Page 54 of A Fate of Wings
Cara was the sweetest woman. She cared for me as though I were her daughter. If nothing, I’d always have her kindness. A memory no one would take from me. Seamus had thawed toward me, but his worried frowns never left whenever helooked at me and my growing stomach. Cara was beyond ecstatic that a baby would grace her house soon. Since she and Seamus longed for children of their own, I often felt guilty that I was pregnant with no memory of how, why, or the father.
As I stood at the kitchen wash bowl cleaning the dinner dishes, a sharp pain stabbed my lower back. The plate in my hand clattered to the ground, shattering into three jagged pieces.
“What’s wrong?” Cara rushed to my side, placing her always comforting arm around my shoulders.
“My back.” I gasped as the pain radiated across my front, clenching my stomach muscles in a pain-filled howl. “And stomach.” I clenched her hand. “Something is wrong with me.”
Cara smiled and patted my shoulder. “’Tis time for the baby. No need to worry.”
“Cara.” I gripped her hands as another wave of pain seared my insides. “It hurts so much.”
“All part of the process I’m afraid.” She helped me inch over to the dining chair and sink onto the hard wood. “Sitting is a suitable position. Gravity will help you deliver the babe.”
I rubbed my rounded stomach housing the baby I’d nurtured inside for months, a small piece of my past, of who I was, and what I was might reveal itself to me today. Fear skittered down my spine. What if the baby didn’t survive?
Cara boiled water and set rags on the table. Seamus paced by the fireplace, his gaze skittering to the door repeatedly as though he imagined the father would burst through the timber the second the baby entered this world.
“I can’t do this.” Tears welled in my eyes from the pain swallowing me whole and the fear rendering me useless.
“You can and you will.”
She rubbed my back in soothing circles as my breathing hitched with the next wave of pain. Why did it feel like the babywas trying to claw its way out? I screamed as intense pressure pushed down on me.
“Hold on to the table.” Cara urged me to stand, gathered my dress in her arms, and drew it up to my waist. “The baby is right there. I can see the head. Push. Push, Aurnia.”
She’d taken it upon herself to name me Aurnia, meaning golden lady. It sounded like ornery whenever she said it, but I found that amusing. Seamus said it was because I was stubborn, and the name fit me for that reason. I knew the name wasn’t mine, but Cara had been so kind, I allowed her the small pleasure of giving me a name to go by.
I staggered to standing. My fingers clenched the rim of the table, and I pushed and pushed. My head pounded with the rush of blood. Ringing wailed in my ears. The pain kept coming. My shoulder blades itched. Wings burst free. With one last push, the baby slipped out of my body and into Cara’s waiting arms.
The babe was a boy. She gathered him close. His name whispered in my ear?Drarkuus. I don’t know where the name emanated from and the fact I understood I couldn’t say his name aloud, but it was there inside the darkness of my head. One thought from my past and present combined. A merging of the two that gave me something back of myself.
“Dia, he’s adorable,” Cara gushed, cleaning his tiny face tenderly with a soft rag and then bundling him in a warm blanket.
I gazed at his tiny form, overwhelmed with love for this baby who was mine and a part of me.
“He’s so tiny,” I said, sagging into the chair.
“Seamus, destroy the rags,” Cara said. “We can’t risk anyone finding out or even using the blood in spells.”
Seamus hurried forward, collected the rags, and disappeared outside into the darkness of the moonless night.
“What does it matter? No one has come for me.” I was more alone than I’d ever been in this place, even with my baby in this world. This moment should have been special between two mates who loved each other like Cara and Seamus, but here I was alone. So very alone and broken.
“They will.” She handed me the babe.
I stared at the bundle in my arms and into the adorable face of my baby. Mine and whose? The darkness in my mind thickened as though seeking to think of the baby’s father made the void worse. I touched my forehead, willing the darkness to disappear and for light to blast away the constant worry of not knowing.
“Why can’t I remember?” I whispered in an anguished voice.
Cara’s gaze pitied me. Never had I seen that look on her face in all the months I’d lived with her, working alongside her, and letting her teach me the way of her home and village. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, trying to ease my breathing.
“Take him, Cara. Name him, for I can’t find the word.”
She scooped the baby out of my arms.
“How about Cillian?”
“Yes. I like it. You’ll take care of Cillian for me, won’t you? If someone comes for me.”