‘Your Grace, please lie down,’ Salvacion says, gently but firmly pushing her back onto the pillows.
The queen cries, asking over and over for her child, where is her child? I place my hands on the queen’s abdomen. I close the bed curtains around us, creating a protective circle. I stay there, feeling her flesh become warm and pliant beneath my fingers. I won’t let her go. She calms and quiets, finally sedate.
The baby is silent as it enters the world. We all know it has passed from this world as quickly as it entered it, a fleeting moment of life. I hold it, so small in my hands. I think of Pocket, of the mokon at the Temple of Aistra. I look at the lifeless lips, bluer than their mother’s, the waxy eyelashes, the small, curled fingers.
I move my hands around the baby, placing my thumbs on its torso, on the small ribs. I push. I hear a scream, but I must go on. I push until a rib cracks, a softer sound than it should be. Now I can feel it, the muscle beneath my fingertips. There is some blood, some life left in it. I feel the heat, distant like embers under the remains of a fire. In my mind’s eye I toe the remnants, uncovering the embers. I bring my face close and blow, the white coals turning red, then catching. A small flame. A small hope, but it is there. With tending, it will grow large and steady.
Another scream, from the baby in my arms.
The glamour has been smeared away like paint. The queen is not a heavenly body, but one of flesh and blood. It seems so clear to me now, as her breath finally slows and her eyes become less wild. The baby has settled on her chest, cheeks flushed red and face snuffling against her skin. She won’t let them separate, as though she is touch-starved. She has dismissed everyone but me, and the aftermath ofpain resonates around the chamber like the echo of a scream. It is an energy like I’ve never felt before.
That’s a lie. It is the same energy I felt when I put my hands around Malostra’s neck. Pupils blown out in fear of death, of pain in their final moments.
‘She looks like her father, don’t you think?’
The queen’s voice startles me. I thought she had fallen asleep at last. I don’t know what to say.
‘I never knew the king.’
He lived in stories, in the symbol of the Bastion. In the tapestries and statues and emblems. To know a royal likeness was to know Life and Death themselves. To try and put it into words or images was to look at the sun in the reflection of the water. To protect yourself from blindness. But perhaps the royals didn’t want us seeing them directly to look upon their flaws. In still images they could be more than human.
‘Or perhaps she looks like her mother. After all, she never even knew her father.’
The queen hands me the princess, and I’m so astonished that she is in my arms before I know what I’m doing.
‘I can’t—’ I begin to protest, and then I peer down at the child’s tiny face. Her eyes are open now, wide and roving curiously. She has a slick of fine dark hair, which moves under my breath.
‘A princess and her priestess,’ the queen says, with satisfaction.
The child is reaching out for me in this world and the other, her tiny arms grasping at the air. Her essence is more insistent than the queen’s, reaching out, longing for my energy like a mother’s milk. She seeks me out and then I feel rain against my cheek. We’re still inside the birthing chamber but yet there it is, the feeling of rainwater and the smell of petrichor. A waft of smoke. Then the sea is caught on thebreeze and reaches us. I feel sick with remembering, the world tilting under me and dizziness overwhelming me. The princess is trying to drain me. I try to push it away, to pry the fingers away one by one from my mind. I open my eyes as the baby struggles in my arms, breaking free of the blanket and thrashing.
‘What’s happening?’ The queen asks, alarmed. ‘Did she resist?’ Her eyebrows are furrowed, and she bites her lip, examining the child in my arms.
‘No,’ I say, before realising my mistake. I was the one who resisted.
The queen turns back to me, a hunting look in her eyes. It bears no resemblance to the worry I saw etched in her expression moments earlier.
‘What is it then?’ the queen asks, her voice low.
I am fire-walking here. I match the queen’s gaze, pushing down the memory of when we bathed, how I felt after I let her drain me. This is what we were practising for. I am her well from which she draws, over and over again, waiting for the rain to refill me. Rage rises like bile in my throat. I cast it to the back of my mind and breathe, taking her hand. She starts back, surprised at my boldness.
‘It is... different than with you,’ I start, gently making circles with my thumb on her wrist. ‘I was surprised. But I know now. Let me try again.’
The queen pauses for a moment, and all I can hear is my breathing, ragged and shallow despite myself. I must be her shadow. I must not fail, not after I have come so far.
‘She is your princess; you must let her in.’
The queen reaches forward and touches my clavicle. I gasp at her cool soft fingers. She unlaces the front of my dress, and my skin is gooseflesh.
‘Feed her.’
My queen has commanded me, and I cannot deny I’m morbidly fascinated. I bring the princess up to my breast and let her take from me. It’s a short, sharp pain, which becomes a dull ache after a time. I feel distant from my body, as though it is happening to someone else and I’m observing. Then a dizzy spell hits, and I lean on the queen for support. The princess drains until I am spent. When I prise her away, the substance isn’t milky white but a strange mingling of blood and streaks of forest green. I am a withered husk, and I barely make it back to my chamber before I collapse. As I lie on my bed, I watch the stray droplets dry on my dress. My pulse in my neck is slow, struggling to regenerate the blood I have given. I have saved the princess, and her life will forever be tied to mine. We are bound together, and the queen needs me to sustain them both. After all, is it not the neck that controls the head?
chapter thirty-three
finlyr
We’ve been white-knucklingsince setting sail, but I feel my chest expand as we make our way into more open water. My crew are salty and sweat-crusted and I know I have to say something. It’s a storm brewing in a confined space, which never ends well. We’re short-handed, even with Sinigang now awake. He’s still too weak to help, and he sits in Biba’s arms and she strokes him as if in a trance.
