The sun had gone down an hour or two ago, and the temperature had dropped rapidly thereafter. Although the fall of darkness usually signified a decrease in activity and noise, a settling of the palace inhabitants for the night, today would provide no such respite. The entire palace was abuzz, although the royal family wouldn't have been aware of that. Throughout the day not a single one of them had been seen outside of their quarters, though for much differing reasons. His majesty the King had been bedridden all week with a heavy fever, and had been attended by healers for the majority of his waking hours. The illness was serious enough to put him out of comission for the duration of the day, though his children were not particularly concerned about it. Jeremias was partially convinced that his strong, infallible father would be able to conquer the illness no matter what it was, but this reason paled in comparison to the main event of the day, the one which had drawn the twins' attentions away from their ailing father. They'd been awoken from their separate chambers before the sun had risen with the alarming news that today was the day--their mother had gone into labor.

Justina had spent a restless night, unable to sleep; lying down any which way was an immense discomfort, as was sitting. She spent much of her evening pacing her chambers at a slow, ponderous pace, the palms of her hands splayed out to support her lower back and the great, rolling weight of her belly. Now and again she would pause in her walking and run a hand in circles over her stomach to smooth the restless child within, but this she did more to soothe her own pain than out of motherly affection. The queen had spent these last nine months striving to be as detached as possible, and to a degree she convinced herself that she had succeeded. As the hours crawled by, the pain of constant walking was eclipsed by the growing pain in her lower back and abdomen. The more painful it became, the faster she waddled, craning her neck back and concentrating hard on the ceiling, or closing her eyes against the flashes of agony.

After some time her body convulsed in a shudder and she felt a familiar wetness between her legs. Justina called her chambermaids to her and the preparations began-- her regular bedding was stripped from her bed and replaced with crisp, stark white sheets for the birthing. The maids and midwives worked briskly, expecting this delivery to be relatively quick, considering the number of children the queen had borne-- the last being twins. As fate would have it, her labor dragged on for many, miserable hours. Morning broke and Justina sweated through it; noon came and went and the afternoon crawled by. By evening Justina was walking about the room again, until late past the ninth hour she buckled over with a low moan and allowed herself to be assisted back to the bed. From that point onward the birthing went quickly and easily, though to Justina it was every bit a chore as the rest. One last heave and she was rid of her burden, and feeling this, she collapsed back into the pillows of her bed and lay there, allowing the women around her to do as they pleased.

The cry of a newborn baby pierced the night air. Everyone within earshot paused, and Jeremias, who had been leaning against the doorframe in the hallway, stood bolt-straight. So there it was. The royal family had grown to five strong, even if the additional family member was only temporary. Justina closed her eyes against the pitiful wails of the babe as it was taken and bathed; a bitter smile curled at her lips as she thought of the irony of the gentle splashes of water between raspy howls. The child was swaddled and quieted, though Justina lay still and refused to acknowledge that they seemed to want to present it to her before the dirty deed must be done. Had her husband been present, they would not so much as dared let her look at and hold her child. The nobleman and woman watching from the corner of the room for the sake of the drowning to follow might have put a stop to it had they been of the mind to say anything, but as it was they merely stood observing the infant with hawklike glances.

The crown prince had been thinking about what he would do when the child was born all day; he'd had little else to do but think, think and pace like a nervous father. Perhaps he felt the need to step into that role because of his father's confinement to bed; he didn't even know whether the king was aware that his wife was in the process of delivering their fifth child, or if anyone had tried to tell him. In his head Jeremias had gone over the event countless times, gone over how it should be handled and what he should do, but now that he'd heard that first shrill shriek, now that the baby was here, his mind had gone blank. He blinked several times in a vain attempt to get his eyes to focus and turned, his hand trailing the doorframe as he hesitantly pushed his way into the room.

Justina was laying in the bed looking thoroughly exhausted, her hair wild and unkempt around her face, the linens covering her stained with blood. Jeremias paused in shock at the brilliant red--he'd never experienced a birth before, and didn't know if his mother was supposed to bleed that much. It didn't look healthy, and his immediate thought was that the poor woman must be dying. He almost rushed to her aid, although there was probably very little he could have done, especially if the woman's own healing Gift and the numerous nursemaids around her had not already saved her, but his attention was drawn suddenly by a fresh cry from the child. Turning his head, he saw it, cradled in the arms of a middle-aged midwife.

