A young acolyte nearly collides with me before skidding to a stop, her face draining of color. "Y-Your Highness?"
I catch her by the sleeve. "What's happening?"
"Lady Siofra, Your Highness. The baby is coming."
I release her and she goes.
The matron's steady voice carries through the recovery bay. I find the door at the end of the hall. Darstan stands outside itlike a carved pillar of stone. His hands tremble and his jaw is clenched so tight I fear his teeth might crack.
He is my first knight. The first to step forward when the Aeonians tarnished my name and called me foolish for writing to the Orc King to free Siofra.
No one would go to Myrkheim to restore my honor. No one but a miner's son with shoulders like a mountain and eyes full of fire. He had walked into the emptied throne room and knelt on the stone floor.
I will go, Your Highness.
Darstan went to Myrkheim to retrieve her. He was not nobility but he was loyal.
Siofra had refused to return to Aelfheim. She was healing and learning to live without fear. It was only when Darstan told her how the Aeonians had shamed me that something in her shifted. They fell in love on the road home.
"Darstan."
He turns immediately and almost drops to one knee.
"Do not kneel," I say softly.
He rises at once, but his composure fractures the moment he speaks.
"The healers asked me to step outside," he says hoarsely. "They say it may be difficult."
Of course it will be.
The lord of Celestria who once called himself her husband had taken a blade to her more times than he ever had on any battlefield. He severed her voice when she dared to scream.
"If it comes to a choice," he says roughly, not looking at me. "I told them to choose her. I will not lose her."
The words tear out of him. I hear the determination and the guilt in his voice. He keeps forgetting that Siofra insists on carrying this child. She made this choice herself, the way she makes every choice now that she finally can.
"The healers will not surrender either life lightly," I say quietly.
He doesn't answer, but the rigid set of his shoulders lowers a fraction. That is all the comfort he will allow.
The door opens a crack. A young acolyte peers out. "My lord? She's asking for you."
"Go," I tell him.
He doesn't hesitate.
I don't follow. There is nothing I can offer in that room that the healers cannot do better. I press my back to the wall beside the door and do the only thing left to me.
I bow my head.Anastarros, Lord of Mending. She has suffered enough. Let this not be another cruelty.
My prayers do not stop there.
I call upon the Seventy-Seven. I call upon the Un.
Every string of magic I ever gathered in Astefar. Every blessing I stole from darkness. Every scrap of power that once clung to my bones. I offer it back.
Please, let her live.
