke:

"Do you dare swear it before every ancestor of this line!"

"Swear that not one of those seven casts of the cups was ever rigged by you!"

"Swear that today's cast was real too!"

"Swear you didn't kill my child on purpose for the sake of Candice's baby!"

The clan elder barked:

"Shut your mouth!"

"Why won't you dare?"

I fixed my eyes on Boris.

"Swear it, if you've got the nerve! Say it! Whoever deceived the ancestors, whoever used the gods' name to kill an innocent child—"

"let him be struck dead by lightning!"

"Let the Gilbert ancestors punish him with their own hands!"

"Silence!"

The clan elder slapped me to the ground.

"Burn it!"

"Burn this cursed fetus as an offering to the ancestors, now!"

I lunged forward.

Boris caught me from behind and held on tight.

The next second, the box was thrown into the fire.

I fought like a woman gone mad, and all I could do was watch the flames swallow the last trace of my child.

The clan elder lifted the ashes and walked toward the sewer behind the family hall.

"Wash the ill fortune away, and the ancestors will bless the Gilberts with a blessed son."

I struggled wildly in Boris's arms, biting and clawing, and could not break free.

Despair closed over me, my face covered in blood, and I threw my head up toward the wall of ancestral tablets and screamed until my voice tore:

"Ancestors of the Gilbert line, above us all! If you truly have spirits, then open your eyes and look at these animals who kill in your name!"

"They deceived the gods, killed my child, and now they'd leave him without even a grave!"

"If you can hear me—send down your judgment, strike them dead!"

Several of the younger men went white in an instant.

But the clan elder only sneered in contempt.

"A set of cups some woman begged for at random, and that counts as the ancestors' will?"

With that, he poured the ashes straight into the sewer, sneering:

"Judgment?"

"I'd like to see just where any judgment is going to come from!"

The words had barely left his mouth when a bolt of thunder crashed down.

The blinding flash struck the hundred-year-old ancestral hall plaque head-on, and the whole hall shook violently.

The room screamed.

Several of the clan elders went ashen, their legs buckling, and dropped to their knees on the spot.

"The ancestors—the ancestors have shown their wrath!"