Chapter 16: The Birth

Labor took nine hours, and Dorian was there for all of them.

He had been told to wait outside, and he had said no in a voice that ended the discussion.

Mum didn't argue.

She put him on a stool by the head of the bed and told him to hold my hand and keep his mouth shut.

He held it so hard that the bones creaked.

"I'm not going to break," I told him through my teeth.

"I know. I am."

I laughed, and then a contraction folded me in half, and I swore at him, at Garrick, at the Goddess and at Verity's name.

Mum worked with the sleeves of her gown pushed to her elbows and a lamp hung over the bed.

Emmett had been stationed at the door, because he had refused to go any farther away, and he kept up a low, steady flow of terrible jokes.

I wanted to kill him.

I was also grateful.

The black mark on my right wrist burned with Dorian's pulse, and the silver one on my left burned when the pain peaked.

I felt them both, one on each arm, and only one of them could help.

"Now," Mum said, at the end of the ninth hour. "Now, love. Push."

I pushed.

The room went white, and a hoarse animal cry tore out of me, and then there was a thin, furious wail in the air.

"A girl," Mum said, and her voice cracked in the middle. "A girl, Morwenna. Look at her."

She laid her on my chest, red and slick and furious, with a fuzz of dark hair and tiny clenched fists.

I forgot every one of them.

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