Chapter Twenty-One
Nevia twisted uncomfortably on the divan. It was bitterly cold, but she had had her divan dragged out to the edge of the hallway where it overlooked the snow-covered peristyle. Melenius was across the room, his own divan as close to the fireplace as it could be without catching fire.
Melenius was sleeping, and the gauntness of his face, the hollowness of his cheeks above his beard, stabbed through Nevia with a pain that took her breath. He was dying, and she had failed him. Elemental tears trickled through Nevia’s earth, but she forced them back. There was too much of Garalach in her tears. She sat up. A slow pain built in her abdomen, and she tried to get to her feet. Something was not right.
“Domina?” Her motion brought a slave running to her side.
Nevia would have smiled in her fires at the knowledge that all of the slaves that had belonged to Belamal were now gone. Only those loyal to her, those purchased in the country, now remained. But even a smile was too much elemental effort.
“Snow,” said Nevia. “In a cup.”
“Yes, Domina.”
“That is all you have taken for two days, my snowflake.” Melenius had come to her side, and she had not heard him.
“It is what I need,” said Nevia. “It is you.”
Melenius pressed his lips to her brow. “What is wrong? Do you feel worse?”
“What do you mean?” Nevia laid her hands on her aching belly. “It is not possible to feel worse.”
“You have been wincing in your earth every five minutes.”
“But you were sleeping.” Nevia nestled against Melenius’s chest.
“I was resting, not sleeping.” Melenius stroked her hair. “And your pains are regular.”
Nevia nodded. “It might be the baby. Perhaps we should send for the midwife.”
“I bought one from Vieta.” Melenius swept her back to the divan as she buckled in her pain. “She is already in the house.”
Nevia closed her eyes. The pains grew in strength, but that did not concern her. The pains of childbirth were the lot of every woman, and she did not fear them. It was not fear of the delivery that gripped her. It was fear of failure. She did not expect to survive the birth, and she knew that Melenius did not expect it, either. His eyes, as dark as the starless sky, were filled with the horror of his airs. Nevia dreaded death, but she did not fear it. She feared dying without having given birth.
“Thank you, Melenius.” She held his hand in both of hers. The pain came then, and it stole her breath and thought. When it passed, she still clung to Melenius’s hand, and he was still at her side.
“I will be here, wife.” Melenius put the cup with snow in it to Nevia’s lips with his free hand. “Always.”
Nevia did not speak. She was too weary, too weak. She simply waited for the next wave of pain.
When it came, Nevia thought she would drown. Agony ripped through her, a terrible burning, but it was not the pain that pressed her down. It was Garalach in her waters. Water closed over her head, and everything around her was pushed back. There was distance between her and everything else. There was a cushion of water around her; she was divided from the world by Garalach.
“Raise her head, Dominus. Support her back if you can.”
Nevia did not recognize the female voice that spoke, and she could not bring herself to think about the speaker. She felt hands pushing through the waters that surrounded her, strong, vital hands. Melenius with her. His hands held her up. She leaned against him.
“That is good, Dominus. She responds to you.”
“Of course she does.” Melenius’s breath somehow pierced the water and dried a small place behind Nevia’s ear.
“Not all women do, Dominus.” That strange female voice hovered somewhere at Nevia’s feet now. “I’ve seen them get angry, sometimes so angry I have to send the men out.”
“Angry?” Melenius’s air held laughter. “If anyone would be angry, I should think it would be my Nevia.”
“Angry at the men for getting them with child, Dominus.”
“Ah, now that you do not blame me for, do you, my snowflake?” Those words were breathed into Nevia’s ear.
Nevia forced her lips to move, despite the fact that Garalach’s waters would flow into her as she spoke. “Never.”
The waters must have altered the way her voice sounded, for Melenius’s grasp tightened on her shoulders.
When had his grasp moved to her shoulders? Nevia was frustrated with herself. The water was cutting her off from her surroundings. She was missing time.
