“And how long is that?”
She took a breath. “Three days. Perhaps four.”
“Three days.” Three days out of what should have been another four- or five-hundred years at least. “Is she awake?”
He knew each answer she had to give caused his mother more pain, but he had to know. “No.”
“And she won’t be again, will she?”
“No.”
He gave a snort that couldn’t possibly pass for a laugh. “Then why bother keeping her alive?”
“Because you’ll need to say good-bye. You all will.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I’ll stay until—” She cleared her throat again. “I’ll stay for as long as you need me. And I’ll do what I can.”
Which, at the moment was nothing, but instead of saying that, he simply said, “Thank you.”
Briec stared into the large crib holding his niece and nephew while around him healers and midwives bustled about.
They were both extremely—he frowned—well-developed babes. They didn’t look like newborns at all. They seemed older. In fact, they seemed to be more like dragon hatchlings in many ways. Both had full heads of hair—the boy with his mother’s brown hair with light brown streaks and the girl with her father’s pitch-black hair—and their eyes were open, able to focus. Already they reached for things they wanted and could grab with their small hands.
Truly, if Briec didn’t know better, he’d swear they were nearly three months old, rather than born no more than an hour ago.
Annwyl is dying. That’s what his sister had told him a few minutes before. They’d cut the human queen open to get to her babes and then sewn her back up again. It wasn’t the procedure that was killing her. It was rare but had been done before by well-trained healers and witches, including Morfyd who helped most women in the nearby village through easy and hard births.
No, it wasn’t the procedure. It had been the babes. They’d literally sucked the life from their mother, growing too fast and becoming too powerful for her human body to contain them. Now Annwyl was almost skeletal on her bed, the skin that was always taut around powerful muscle sagging on her.
Unintentionally, the babes had drained her of her life’s energy, and now the only thing keeping her heart beating and her lungs breathing was the Dragon Queen. The most powerful Dragonwitch that Briec knew of.He finally tore his gaze away from the sleeping babes and looked at one of the midwives. “Talaith?”
“She went to fetch the nursemaid who will feed the twins, my lord.”
He nodded, but Briec had already seen the nursemaid outside the room, talking to another healer.
With one last look at his niece and nephew, he slipped from the room, glad to see the guards placed outside the door. He checked his room and the kitchens, the Great Hall, and the library. He went outside and eventually caught her scent. He followed it through the woods to a small lake that few thought about because it was hidden by the trees and several large boulders. Many a night they’d come here and Briec had spent hours making Talaith sob his name.
Now his Talaith sobbed for a different reason.
She kneeled by the lake, her torso bent over her legs, her arms around her waist—and she wailed. She wailed as he’d never heard her before. This woman, who’d been through absolute hell and back, wailed for a friend she’d come to love as a sister and for the heartbreak of a family she now saw as her own.
Briec kneeled down behind her, his knees spread so he could pull her into his body. He held her tight in his arms, leaning over her so she could feel him surrounding her. So she could know that she didn’t have to go through this alone.
Her hands gripped his arms, the small fingers digging into the chain-mail shirt covering him.
And he let her wail. He let her wail not only for herself but for all of them. Because Talaith no longer had to be anything but what she was. She was no monarch. She had no kingdom to rule. No politics to concern herself with.
She was simply a woman whose heart was breaking. And Briec was grateful that at least one of them could show it.
Dagmar had learned very early in life that animals felt and understood more than humans ever gave them credit for. Knowing this, she went to the stables where they kept Annwyl’s horse. As soon as she saw the powerful stallion, she knew he knew. He was pushed up against the back wall, the mare in the stall beside him, pressing her majestic head against his neck.
Cautiously, Dagmar opened the gate to his stall and stepped inside, making sure to close the gate behind her. This would definitely be one of those times her father would yank her by the hair and tell her not to be stupid, but when it came to animals, Dagmar always followed her instincts—and they’d never failed her.
She approached the enormous beast, wondering how Annwyl ever sat, much less fought, on top of such an animal. She moved carefully, doing her best not to startle him. The mare watched her closely, wanting to see what she might be up to.
Once she stood next to him, Dagmar reached out and brushed her hand against his side. The stallion moved restlessly but didn’t strike out.
She held up the fur blanket she had in her arms, showing it to the mare. Soft brown eyes blinked at Dagmar but the mare didn’t do much of anything else.
Dagmar really wished this was a dog. Dogs she understood so easily. But horses were different and she knew that. She also knew that the horse would be forgotten for the next few days, even though he loved Annwyl as much as anyone else. The bond between a horse and rider was the same as between dog and handler. It went beyond being a mere pet. It was a partnership where one trusted the other and vice versa. Of all the bonds she knew, it was the most indestructible and the most unappreciated.