She swallows down her protests. Pulling in a deep breath, she looks at me—looks at me with such trust, such unwavering faith, it makes my eyes smart with tears. “Okay, Rhya.”
“Can you push?”
She nods.
“I am here. I am with you,” I tell her, positioning myself between her knees at the foot of the chaise. “You can do this.Wecan do this.”
My voice sounds steady enough, I think. But deep within me, a voice is crying out—keening from my soul, screaming down the bond that links me to Penn.
Where are you?
I need you.
Please, come.
Come quickly.
They burst intothe back courtyard armed to the teeth and out of breath, ready to fight a battle long since ended. Uther, Penn, Mabon, Cadogan, and Jac. They all slam to a halt when they see me there, sitting in the dirt of the flower beds with the newborn babe in my arms. I am wrapping him in a soft blanket I retrieved from the nursery upstairs when Carys finally let him go long enough for me to clean him. She now dozes lightly on the chaise, exhausted from the aftermath of the birth and the sedating tea I’d forced her to swallow.
I myself could use a dose. My hands still shake. The past few hours have been some of the most harrowing of my life. Even now, with both mother and child breathing steadily, I cannot settle my own frazzled nerves.
For a long moment, the men merely stare, frozen, at the scene before them. Their stunned expressions are almost comical. Their eyes snag on the blood. I’ve wiped up the worst of it already, but there are still traces littered around me. On the flagstones. On my discarded gardening apron. On the towels and blankets piled beside the chaise. It is a jarring contrast to the peaceful domesticity of Carys’s pretty courtyard.
Behind them, the door swings open once again as Farley jostles through it on his crutches. An ancient crone of a woman follows on his heels. The midwife. They, too, stop short when they see me.
“Took you long enough,” I say to Farley in a glib voice.Beneath my flippancy, there is a deep undercurrent of untapped distress. “Did you cross the Cimmerians to find help?”
Uther is the first to recover his senses, rushing to his wife’s side. He drops to his knees in the dirt, sparing hardly a glance at his newborn son. His gaze is for Carys and Carys alone.
“Is she—”
“She’s perfectly fine,” I assure him, noting the uncharacteristic fear in his voice. “There was a bit of bleeding, but it’s stopped already with the help of a few stitches. We’ll keep her under close watch for a few days, but I have no doubt she will live a long, healthy life.” My eyes move to the swaddled babe in my arms. He has a dark crop of hair and a tiny rosebud mouth. The pointed tips of his ears are so delicate, I can nearly see through them. “So will your son.”
“We owe you a great debt, Rhya,” Uther says solemnly. He looks at his son, cradled in my arms, and his steady gray gaze glosses with emotion. “One I vow to repay, however I am able.”
My airway feels thick. My emotions thrash and throttle, a raging storm within. I manage only a nod in response.
Carys’s eyes crack open. She smiles weakly at her husband. “He looks like you, handsome. But he’s got my lungs. You should’ve heard him hollering when he took his first breath…”
“I wish I had, my love. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. We weren’t at the barracks. We were on the upper plateau, securing the perimeter guard posts before the festival—”
“Shh.” She lifts her hand to cover his as he strokes her cheek. “Rhya and I managed well enough on our own.”
Uther looks to me. “Pendefyre felt your distress through the bond. He knew something was wrong. If not for that, we might never have known. It would’ve been hours before we returned.”
I pass the child into Uther’s capable arms and retreat to givethe new family a moment of privacy. Before I make it two paces, Carys’s hand shoots out and catches me around the wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.
“Rhya.”
I turn back to her, brows raised.
“Thank you,” she says. “From the farthest reaches of my heart. Thank you for being here.”
“There’s no need to thank me. You did all the work.”
My words come out in a stiff voice that sounds nothing like my own. The emotions whirling inside me are edging into a place I can no longer control. Sweat beads my forehead. My heart is pounding. My stomach is a ball of lead. I have to get out of here,now, before I break down completely. Before the intensity of my feelings overwhelms me.
I smile at her with as much warmth as I can muster, then quietly extract myself. I might feel more guilty in fleeing if the midwife were not there, swooping in to examine Carys and her son with the shrewd eyes of an expert. She nods at me, a gesture of mutual respect, as our paths cross halfway across the courtyard.