“I just need a friend, all right?” The tightness in her chest eased a little as she settled on this truth. “I need you to be here for me, that’s all.”
Cora’s expression softened. “I’m here. I’ll stay by your side through what comes next, but you need to tell your midwives you’re going into labor. Your mother and husband too, for that matter.”
Teryn voiced his agreement. “Larylis deserves to know.”
“I can’t tell Larylis,” Mareleau said. “Not yet. You know how he gets when he’s anxious. He’ll start reciting great queens of history who’ve given birth in unusual situations. If I have to hear about Queen Constantina of Rovana in 56 Year of the Stag one more time, I will scream.”
She’d had enough of Queen Constantina, who’d ridden into battle heavily pregnant and gave birth behind a shield wall while arrows rained overhead. Mareleau didn’t need that kind of pressure. She wasn’t nearly as valiant.
Teryn’s jaw shifted back and forth before he released a resigned sigh. “You make a valid point.”
“Your mother then,” Cora said. “It will be impossible to avoid her anyway. Isn’t she staying in your suite with you?”
She was, and Mareleau wouldn’t be surprised if her mother was already frantically looking for her. And yet…
“I can’t handle her right now. If she finds out I’m going into labor here, she’ll only sayI told you so.”
“And I won’t?” Cora removed her hands from Mareleau’s shoulders and propped them on her hips. “I told you not to come, Mare. You had to have known this was a possibility.”
She had known, and she’d thought she’d been prepared. She’d imagined several scenarios, walked through each one in excruciating detail, per her husband’s insistence. So long as she’d agreed to work through the myriad of possibilities they might encounter regarding her pregnancy, he’d support her travels. But in every scenario, she’d been calm. She’d had a plan. She’d dealt with every imagined ordeal with grace.
Reality, however, was proving far different. She hadn’t anticipated this all-encompassing shock. This terror. This dreadful feeling that the gods had made a grave mistake in bestowing such a heavy responsibility on her. She wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready. Why did she ever have the nerve to consider herself an adult?
Another contraction stuck her abdomen. She closed her eyes and felt a gentle hand smoothing circles over her back.
“I can’t do this,” Mareleau said, tears leaking from her tightly squeezed eyelids. “I can’t be a mother. I’m going to do a terrible job. I’m going to be awful.”
“No, you won’t,” Cora said. “Don’t you recall what I said to you, after you first told me about your pregnancy? I said you’ll be an okay mother.”
The tightness eased, allowing her to scoff. “An okay mother,” she echoed. “That’s hardly comforting.”
“Well, it should be. Because that’s all you have to be. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t have to do everything right. Was your mother perfect?”
“Hardly.”
“Exactly. Look how great you turned out.”
Mareleau pried her eyes open but she couldn’t see much through her tears. She coughed on a sob before she managed to say, “You think I’m great?”
“You’re at the very least tolerable.” The teasing in Cora’s voice gave Mareleau a sense of calm to cling to. If Cora was taunting her, refusing to give in to her vanity, things couldn’t be too dire, right?
Mareleau blinked the tears from her eyes and found her friend’s smiling face. She blew out a shaking breath.
Cora rubbed another circle over her back. “Are you ready? Can we go tell your midwives now?”
Ready wasn’t the right word, but she had no other choice. With a shaky nod, she said, “Fine. Let’s show Queen Constantina who can give birth in a worse environment.”
“Aww, you’re insulting my castle again,” Cora said in a simpering tone. “You must be feeling better already.”
Mareleau gave a humorless laugh, then pinned Teryn with a warning look. “Don’t you dare let Larylis in my room until I say so. I don’t care if you have to tie him to a chair.”
Teryn gave a reluctant nod, then Cora steered Mareleau out the door.
And toward the greatest battlefield she’d ever face.
11
As promised, Cora stayed with Mareleau throughout the entire ordeal. She’d attended numerous births amongst the Forest People and had even assisted with them. But this one was different, for it was her friend on the bed, her friend in pain. She wished she could play a more proactive role in helping her, but between the four midwives, Mareleau’s three maids, and Queen Mother Helena, there was little for Cora to do aside from what Mareleau had asked of her: simply being there for her.
