Talia kept her eyes fixed on Varkas’s as she pushed downward.
A pressure like a boulder crushing her pelvis ground through her. Every pore tore open, drenching her in a cold sweat.
She summoned every scrap of strength left in her, yet nothing seemed to give way.
Tears pricked beneath her eyelids. How much longer could she endure this? Just as she felt on the verge of letting go under the sheer, unendurable agony, someone let out a sharp cry.
Talia forced open lids heavy with sweat and weeping. The priestess, positioned between Talia's linen-draped knees, was staring downward with an ashen face.
Talia parted her cracked lips with great effort.
“What… what is it?”
“B-blood…”
The maid at the bedside stammered, pale with terror.
The Head Maid shoved the girl backward with a harsh grip.
Before Talia could make sense of what was happening, the pain that had briefly receded tore through her once more.
She clung desperately to the back of Varkas’s neck.
How long did it last—the sensation of bones cleaving apart, of viscera and nerves grinding to pulp? Her vision washed out in white, and then whatever had been tearing at her passage suddenly gave way and slid free.
The release was so sharp her neck arched back of its own accord, ripping a scream from her throat.
Talia slumped like a corpse in Varkas’s arms, drawing shallow, strangled breaths. Her ears felt stopped up as though underwater, her vision smeared and dim.
She could feel that her flesh was horribly torn, but the searing agony that had threatened to incinerate her mind was gone.
Was it over?
As the thought drifted through her daze, a strange, hollow silence settled around her. The room was unnaturally quiet.
Talia struggled to lift her leaden eyelids.
Through her blurred sight, she saw the cords in Varkas's neck straining taut. With trembling fingers, she tugged at the clothes of the man staring ahead like a ghost.
“Varkas… why…”
Varkas finally looked down at her.
Talia strained to read his face, but she could not bring it into focus.
Staring up at his pale, insubstantial shape, she forced out the rest of her breath.
“Why… isn’t the baby… crying?”
· · ·
“Varkas, why isn’t he…”
He did not answer.
‘Have I gone deaf?’
She looked around the room in confusion. The maids were clustered together in a corner, wrapping something in cloth.
As she tried to push herself up to see, Varkas tightened his arms around her.
“You must not move yet.”
His voice was rougher than she had ever heard it.
Talia blinked emptily.
Varkas kept her head pinned against his chest with a cold, vein-ridged hand, blocking her from turning away, his tone dropping to a terrifying register.
“Has the bleeding stopped?”
“Not yet…”
“Then why are you standing there instead of doing something?”
“…Forgive us, but there is nothing more we can do.”
Talia felt the body holding her turn as rigid as stone.
She could tell he was consumed by an insane fury, but her mind could not piece together why.
A voice scraped like iron above her head.
“Where is the Grand Priest? What is he doing? Bring him here this instant!”
“T-that is impossible! A male priest cannot enter the birthing chamber. It is strictly forbidden for them to see a woman in such a state—”
The crash of shattering porcelain cut through the room.
Talia clung to the thin thread of her consciousness, realizing a beat late that he had hurled something.
“Go and tell him. If he does not come running this instant to treat my wife, I will bar the doors of the chapel and burn it to the ground.”
Only then did Talia understand that her own life was slipping away, though she felt no fear. All her senses felt numb, detached from her body.
Staring blankly at Varkas’s clamped jaw, she acted on pure instinct and tugged at his sleeve.
“Varkas… I’m fine… so, our baby…”
Her lips barely formed the shapes, her mind drifting loose from the words.
“Our baby… save him.”
Varkas did not answer.
She knew he was looking down at her, but she still could not make out the expression on his face. Tears spilled endlessly from the corners of her eyes.
“You… you promised me…”
She glared at him in weak accusation for staying still, then tried once more to turn her eyes toward the baby. But Varkas held her head so firmly she could not turn an inch.
She wanted to shove him away with all her might, but her arms lay like dead lead. Talia shuddered, swallowed by utter helplessness.
“It’s all right. Nothing will happen.”
The man crushing her upper body against him whispered into her temple, his lips bone-cold against her skin.
‘Liar.’
Talia murmured the word in her head.
It was all a lie. Nothing was all right, and nothing ever would be again.
The warmth was draining out of her limbs, leaving her cold, so cold. It was as if she were sinking slowly into frozen water. She was exhausted.
How had it come to this?
A faint question rippled through the encroaching white void.
Even that very afternoon, she had been happy. It had been wretched and agonizing, yes, but she had been happy nonetheless. She did not think she had ever felt that kind of joy in her life.
She tried to remember what had made her so glad, and, gathering the last ember of her will, she pleaded.
“Varkas… give him… to me.”
Even to her own ears, the words sounded as faint as a dying candle.
Terrified he would not hear, she dragged up fingers that felt like iron weights to clutch at his coat.
“I… want to hold him. My baby…”
Varkas remained motionless, holding her fast.
A bitter resentment seeped into the marrow of her bones. If she had the breath, she would have screamed at him.
‘You said you would give me whatever I wanted. Why won’t you keep your promise?’
Her breath caught on a broken sob.
“I’m… I’m begging you. Please…”
Then a commotion erupted around them, though every sound reached her muffled, as if filtered through thick stone.
Varkas turned his head sharply. He shouted something, but she could no longer decipher the words. Talia's last trace of strength gave out, and her limbs went slack.
Darkness rushed in, devouring her vision until she could not tell if her eyes were open or closed.
‘Will I never wake again?’ If that was her end, she wanted to see his face one last time.
Talia tried desperately to force her eyes open, but there was only pitch black.
Tears welled without stopping, until she felt as though she were drowning in them.
She parted her lips to speak, but her body refused to obey. Swallowing down her shattered breath, Talia realized the word she had failed to utter was his name.
With that grief as her final thought, she plunged into the cold, silent dark.
The drizzle that had fallen since daybreak began to thin only around noon.
Lucas, leaning his forearms on the stone battlements and wetting his mouth with wine, let out a heavy sigh as he watched three or four women laying flowers before a small, fresh grave dug a few days prior.
The child who had torn his mother to the brink of death had been buried in the sodden earth without ever drawing a proper breath. Only after the Grand Duchess, having hovered so long between life and death, showed signs of recovery had they held a quiet funeral rite for the stillborn boy.
END