AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My son….
Another moan is all I manage before the darkness steals me entirely, and I find peace in it. One sentence carries with me into the blackness—
“It’s a girl…”
And this time that I slip away, I know that I am meeting Death on the other side—I meet Death with peace in my soul.
12
I’m propped up on a mound of feathery pillows in some grand white bedroom in the palace. And in my arms, I cradle the girl…
She’s a lot more purple than I expected. Absolutelytiny. I pinch her small toes that stick out of the sheet wrapped around her, seeing that they are half the size of most of my fingernails.
For a while—a long while that feels like never enough time—I hum terribly to her. But she seems to like it. A wicked smile reveals her gums and she starts writhing her tiny, chubby arms—chubby like her mother, I think with a smile of my own.
Then my moment with the smallest, most vulnerable thing in all of the realm is battered when the cream door creaks open. I look up as the queen slips inside, as though she floats, as though she prefers not to disturb me. But as beautiful and soft as she looks with all of her feminine angles and flimsy white gown, she is dark fae—she has no care for my rest or disturbing these precious moments.
Behind her, the healer comes inside—only pausing to close the door—then makes a beeline for me. My face falls as she comes to my bedside and scoops the child from my arms.
“I only just got her,” I murmur, weak still, my near-death clinging to my voice and in the beads of sweat glistening on my forehead.
The maid who brought her to me is handed the child and she smiles at me in a way that only a Halfling would—and I decide that’s what she is. “You have had some hours, Miss. Time for your rest.”
“Soon.” The healer cuts her off, sharp like a spear. “First, we check you.”
Sighing, I lean back on the pillows, my gaze of longing fixed onto the child as it’s taken out of the room. A girl… not like my dreams of a boy. But I’m not disappointed. I’m pleased—elated—that I survived long enough to meet her.
Surviving longer now is a different story.
Now, I don’t know what happens with me.
I haven’t seen Daein since I woke yesterday. I’ve asked for him. I’ve been ignored.
The healer has become closest to me, since she checks me over a few times a day.
And now the queen visits me for the first time.
She perches herself on the edge of the feathery bed, and the mattress dips to the side. I run my gaze over her, the way she scrunches her nose at the sweaty damp patches on the sheets as the healer rips them off my body and spreads my legs.
The healer has no shame in prodding about down there. But at least she smears some thick creamy salve first and that numbs me.
I lost a lot of blood. That much I know from the little I’ve been told. And there was something about breaching, but I know nothing of what that means. All that matters is that she—I need a name for her!—was born healthy …alive.
“Daein has returned,” the queen tells me finally.
I sit upright, the heels of my palms digging into the mattress. In answer to my sudden movement, the healer mutters harsh sounding words under her breath.
I pay her no mind. My wide eyes are fixed on the queen and her pale, angled face.
“Is he coming?”
“He is with his father as we speak. I suspect he will come to your side the moment he can. And I am so rarely wrong.”
I slump back against the pillows. “Why doesn’t he come now?”
“There have been … matters for him to address. Urgent matters,” she adds with a small smile, a small smile that tells me to stay put in my place.
I can only manage a faint nod in answer.