The water hurt. The pain concentrated in her abdomen. The pressure there grew unbearable.
“How long will she be this way?”
“I don’t know, Dominus. Sometimes it can take two days even, especially for a firstborn.”
“She can’t last two days like this.”
****
Somewhere, someone was shouting. Nevia hoped it was not she who was shouting. She did not want to deliver in so undignified a way. She moved her lips, but the shouts did not alter.
“What … noise?” Nevia did not recognize the dry rasp as her own voice.
“Give her some water, Dominus.”
“She won’t take water.” Snow was pushed into her mouth, and Nevia swallowed it greedily.
“The noise is the outcry in the city, my wife.”
Nevia forced her eyes open, despite the sting of the water against them. She could see Melenius through the water, and his face pleased her. “Why?” she asked.
“Belamal is due to return with his army in two weeks.” Melenius stroked her hair off her face, and Nevia wished she could smile at the sweet futility of the action. Why smooth down the hair of a drowning woman? “He has sacked Kelnapontum, and Nirrion is victorious. The whole city rejoices at the news.”
“I … shan’t see him.” It was hard to speak against the water that poured down her throat when she tried to form words. Why would that water not quench her thirst?
“I will not let him see you, my snowflake.”
Nevia wanted to tell Melenius to make sure she had been burned before Belamal’s return, but something even apart from the water prevented her. The pain in her belly was a raging fire, and she wondered how such a thing could happen to one submerged in water.
“The baby is getting close, Dominus.”
Nevia wished this strange woman would leave. Why was this woman here?
“You are doing beautifully, Nevia.” Melenius pressed his lips to her brow. “Soon we will hold our child.”
“Son.” Nevia remembered that she was carrying low.
“If it is a daughter, I will not mind.” Melenius was teasing her, and Nevia’s heart burned. Only there, in the center of herself, was there any flame left. Only her love for Melenius still burned in her. All her fires were doused.
Something was hurting her. Something was clawing at her insides. Her own body seemed to want to collapse in on itself with the intensity of the contractions that racked her. She wanted to expel the thing that was hurting her, but she did not have the strength. She was at the mercy of her body and of her child.
The sounds around her altered. The shouting had a different quality. She wanted to ask Melenius about it, but every time she tried to open her mouth, water poured in.
“I can see the baby’s head, Dominus.”
“Did you hear that? It’s nearly over, Nevia.”
A great ripping, tearing, and burning came then. All the elements of the world rippled and trembled. Not only her own cursed waters, not only her own weakened earth and air, not only her own ashes – all the elements of the world responded to this chiefest agony. And then Nevia felt relief. She was still below the surface of the water, but she could think again.
“It’s a son, Dominus.”
Melenius’s lips brushed her cheek, and Nevia opened her eyes once more. Melenius cradled her against his breast. “Our son, Nevia.”
“His name is … Melenius then.” Now that she w
as not being dragged down deeper into the water by the pains, Nevia could speak a little.
“No, we Faror are not so vain.” Melenius kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ve no objections to naming him for the greatest general of Nirrion.”
“Arixus?”
“Yes.” Melenius received a swaddled bundle from the slave Nevia knew must be just out of her field of vision.
“Not Belamal.” She did not want her son to bear the name of a clan so unconnected with him.
“No, Arixus Akar Judal.” Melenius shifted her weight against him, supporting her arms so that she could hold the baby. “Your father will be adopting him soon, remember?”
“Our son.” Nevia kissed the baby. Only then did she examine him. The boy already cried lustily in her arms, and she saw his straight, strong arms. “Legs?”
“They are perfect,” said Melenius. “I saw them before he was swaddled.”
“Beautiful.” Nevia rejoiced at the darkness of the baby’s hair, so like his father’s hair. “What color … are his eyes?”
“Black.”
“Like yours.” Nevia tried to lift the baby to her lips for another kiss, but she lacked the strength. Melenius helped her.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, except for you, my snowflake.” Melenius ran his finger along the baby’s cheek.
