Lucien
Months later...
My fingers tremble on the papers, fingertips to elbows drenched in blood. My vision hazes over, red so thick, I can hardly see the figures or the letters. Sweat beads on my forehead as my teeth clench.
The ache is unbearable, but her screams haven't stopped echoing through the walls.
The Voss emissary was speaking, something about missionaries from lands so far across the seas and weapons and mechanisms like nothing we've ever heard of before, but every time Valka screamed, the room falls silent.
I hated that I couldn't be there. Grandmother had kicked me out and told the guards to toss me into the dungeons if I came close to the quarters. Because I couldn't control the panic. Couldn't stop considering cutting them out of her stomach if it meant she'd stop bleeding.
We knew it would be a difficult birth.
We just didn't know how.
