Page 46 of A Dragon of Black Glass (Moonfall #3)

46

“ I T IS TIME ,” Physik Orkan intoned with great solemnity from the open doorway into the queen’s bedchamber. “We dare wait no longer.”

Mikaen pushed up from a couch, where he had slept most nights. He bit back a groan, dreading what was to come, while at the same time relieved his vigil was reaching an end.

Thoryn stepped closer and offered a hand to help him to his feet. The captain had arrived at the midday bell with tidings from the Southern Klashe, of Prince Mareesh’s capture two days ago. This setback was disappointing but not unexpected. Still, the prince yet lived, imprisoned in the imperial dungeon. Such generosity on the empress’s part could still serve him—if only to allow Mikaen to exact a more fitting punishment upon Mareesh for his past failures.

Still, none of that mattered at this moment.

Mikaen had far greater concerns.

As he stood, he ignored Thoryn’s offered hand. He refused to show weakness, even with his stomach weighted by rocks and his heart despairing.

I must be strong—for Myella, for my child.

Mikaen straightened, adjusted the seat of his silver half-mask, then crossed toward the door. His steps faltered, then grew steadier. His breathing, though, remained heavy, fighting the tension that constricted his chest.

Thoryn followed. “Sire, you do not have to bear witness. None will fault you.”

Mikaen turned to snap at the Silvergard, but he read the raw concern in that crimson visage. His anger died to a mutter. “I… I must.”

Thoryn acknowledged this with a nod. “Then I must, too.”

Mikaen touched Thoryn’s arm in silent thanks.

Together, they reached the bedchamber door. Mikaen held far less charity for the healer. Physik Orkan was the only healer to survive the purge following Myella’s installation into the foul bloodbaerne. A pair of Shriven assisted him now—Iflelen skilled with the arkana that sustained the queen’s body.

Mikaen challenged the physik. “Myella is only eight months into her bearing. To draw the child from her womb so early risks much, does it not?”

Orkan lowered his gaze. “Of course, I… we hoped for more time.”

Mikaen noted the physik sought to make it clear that he was not solely to blame, nor was this decision his alone.

Orkan swallowed and glanced into the bedchamber. “Shrive Wryth says we must act now if we hope to save the child. He believes, with enough care, the babe could still survive this birth, even thrive afterward via alchymies known only to his holy brethren.”

Mikaen took a deep breath. His question to the physik had little to do with seeking an explanation. The danger to the child had been whispered and warned about for the past week as Myella grew ever weaker in her copper bed. He had confronted Orkan simply to hold off crossing into the chamber.

When I leave it again, my queen will be truly gone.

Still, this path had been set from the moment he spilled poison into her drink. He could not step away from it now. He pushed past Orkan and entered the bedchamber. Curtains still closed off the bloodbaerne bed, as if the tragedy within must be hidden by more than just the doors to the chamber.

He headed across the room, flanked by Orkan and Thoryn. He heard studious whispers from Myella’s attendants, including the sharper consonants that marked Wryth’s eastern accent. Already the muscles of Mikaen’s lower back tightened with distaste and fury. What the Iflelen had promised—that the child would survive the poison—now balanced on a dagger’s edge.

He reached the curtains and ripped them open. The smell of balms and bile struck his nose. A cleric had been in this morning, knowing the end was near, and had anointed Myella’s brow with unguents to mark her passage to the bosom of the Mother Below. Mikaen noted the dark star of the oils that christened her forehead, nearly black against the sickly yellow of her skin.

He clenched a fist to hold back his grief.

I must stay strong for what’s to come.

Wryth motioned him to one side. “If you wish, Your Grace, you can stand here while we free your child from the womb.”

Mikaen burned at what sounded like an order to his ears, but he moved leadenly to Myella’s right, too distraught to lash out.

Instead, he kept his gaze on Myella’s face. Her eyelids had been glued shut by the cleric, as if she were already dead. But that was not so, not yet. The tube down her throat steamed with each of her forced breaths, pumped by the mekanicals behind her. The plugs in her nostrils were caked with a rim of mucus that bubbled. Below her chin, the open cavity of her chest still heaved with lungs that had gone deathly pale. A heart shivered between each beat, as Myella struggled to grant every bit of extra time for her child.

