CHAPTER 33

EVIL GIVES BIRTH

334 AR

“Push,” Leesha said.

“Idiot girl!” Elona was legs-up on the birthing table, hair slick with sweat. “What in the Core do you think I’ve been doing?!” They were hours into labor, and no closer to crowning.

“Leesha is only trying to help, dear.” Erny tried to take Elona’s hand, but she slapped it away.

“Get out.”

Erny’s face fell. “But…!”

“Shut it!” Elona snarled. “You’re as useless here as you are in my bed! Ent no way this babe came from your limp little stump, and we both know it!”

“Dear!” Erny turned bright red, glancing around the room. Darsy and Favah kept their eyes down and affected not to notice.

“Get out!” Elona screeched. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Leesha took her father’s elbow. “Da.”

Erny needed no further instruction, allowing her to lead him from the room.

“She doesn’t mean it.”

Erny slumped on a bench just outside. “Oh, Leesha. Of course she does.”

Leesha sighed. There was no point in pretending she hadn’t seen the truth of it in vivid detail. “Why don’t you go back to your chambers? This may take hours yet. I’ll send for you when it’s done.”

Erny shook his head. “Maybe that babe’s mine and maybe it isn’t, but for better or worse your mum is. I’ll wait right here.”

Leesha squeezed his shoulder. “You’re too good for her, Da.”

Erny chuckled. “Too good, yet never good enough. I’ve made my peace with it, but it never stops stinging.”

“Nonsense,” Leesha said. “Mother uses the truth to hurt you so you don’t see that for the lie it is. You gave her the chance to leave you for Steave and she didn’t take it. She never would. You were always the better man, and you’ve a right to demand she treat you like you deserve. There’s more to a man than the size of his tree. If she can’t see that, perhaps she should try raising that babe on her own.”

Erny shook his head. “I love her, Leesha. Always have, always will. There’s never been another woman in the world to me. I’m not going anywhere. Not from this bench, not from this marriage. We said our vows…”

“But only you keep them,” Leesha said.

Erny looked at her. “Is that the only time we should keep our promises, Leesha? When others do? I taught you better than that.”

“Ay, Da. You did.” Leesha smiled, bending to kiss the top of his balding head before she went back into the birthing chamber and shut the door.

“Push.” Darsy had taken up Leesha’s place between her mother’s legs.

“I am pushing, you stupid cow!” Elona barked.

“Well you ent doin’ a good enough job of it, you mean old witch,” Darsy muttered.

“Like you’ll ever know what this is like,” Elona growled. “The sight of your sour mash face is enough to wilt any man’s tree.”

Darsy reddened but wisely bit back her retort. She was used to cowing others, but no one could escalate a fight like Elona Paper. Whatever she said, Leesha’s mother would come back with worse.

“Be as the palm, and bend to let this wind pass over you,” Favah advised. “Everam does not judge women for words spoken in the birthing chamber.”

“You don’t know my mother well, if you think these words limited to labor,” Leesha said.

Favah looked ready to say more, but Elona growled like a bear, and Darsy gave a cry. “I can see the head!”

Leesha rushed over, gently pushing a grateful Darsy aside. There it was, the child’s tawny-haired crown, visible at last. She began massaging it free. “This is it, Mum, one last…”

“If you say push, I swear to the Creator, I’ll—!”

“I don’t care what you do, so long as you push,” Leesha snapped. Elona grit her teeth, blood vessels breaking across her face as she strained. Then the head slipped free, and the rest came in a rush.

“I have it!” Leesha reached to clear the babe’s mouth and nose, but it wasn’t necessary. The child thrashed in her arms and gave a mighty cry.

She found herself in accord, her own eyes tearing. “I’ll never tire of that sound.”

“Give it…” Elona gasped a breath, “…a little time,” she panted again, “and we’ll all be…sick of it.”

Leesha ignored her, running sensitive fingers over the child, checking the beat of its heart, the tone of its skin, the strength of its movements, the rate of its breaths. Favah moved in, tying knots in the cord with a practiced hand and slicing it with a sharp curved blade.

Leesha looked deeper, seeing the child’s aura in wardsight. She sobbed. Whatever horrors Elona had said and done, this child, her sibling, was a soul yet unburdened with the weights of life.

“What is it?” Elona demanded, seeing the tears. “Something wrong?”

Leesha shook her head. “Oh, no. Everything is…beautiful.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Elona said. “Is it a boy?”

Leesha shook her head. “A girl, strong and perfect.”

“Night, not again!” Elona smacked a fist against the table, but Leesha’s mind was far away, remembering Amanvah’s words, months past, when she cast the dice for Gared’s bride.

She will bear him strong sons, but it will be his daughter who succeeds him.

Whatever her disappointment, Elona reached for the child. Leesha tied a clean nappy on her and laid her skin-to-skin on her mother’s chest.

“What will you name her?” Favah asked.

“Selen, after my mum.” The look on Elona’s face was something Leesha had never seen before. Could it be love?

“A strong name,” Favah said, moving away to dispose of the cord. Leesha watched her, and followed when the woman turned her back by the table and she saw a telltale glow.

She reached Favah as the old woman cast the dice, wet with blood from the umbilicus. It was a violation of privacy, but Leesha’s curiosity outweighed her offense, and she leaned in to see as the dice spun to a stop and the symbols aligned.

Wood intersecting a cutting ward.

“Woodcutter,” she breathed, too low for Darsy and her mother to hear.

Favah nodded. “The baron’s Jiwah Ka will be pleased it is a girl child.”

Not so pleased, Leesha thought, but she kept it to herself, studying the rest of the throw.

“Ay!” Elona barked. “Don’t think I’m stupid enough not to guess what you’re doing over there! I want a look!”