"Your Highness," murmured one of the midwives, and Justina pictured in her mind the seven people present in the room dipping into low curtsies. Thoroughly spent, she hardly had the energy to open her eyes, let alone to sit up. Regardless, she knew she must do so, and with a deep, tired sigh, propped herself up against the stack of pillows behind her and forced herself to resume the dignity and authority of queen. Jeremias watched attenatively; it pained him to see his mother so tired, and expending what little energy she had left for his sake. Justina reached out her arms and beckoned her son to her, while two of her maids hastily but discreetly began to clean up the mess of bloodied sheets. Trying his best to ignore the servants, 'Mias walked to the queen, giving the baby a wary glance as he did so, as if the little devil might even now, after the birth, do something to unexpectedly cause his mother pain, then bent at her bedside to hear what she would say.

"My son," she addressed tenderly, reaching up to brush away the dark bangs falling into his face. She allowed a shaky finger to smooth away the concerned, frowning line that appeared between his brows with a weak smile. "My dear Jeremias, that you should have to do this--" Justina faltered and bowed her head, her own mess of hair falling into her face and concealing the distress that showed there.

"I--I don't mind," the boy lied boldly, though his mouth had gone slightly dry at the thought. He would do it, he would force himself to do it, because the only alternative was that Justina would be the one to take the child to its death, and he knew that such an act would destroy her. He'd watched her throughout the pregnancy, had seen the affected apathy she'd put on, and he knew that no matter what happened he could never allow Justina to be the one to kill her child. He'd made the resolution the moment he'd heard that she was to give birth that day, and had known that his father would be inable to assist her. The pacing, the thinking, had only made his resolve firmer; he would not let his mother touch the baby, name it, hold it, or harm it. He would not let the tiny thing hurt his mother, if he could help it. "I'll do it."

Justina gasped a little, trying to force back the sudden, compelling urge to begin sobbing. Shaking her locks from her face, she cupped Jeremias's face in her hands and kissed his forehead. "You must do it," she whispered, her lip trembling at the thought of the cruelty of the duty she was placing in her son's hands. Somewhat more firmly, she continued, her voice wavering with unbidden emotion. "So that you may learn from the--" Justina shook her head, closing her eyes against what she might have said, knowing better than to say such in front of the servants and witnesses present. Starting again, and with forced coldness, she pressed on, "So that you may learn from the excesses of your father and I." While every one in the Palace knew how the royal couple were criticized for their 'greediness' in having so many children, Justina hoped that her son knew her well enough to know that she hoped he might challenge tradition in his own time, or at least take care not to place himself in the same position as his father.

The gravity of his mother's words settled on the prince's shoulders like a solid lead weight. The words in and of themselves were terrible, but worse still was the emotion in her voice, and the feelings he could guess were behind her words. He knew his mother hated that it had to happen, he knew that she would have preferred to take the thing in the swaddling clothes and treat it like the child it was, but he also knew that his father dictated--no, tradition dictated, the history of the country dictated--that it be drowned. His affection for both parents warring within him, but ultimately bringing him to the same conclusion, he set his lips in a tight line and did his best to keep his chin from trembling as he nodded. "I--understand." It was more than just an understanding of the deed that must be done; it was an understanding of the politics raging in his own family, of the conflict between familial attachment and emotions and the harsh law of the land. It might possibly have been the deepest thing Jeremias had said in a long while.

Unable to find the words to express what she felt, Justina let her hands fall to her son's shoulders and squeezed them tightly, trying her best to convey to him her appreciation, her love, her despair and her desire to give him courage to see him through the drowning and what turmoil he may struggle with afterwards. The baby, being bounced and shushed by an anxious midwife, continued to cry, longing to fill its belly with its mother's milk. Justina passed a hand over her eyes and doubled forward, praying ferverently that the priest would arrive soon and that it would all be done with. No more than three minutes passed before the priest and his entourage arrived in the room, snatching the baby from the midwife. There was the impartial business of unswaddling the babe and the bitter formalities to proceed through.

"A daughter," remarked the priest, passing her to one of his attendants and coming to stand beside the prince at the queen's bedside. "As is custom, your Majesty, you shall have to name the child before--"

Jeremias could barely keep his arms from shaking with anger. What sort of fool was this man, asking his mother to dwell on it, to think up a name? "Leave her alone," he snapped at the priest. It was bad enough that he'd had to sit there, watching his mother struggle to keep her mind off of the matter for three minutes while the baby screamed in the background. Turning to his mother with a look of dismay in his eyes, he extended a hand to push a wild curl of brown hair off of her sweat-dampened forehead, which Justina batted away more crossly than she meant to. "Hush, Jeremias," she scolded, but without force or anger behind it. Without sparing her daughter a glance, Justina named her "Natalia" in a low, barely audible murmur. The priest nodded and repeated the name, coaxing Justina to complete it, so that there would be a full royal title to send the princess to the Peaceful Realms with. When this had finished, the priest turned to Jeremias and beckoned him to come with him, his attendants and his newborn sister with a grim smile.