Our child…

He took her hand as Orkan and Wryth set about preparing to cut the babe from the hump of her belly. Another Iflelen, one whose name Mikaen had never bothered to learn, held a funneled instrument against the gravid rise of her stomach.

“The heartbeat remains strong,” the shriveled man reported, his features shaded by the gray cowl of his Shriven robe. “But their numbers still grow slower.”

“Then we must be quick,” Wryth said. The weight of the man’s foul gaze turned upon Mikaen. “Sire, upon your command…”

“Do it,” he choked out. “Let it be done.”

Mikaen turned his attention to their work, refusing to shirk from this last moment of his long vigil. He watched a blade slice Myella open. Pink tissue, lined by writhing vessels of dark crimson and darker blue, bulged out, as if trying to escape her ravaged body. More cuts were made into the same flesh, as blood spurted and more poured in rivers to the floor.

Mikaen clutched harder to Myella’s hand, breaking bones that had grown thin and brittle, as hollowed out as those of a bird.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but he did not mean for shattering her fingers.

Motion over her belly grew frantic. He lost sight as Wryth and Orkan leaned over her. Finally, Orkan heaved straighter, stumbling back, holding a wet and bloody bundle in his hands. Tiny limbs hung limp, tinged too blue.

“I must get him breathing,” Orkan said as he rushed out the curtains to where a table waited off to the side.

Mikaen noted the physik’s words.

Get him breathing…

Another male heir.

Mikaen moved to follow.

Wryth urged him to stay. “Your queen is passing, Your Grace. If you want to say your farewells. She may be able to hear you as she slips the bonds that hold her.”

Mikaen still clutched her hand, anchored to her.

Thoryn stepped after Orkan, who had vanished out of view. “I’ll attend to the child in your stead.”

Mikaen nodded and returned his attention to Myella. Her lungs now only fluttered. Her heart’s beat had become a stammer. He sank to his knees, bringing her broken hand to his lips.

“Thank you, my love…” he whispered. “All will know your bravery, your strength, your sacrifice. This I swear to you.”

He pressed his forehead to her wrist. He listened as the wheeze of breath died down. He felt her fingers tremble, then fall still. He remained on his knees, long enough to mumble a prayer to the Mother Below, to take Myella to rest.

Then he stood and stared down at the heart that had loved him, understood him, accepted him in his entirety. The tender pink fist in her chest now lay unmoving and quiet.

Another was not so silent.

A sharp wail of anger, sibilant and high, rose from beyond the curtains.

“My son…” He lifted Myella’s hand once more and kissed it for the last time. “ Our son.”

He gently lowered it and tucked her arm under a wrap being pulled over the ruins of the queen’s body, hiding his shame from all eyes. But he knew he would carry the guilt with him. The only balm upon his grief continued a gasping cry of anger at a violent birth.

By now, Wryth had already slipped away. From beyond the curtains, Mikaen heard the Shrive’s voice grow heated, along with Orkan’s petulant response.

Something was wrong.

Mikaen rushed out, bumping aside one of the Iflelen. Off to the right, Wryth and Orkan leaned over a basin atop the table. The physik held a bloodied towel, likely used to wipe the babe clean.

Thoryn stood to one side, pain tightening the squint of his eyes. When he spotted Mikaen, the captain crossed in long strides to meet him. “Sire, your child lives, but not without mishap.”

Mikaen drew a breath and held it.

Mishap?

Knowing that word covered a multitude of calamities, Mikaen closed upon the two men flanking the basin. “What has happened?” he gasped out.

Orkan held up his palms, clearly warding off any blame. “The child… your son… he bears maladies that he will likely not survive.” The physik’s voice dropped lower. “And maybe it is best he did not.”

Mikaen shoved both men aside. He grabbed the table’s edge to hold himself steady—and it was well he had taken that precaution. The naked child, still wet and streaked with blood, had gone quiet, but his tiny chest fluttered, stoking for another wail. Only one eye stared back at Mikaen, shining a thin blue through squinted lids. The other was lost in a melt of flesh that had frozen into a roiled knot that covered half his tiny face.

Mikaen gulped at this mockery of his own disfigurement. He struggled to understand, to even believe it.

Is this a punishment of the gods?

But that was not the sole defect.

While a right arm looked pudgy and hale, the left had deformed into a shortened stump, ending in a hand that looked more like a fin. Mikaen flashed to his sword cleaving through his brother’s left arm last winter.