“Will the Domina be wanting to suckle the child?”
“Yes.” Nevia leaned back against Melenius, but despite that, she could not support the baby.
“If the Domina lies down, then she should be able to nurse the boy that way.”
“Not here. It’s too cold.” Melenius scooped up both Nevia and the baby, and he carried them into an inner chamber of the house.
The room where he settled them was nearer the outer wall of the townhouse. The sounds of screams penetrated to Nevia’s ears, and as Melenius laid her in the bed, she asked, “What is happening?”
“I don’t know.” Melenius laid little Arixus beside her. “I will send someone to ask.”
Nevia was not sure how to get the baby to latch on to her breast, but the midwife was somehow there again. Nevia hated the waters that kept her from noticing or hearing things as well as she should. She watched as the midwife held Arixus by the back of his neck, putting his eager little mouth on Nevia’s nipple.
The baby latched on, and he sucked greedily.
“I have lived long enough,” said Nevia. “I have given you your son, and I have nursed him. I have done more than I thought I could.”
“Don’t say that, Nevia.”
“Dominus?” A male voice, one not belonging to Melenius, echoed down through the water that still covered Nevia.
“What is it?”
“The sounds in the street, Dominus. The citizens are weeping. There is not a pregnant woman in Nirrion who has not given birth tonight.”
“What?” Melenius’s roar sounded almost as though it were not muffled by water.
“Yes, Dominus.”
“But surely they could not all be at term when Nevia was?”
“No, Dominus. Most of the babes were too early, and they are dead. That is why Nirrion weeps.”
“Arixus...” Nevia mustered her strength. “When he was born, his elements shook the world.”
“You felt it, too?” Melenius knelt beside the bed and traced Arixus’s ear. “He will be great.”
Nevia nodded. The waters pressed too heavily upon her, and she could not speak. Her son, Melenius’s son, had been born amid weeping and pain. Even now the sounds of rioting broke through the waters that blocked up her ears. Riots and birth and pain and death. Fire and Air and Earth and Water. Melenius and Nevia and Arixus and Garalach. Garalach, here with her at the birth of her child. Garalach, interposing himself into the bed she shared with Melenius. Garalach, killing her.
“Melenius.” Nevia could not sit up, but she wanted him.
“I am here.” Melenius’s breath was on her cheek, his hand on her shoulder.
“Do not leave me.”
“I won’t. You know that.”
“Don’t take … Arixus to my father. … Let … father come here. Don’t … go.”
“I will stay with you.” Melenius kissed her lips, and to her horror, Nevia felt that his lips were colder than her own.
“Forgive me, husband. You are suffering. You must rest, too.”
“And I will. Right here.” Melenius lay down behind her, cradling her against him. He reached over her, taking both her and Arixus into his embrace.
Nevia was ready for death.
****
Arixus was a week old. The celebrations that would have attended his birth, the birth of the supposed heir to Belamal Triumphant, had not taken place due to the woe of the city, and Nevia was just conscious enough of her surroundings to be glad that it was so. They had had to take a nurse for Arixus. She was too weak to feed him sufficiently, but she suckled him all she could. Arixus’s bright elements rejoiced her, and she hoped that she would be allowed, from Nistaran’s halls, to hear of the exploits of her son by Melenius.
“The adoption will be today, Nevia.” Melenius, always at her side, lifted her hand to his lips. The chill of his breath still shocked Nevia, but she was glad to feel it. It was the only thing she could feel. Everything else was blocked by Garalach’s poisonous water. She hated Garalach now, hated him as she never had for deceiving Melenius into sleeping with him, hated him as she would not have had the curse touched her only. It was the death of Melenius that was too much for Nevia.
“Would you rather I live on without you then?” asked Melenius.
“I did … not know I had … spoken.”
“You speak more often than you know, my wife.”
“What do … I say?” Nevia wanted Melenius to hold her, but asking would use too many words.