Jeremias looked down at his mother again, his face hard. "You should rest," he said coolly, then rose and walked towards the door. He hated the priest, and his smile, and he hated the attendants following behind him like a shadow. He hated the nobles who were simply watching, following like ghosts to witness and not interfere or help. He hated the situation he'd been put in, he hated all the nurses who had helped the baby safely enter that world, and most of all, he hated the tiny thing that would be recorded as his sister.

The room had been prepared earlier that day, and the prince had snuck a look at the ritual chamber earlier, so that he would know what to expect. It had felt almost ghostly to be there then, without the ceremonial priest he knew would have been with him, or the infant itself. He had assumed that when he made the actual journey into the barren room, it would seem more real to him, more concrete, but now that he was leading the entourage and listening to the baby scream behind him, he found that exactly the opposite was occuring. It was almost as though he was watching the scene unfold in his head, real only to his imagination. The twilight had forced the room into near-darkness, a ghostly glow cast over the large basin in the middle of the room by the orb someone had jinxed to light it. Across the surface of the still water it looked like the glow of moonlight.

Swallowing, and hoping that the action cleared up the nervous sensation that was threatening to consume his mind, the boy approached the water, standing about a foot away from the edge of the tub as the priest and his accompanying entourage filed into the room behind him. He could hear the crying becoming louder as the girl was brought closer, but didn't move his eyes from the dark surface of the pool. "Your Highness," the priest said, and Jeremias looked over to see that the man was holding the baby out to him. A man at the other side held a yellow robe open; it was a ceremonial outfit for this ritual.

Jeremias didn't know it was possible for his mouth to be so dry; unable to speak, he simply allowed the robe to be slipped around his shoulders and reached out with slightly trembling hands and accepted the infant. She was warm in his hands, her skin softer than anything 'Mias had felt before. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was still open in a cry, her arms and legs waving, wondering, probably, why she could not feel the walls of the womb around her. He looked down at the baby, his expression hard, but inside his mind was a battlefield of emotions and thoughts warring with each other. His mother had told him to kill the girl, but it didn't take much reading between the lines to see that if she could paint the world her way, the child would survive. Still, no matter how much his mother wished it, no matter how much he himself did not want to do it, it had to be done. It was the way the world worked, and there was no avoiding it.

Sinking to his knees, Jeremias pulled his eyes off of the infant for a moment and looked across the basin to see that the nobles had taken their places as the witnesses on the other side of the room. Behind him he could hear the shuffle of footsteps as the train of attendants fell into their places along the back wall, and he held the baby out about six inches from his chest as it continued to squirm. He tried to swallow again, but found his mouth was too dry to allow even that. Off to his left he heard the priest begin to read in Bazhir, a language he should have learned but never had. It was over far too quickly for his liking, and it was time to begin the drowning. The child, the infant, his sister, shrieked, almost, he thought, as though she could sense what was coming, although of course that was impossible. Taking a deep breath, Jeremias raised the baby in his arms until it was level with his chin, then plunged his hands down under the surface of the water. Suddenly the air was dead, quiet except for the gurgling bubbles raising to the top of the basin as the infant's lungs emptied themselves. His right hand held its chest, and he could feel the tiny, fragile ribcage beneath his fingers heave and toss weakly as the newborn princess struggled for her life. In his left hand he cupped her head, so small it fit neatly in the palm of his hand. He felt her mouth move, her lungs heavy, her arms and legs squirm wildly, then the movement slowed.

Natalia of Castell, Barzunni princess, was dead.

It was only then that Jeremias realized that as he watched her his own breathing had become quick and panicked, as if he were there with her, fighting for his life. As if his own hands were pressing down and killing him, except that his death was slower than hers. He blinked, watching the body float lifelessly in his hands, the water around his arms beginning to still. His mouth opened and he inhaled deeply, then, steeling himself, let up the pressure on his hands until the corpse raised to the top of the water and he could change his grip to scoop the infant up in his hands.

Behind him he heard the priests chant something in Bazhir, and he stood. Where his legs found the strength to not collapse beneath him, he would never know. Water stained the robe, darkening the yellow to a dirty brown and running off of his arms in cascades. The tiny body of his sister hung in his hands. The deed was done.

This post has been edited by Jeremias of Castell on Aug 14 2009, 12:34 AM