“Me shh?You shh.I had just fallen asleep.”
“Sorry,” he said, still whispering.“You made noise, I thought you felt pain.”
I glared at him even though it was too dark for him to truly see, “No,” and then I shut my eyes.But not a moment had passed before I opened them again.I did feel… something.
“I will fetch Ivar,” he said.
I whined.“No, I must make water, but it is cold outside… I do not want to go.”
He laughed.“You may take my furs, here…” He helped me dress because I was huge and needed it, and then he walked with me out onto the docks surrounding the palace to the treeline along the beach.The wind was dancing violently, and the faintest evening snow flowed in one direction and then another.
I squatted but found I couldn’t release the water easily.When it finally came, it came with pain.I exhaled deeply, my breath tinted with my voice.I knew in my bones—the birth was beginning.
Fell’s eyes stayed on me as we made our way back to the palace.He knew as well.
I did not have an easy birth.Indeed, having done it, I doubt it could ever be easy for anyone.
I wanted to sleep more, which I managed only partially.I woke several times from a pinching sort of feeling within that reminded me very much of the creaking of an un-oiled door.Each time I woke, Fell was there watching.The wind outside was howling.My back was aching as it had the entire time I’d carried my child, but more somehow.Ivar had come at some point and was sitting on the floor, his back against the far wall.I could hear the whisper of casting coming from him.
“Shh,” I said.
He silenced instantly.
Fell was awake too, so alert that it was making me awake, and I was terribly irritated by it.I wanted to sleep.My hips, however, wanted me to move.
“I will go up the hall to stretch my legs,” I said, quickly discovering a handful of casters—including King Arik—in the hall outside.Ivar stayed within sight but gave me space as I walked.Fell did not.I was embarrassed to be fussed over, thinking,Leave me be.I am tired and sore and… leaking.
There was the horror of my body doing something entirely without my consent and the humiliation that came from my own waters all over the carpet, where anyone might see.
And then there was the tide of it—the ripping, tearing, ache of it.Fell became of less and less help, and I understood outside of birth why that would be, but within it, I had no space in my mind for him.I murmured into the floor on my hands and knees, resting when the tide pulled out, locking eyes with Fell and trying to promise him something with my gaze… anything that might erase the dread I saw in his face.
I fell into a pit of torment so deep not even my love for Fell could reach me.I vomited repeatedly, everything in my stomach and then bile; the room filled with the stench of pain and stomach.Time disappeared, and there was only the sensation of being ripped apart and then a lull that felt like being filled with fog, and then the ripping again.
I remember Fell’s hands shaking in the dim room.I remember Ivar saying to him, “Hyrold is watching,” and Fell nodding to himself.How his hands looked after that, gripping the edge of the side table so tightly I could have sworn it groaned.I remember Ivar rubbing my back with oil and me loving it, but then demanding he stop, but then begging for it again.
I remember Fell asking how much longer it would be, and Ivar not answering, but his face showing he didn’t think it would be over soon.
“Stop talking about me like I am not here,” I begged the pair of them.
Fell said, so softly, “I will go back to being quiet.”
At some point, I determined I was dying.I cried and mumbled in Islish.“I am being torn in half.I will not survive this.”
Come.
It was a whisper and a yell.An echo and the crashing of the sea.
“What?”
Come to me, and I will ease your suffering.
I sat up, my jaw so tight I felt my teeth might crumble.I didn’t know how much time I had before the tide came again, but I knew I needed to make it count.Inexplicably, but with complete certainty, I knew where I was being called to.I took four steps before sinking to the floor, groaning.Gagging.Spit dripping out of my gritted teeth.I suffered in eternity, and while Fell’s hands were on me and Ivar was kneading my back, it was the calling that kept me from dying.
Be brave.Come.I am here.
I played this game—this forward, collapse in agony, forward again game, answering the call.I understood what it wasn’t saying, that if only I reached it, all would be well.
“Where are you going?”Fell whispered to me.So softly.He smelled awful; people smell terrible when they’re afraid.