“Mostly you talk to me.” Melenius must have sensed her desire without words, for he lay down beside her on the bed and pulled her against him. “You tell me that you love me, that you will miss me.”
“I will.”
“No, you won’t.” Melenius kissed the back of her neck. “I’ll be right behind you, following you into Nistaran’s halls.”
“I wish … you were not. You … should live.”
“I wouldn’t want to, my snowflake, not without you.” Melenius’s words were a cool breath, somehow touching her through the water.
“Still.”
“Would you want me to live on, taking other lovers?” Melenius kissed her cheek.
“No.” Nevia would have laughed in her fires if she had had any left.
“You are thirsty.” Nevia felt Melenius’s finger trace over her lips. “I will bring you some snow.” He rose from the bed, and Nevia ached for his coolness to chase away her fever.
She was alone, and it began. Death lay beside her where her husband had lain, and Nevia’s heart broke. She would not last until Melenius returned. Her elements were all drowned. Her fires were doused, her airs and earth overwhelmed, and all her waters poisoned. She wanted Melenius, and he was gone.
So long as one could hold a breath, so long Nevia had. Her elements were drowned, but she waited beneath water, holding on to see Melenius’s face, to die in his arms.
She was slipping.
Sounds. Sounds at the doorway. Nevia’s gaze was fixed there, and her heart fluttered. She would die looking into Melenius’s face.
“So, I find you at last, whore!” Belamal burst into the room and ran toward Nevia. He was upon her, his hands around her throat, before she could blink.
“You planned this all along, filthy strumpet!” He shook her, and all of Garalach’s waters evaporated. Nevia’s skin frosted over; her fever vanished; her fires blazed within her. Somehow, Belamal’s presence had counteracted Garalach’s curse.
Nevia smiled in all her elements, and she sent flames washing over her skin, flames to consume Belamal. But as her fires touched him, they died.
She understood then. One cannot burn ashes.
Belamal had been consumed by her fires, utterly and completely. He was impervious to all elements. They fled from him. His presence had caused all her elements to flee, to draw back from her, and that, as she had long ago realized, was the only means of lifting the curse.
The irony that her death was still upon her, despite the curse’s lifting, was not lost on Nevia.
“’Congratulations, General!’ they say to me!” Belamal shook her again. “’Congratulations on your victory! Congratulations on the birth of your son!’” His laughter was loud, raucous, and completely without mirth. “I never touched you! And after Kelnapontum, I never could!”
Nevia clawed ineffectually at Belamal’s hands around her throat. She was not surprised to learn that Belamal had become impotent when her fires in him had died. Blackness swam before her eyes, but she did not feel fear. She did not feel sorrow, even. The curse had been lifted, and that meant Melenius would live. Melenius would take their son to Faror and raise him. Melenius would—
Chapter Twenty-Two
Melenius bent down to scoop up soft snow into a small, tin cup. The night was quiet, a first since the birth of Arixus. Melenius could only assume that the city garrison had quelled the riots, though he had already seen the glow of fires on the Kuthevi and Meikavi hills. Nirrion had burned, but now it mourned its infant dead. He had never seen the city more solemn.
Melenius filled the cup and rose, though it was difficult to do so. His body rebelled against his will like an old man’s feeble frame might. The curse of Garalach’s waters subdued his spirit and infected him with an unshakable lethargy. How much worse it was for Nevia who bore the brunt of the curse! Melenius did not want to think about the inevitable – he had come to terms with his own death, but Nevia’s was another matter. Time and time again he had upbraided the gods for their injustice, but his prayers had fallen on a deaf heaven. This did not surprise him; he never had been religious, preferring to depend on himself, not vain sacrifices, for what he wanted.
Melenius put one sluggish foot in front of the other, making his return to the bedchamber. If this snow could give Nevia even the smallest amount of comfort, he would have walked beyond the bounds of the republic for her. Whatever ease he could give her, he would, even to his last dregs of strength.
Chasing Earth and Flame Page 21