"No! Oh, no!" Tohrment's face was ashen as he reached out. "Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe! No!"
"Whyever are you--"
At first, Darius could make no sense of what he saw. It appeared. . . that the hilt of Tohrment's dagger protruded from the sheets covering the female's still-rounded belly.
And her pale, now bloodied hands were slowly slipping down from the weapon to land at her sides.
"She took it!" Tohrment gasped. "From my belt--I. . . It was so fast. . . . I bent down to cover her and. . . she unsheathed the--"
Darius's eyes shot to the female's. Her stare was locked on the fire in the hearth, a single tear easing down her cheek as the life light began to drift out of her.
Darius knocked over the tub of water by the bed in his scramble to get to her. . . to take out the dagger. . . to save her. . . to. . .
The wound she had imparted to herself was a mortal one, in light of all she had been through during the birthing. . . and yet Darius could not help himself from fighting to save her.
"Leave not your daughter!" he said, leaning down with the squirming young. "You have brought forth a healthy babe! Lift thine eyes, lift thine eyes!"
As the sound of water dripping from the upended bowl seemed loud as a gunshot, no answer came forth from the female.
Darius felt his mouth moving and had the sense that he was talking-- but for some reason, all he could hear was the soft rain of that spilled water while he begged for the female to stay with them. . . for her daughter's sake, for the hope of the future, for the ties that he and Tohrment were prepared to forge with her so that she was never alone as she sought to raise what she had birthed.
As he felt something upon his britches, he frowned and glanced down.
'Twas not water that fell to the floor. 'Twas blood. Hers.
"Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe. . . " he whispered.
Verily, the female had chosen her course and sealed her fate.
Her last breath was naught but a shudder and then her head listed to the side, her eyes seemingly still locked upon the flames licking at the logs. . . when in fact, she saw nothing and would be sightless e'ermore.
The wail of the newborn and that forsaken dripping were the only sounds in Darius's thatched cottage that he could hear. And indeed, it was the young's plaintive mewling that threw him into action, for there was naught to accomplish about the spilled blood or the life lost. Grabbing the swaddling blanket that had been made for the little one, he carefully wrapped up the wee innocent and held her to his heart.
Oh, the cruel fate that had brought about this miracle. And now what?
Tohrment looked up from the bloodied birthing bed and the now cooling body, his eyes burning with horror. "I but turned away for a moment. . . may the Scribe Virgin forgive me. . . but for a moment did I--"
Darius shook his head. When he went to speak, he had no voice, so he placed his palm upon the boy's shoulder and squeezed to offer comfort. As Tohrment sagged in his own skin, the wailing grew louder.
The mother was gone. The daughter remained.
Darius bent down with the new life in his arms, and retracted Tohrment's dagger from the belly of the female. He put it aside, and then he closed the lids on those eyes and drew up fresh sheeting o'er the face.
"She will not go unto the Fade," Tohrment moaned as he put his head in his hands. "She has doomed herself. . . . "
"She was doomed by the actions of others. " And the greatest sin among them was the cowardice of her father. "She was doomed long afore. . . oh, merciless fate, she was doomed long afore. . . Surely the Scribe Virgin shall look upon her in her death with a favor she was not granted in her life. "
Oh. . . damned. . . cursed, damned fate. . .
Even as he railed against so much in his head, Darius took the tiny young closer to the fire, because he was worried about the chill in the air. As the two of them came within the circle of warmth, she opened her mouth and routed about. . . and for lack of a better alternative, he offered his pinkie for her to suckle on.
With the tragedy still loud as a scream, Darius took in the tiny features and watched as the little one reached out toward the light.
The eyes were not red. And upon that hand there were five digits, not six. And the jointing of the fingers was normal. Briefly opening the swaddling cloth, he checked the feet and the belly and the little head. . . and found that the abnormal length of feature and limb characteristic of sin- eaters was not represented.
Darius's chest roared with pain for the female who had carried this life within her body. She had become a part of both him and Tohrment--and even though she rarely spoke and never smiled, he knew that she had cared for them as well.
The three of them had been a kind of family.