Favah snatched the dice up and thrust them back into her pouch. “Bad enough for one chin to look upon the sacred dice. I will not suffer another.”

“Well?” Elona demanded when Leesha returned to her side. Erny opened the door unbidden as Leesha answered.

“She’s Gared’s.”

Leesha returned to her office to find Araine at her desk, attended by Lord Arther, Pawl, and Tarisa as she bent over a mound of papers. Melny sat on the couch across the room with Olive.

Was this the loyalty of her inner circle? Two days into Araine’s return, and she’d already taken Leesha’s place. She opened her mouth to shout when Olive, barely three months old, reached up and took a firm grip on Melny’s décolletage, pulling herself to stand up on her lap.

“Creator!” Leesha rushed to them, her anger forgotten.

“I know!” Melny beamed. “She’s been doing it all morning!” Olive turned, eyes meeting Leesha’s, and gave a joyful laugh.

Leesha knew she should be concerned at Olive’s unusual development—most children could not stand until nine months at least—but she could not help laughing in return. There was nothing usual about Olive Paper.

The girl let go her grip before Melny’s great bosom slipped free of her dress, reaching for Leesha. For a moment she kept her feet, but then her little legs buckled and she fell back on her bottom, laughing again.

Leesha swept her up and kissed her. “I met your aunt today. At this rate you’ll be running before she learns to roll over.” Olive replied by reaching out and tweaking her nose.

There was a shuffle of paper, and Leesha looked back across the room. Araine continued reading through the papers, murmuring to Pawl who took careful notes. Arther and Tarisa at least had the sense to look guilty.

“Mistress.” The first minister bowed as Leesha stormed their way, babe in hand. “We did not expect you back so soon.”

“Is that your only excuse for breaking your oath to me?” Leesha demanded. “The Hollow’s ledgers were closed, you swore.”

“Pfagh!” Araine looked up at last. “You said yourself there were no state secrets anymore.”

“Your state,” Leesha snapped. “This is mine.”

“I haven’t shown her anything sensitive,” Arther said defensively. “The Duchess Mum asked to help with requisitions for her refugees…”

Araine whisked a hand, and Arther fell silent. “You can’t expect me to sit around all day rubbing Melny’s belly, Leesha. I can’t help you on the battlefield. I can’t ward, heal the sick, or deliver babes. But this, I can do.”

Leesha blew out a breath. She had a right to be angry with all of them, but she could not deny she needed the help, and there were few in the world with more experience in running a city than the Duchess Mum. “And what have you surmised?”

“That your heart is far larger than your coffers,” Araine said. “It’s a wonder you’ve kept the Hollow afloat with all the entitlements you hand to every beggar who comes to town.”

Leesha’s eyes narrowed as she turned to Arther. “Nothing sensitive, you say?” The man looked like he wanted to sink into his starched collar. It was true Leesha needed the help, but she had little desire for Araine to know just how fragile the Hollow’s economy was with war on all sides.

“It doesn’t take a genius to see the larger picture from how much you’ve done for my people in just two days,” Araine said. “You’re spending klats faster than you can stamp and lacquer them.”

“We stopped lacquering them months ago.” Olive pulled at her dress, and Leesha freed a breast, bringing her to suck. Arther made a strangled sound and turned his back so fast, she thought he might give himself whiplash.

“Even so—” Araine waved at the papers.

“What would you have me do?” Leesha demanded. “Let your people starve on my doorstep, like you did when the Rizonans came begging to your gates?”

“Of course not,” Araine said. “I’m trying to compliment you, girl, if you’ll stop interrupting long enough to let me. You’ve danced a razor’s edge, and yet there are no empty bellies in Hollow County.”

The old woman shook her head. “The first Rhinebeck drove Angiers into bankruptcy to assure the lords of Angiers would grant him the throne when my father died, did you know?”

“Rojer said something of the sort once,” Leesha said.

“Leave it to a Jongleur to spin tales out of turn,” Araine said. “What did he tell you?”

“That Rhinebeck the first invented the machine to stamp klats,” Leesha said, “and kept one in five for himself.”

Araine snorted. “It was a lot more than that. Even so, after the bribes were all paid to keep his throne, the old fool died and left his son and me with a vault filled with little more than ledgers of debt and the smell of must. My Rhinebeck was more interested in hunting and bedding harlots, leaving Janson and me with a demon of a time keeping our empty coffers secret until the city got back on its feet.”

The old woman reached out, her withered hand clutching Leesha’s with surprising strength. “You’ve done better than I ever could have, girl. You should be proud. My city is lost—perhaps forever. I don’t want your throne, for myself or Melny’s child, but I can help you here, if you’ll let me.”

With sunlight streaming into the room, Leesha could not read the Duchess Mum’s aura, but the sincerity in her eyes was enough.

“Alagai Ka,” Leesha said.

“Do not be so distracted by what you hope to see that you miss the adjacent symbols,” Favah said.

Leesha squinted, tilting her head to look from all angles. “New.” She pointed. “Birth.”

Leesha considered a moment. “Hatchlings? Young mind demons?”

Favah nodded. “What does this throw tell you?”

Leesha knew the old woman had already formed her own opinion. It was a test, as always. Sometimes they saw the same things in a throw. Sometimes Leesha made mistakes.

And sometimes, they saw completely different things that might both be right, depending on divergences.

Leesha studied the scattered symbols, fitting them together like a puzzle. “The mind that controls Angiers is sending hatchlings to the Hollow to pen us in while it consolidates power.” Already attacks along the outskirts of the greatward had increased, focusing on the boroughs with the weakest wards. What would happen when minds came and could direct those savage attacks into surgical ones?

Favah bowed. It was not so grudging for her as it was a few weeks ago. “I agree. If you are to get a force of any size out before Waning…”

“It must be soon,” Leesha finished.