Is this a rebuke, too, from the gods, chastisement for that act?

As Mikaen stumbled away, he noted the twist of the babe’s spine, the gnarl to a leg, wondering what past crimes those represented. His hand fell upon the dagger sheathed at his belt. The words of the physik—concerning the likelihood of the child’s survival—had burned into bones.

Maybe it is best he did not.

Mikaen covered his mouth with his other hand. He glanced to the curtained alcove, having retreated from the horror far enough to peer inside, to see the blanket over the remains of his queen.

Thoryn joined him and rested two fingers atop Mikaen’s hand as it trembled on the hilt of his dagger. “Let me take this duty from you. No father should have to do what must be done.”

Mikaen shoved him away. His whole body shook to affirm what he shouted to the room. “No!”

Mikaen staggered back to the table, back to the basin, back to his son—to face the sins that had twisted that small body into a sigil of his guilt. He pulled his dagger from its sheath. With one hand bracing atop the table, he placed the blade’s tip over that thin chest.

One push and I can put an end to this shame.

Still, he found he did not have the strength.

Especially as one small eye opened wider, shining the purest blue at him.

His arm trembled.

Wryth approached, perhaps noting his hesitation. “Such a life is not hopeless, Your Grace,” he said softly, as tenderly as Mikaen had ever heard the man speak. “There are remedies I know. Not to return him hale, but enough for some prospect of a happy life.”

Mikaen shook his head. “Even if true, it is too much to ask…”

How can I live with this shame, to see my son suffer for my offenses?

His grip tightened on the hilt.

Still, his body struggled for the strength to commit this act.

Below the dagger, a tiny arm lifted and batted at the knife’s steely shine. Nubby fingers clutched the blade’s blunt side—but one tip grazed the razor edge, drawing a crimson line across pale skin.

Blood welled up.

Blood we share…

The pudgy face bunched purplish, then burst forth with a lustful cry. In that wail, Mikaen heard the vigor behind it, demanding like a king to be obeyed.

Mikaen listened and withdrew his blade.

Wryth recognized the meaning and motioned to Orkan. “Fetch the wet-nurse.”

As the physik fled, Wryth turned to Mikaen. “We’ll do all we can.”

Mikaen scowled at Wryth. He suspected the kindness of this offer, especially by such a stonehearted man, came less out of concern for the fate of the child and more about the bastard’s own future. If Mikaen allowed the child to live, it would mean he would be beholden to Wryth and his ilk.

But Mikaen did not intend to take on this burden as a debt owed.

He pointed a finger at Wryth. “This is your fault.”

Mikaen took care with his next words. He didn’t know if the other Iflelen knew of the poison obtained by Wryth. Thoryn, who stood behind Mikaen’s shoulder, certainly did not.

“You made promises.” Mikaen stared hard at Wryth, making it clear he was referring to their poisonous pact and not necessarily his next words. “You claimed your bloodbaerne bed would keep Myella alive throughout the remainder of her months and that the child would be unharmed. Neither proved true.”

Wryth acknowledged this with a bow of his head. “We will make amends with the care of your son.”

“Yet, harm was still done.”

Mikaen still clutched the dagger, wanting to plunge it into Wryth’s heart. He knew he possessed the strength for that act. He let his anger and frustration over the last month build into a furious storm.

He stepped to within a thrust of a dagger from Wryth. “While my focus has been pulled elsewhere, you’ve neglected your duties to the throne. Negligence that now cost me a queen and a hale son.”

“That can’t all be blamed—”

Mikaen silenced him by pushing the dagger against Wryth’s chest. “You’ll show me what has caught your attention, or I’ll have your head carried down by your brethren, who will reveal what secret you’ve been harboring.”

Mikaen watched the machinations churning behind Wryth’s eyes.

Slowly, words worked out. “I’ve been laboring on a weapon,” Wryth admitted. “A project of utmost secrecy. One kept from all but a few in my order.”

“A weapon?” Mikaen could not keep a measure of curiosity from his voice. “What manner of weapon?”

“One like no other. This I swear. Once completed, it will be a force to take down empires.”

Mikaen lowered his dagger. “Show me.”

“With more time, I could—”

Mikaen lifted his dagger again. “Now.”