Page 2 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

"Please." I don't know what else to do, who else to seek out for help. As the farmer leaves, quietly shaking his head as he closes the door behind him, I'm left with no one else but the mortal midwife.

Wringing her hands together in front of her dirtied apron, she frowns as she turns her attention back to Ariadne and me. "You are not like us," she begins.

I close my eyes. Ah, that fucking class system of Tryphone's. Mortals and Gods. I want to curse his arrogance. To come to this world and set our society up as benevolent Gods to the people here is such a sick kind of oppression. I turn my head down.

"No, ma'am," I say. "We're not."

"I-I want your assurance that I'll not be punished should I fail." Her stuttering, fear-filled demand has my head snapping back up and my eyes opening to settle on her.

"You'll help us?"

She inhales deeply and moves forward. Grabbing a crate set against the far wall beneath a wall sconce illuminated by a collection of burning oil, she drags it to the end of the bed. "If you promise me and give me your oath that I shall not be punished if nothing can be done," she tells me. "If you are"—she pauses and swallows—"what I think you are then no doubt, your wife will survive this birth. The child..." Her brown eyes spear over me, examining. "Is it half-mortal? You worry that it will not survive? I was always told that, erm, special blood would heal any wound and that death could not come for those of ... Divine lineage for something like this."

The reality of what I am asking of this woman and the danger it would put her in crashes over me. Of course, all of Tryphone's propaganda about the damned 'Gods' and our 'Divine Blood' would have reached even the furthest regions of Anatol in the last several hundred years.

"You don't want them in pain, yes?" she asks.

I latch on to the excuse immediately. "She will survive, as will the babe, but undying as we are, the pain may make her wish for a death that will never come."Lies. Lies. Lies."I give you my word, here and now, that you shall not be blamed should you fail to..."

She nods as if that was the answer she expected. "I'll need a clean set of towels, hot water, and..." The woman begins listingoff a collection of other items and I release Ariadne's hand—only realizing when it falls to the bed that it'd gone limp—to do her bidding.

When I glance down, Ariadne's face is contorted in a mess of pain and her chest pumps up and down rapidly. Unable to stop myself, I brush a strand of her hair back from her sweat-coated forehead and press a kiss to her temple. "Not long now, Ari," I whisper. "Just hang in there a little longer."

I leave her and turn to go attend to the midwife's demands. When I return with several fresh towels from the tavern's innkeeper as well as hot water and the many other things requested, I find that the midwife has propped Ariadne's feet on either corner of the slender bed. Ariadne's knees are tilted outward, and her upper body is half-sitting with another crate between her at the wall with pillows to cushion her spine. I settle the objects at the midwife's side.

"What else might I do?"

Sweat coating her face, she points to the place between Ariadne's legs. "I shall need you to be here," she orders. "I will tell you what to do, but due to your ... circumstances"—I want to grunt at that comment, wishing more than I ever have before that I could slit Tryphone's throat. I've never been violent, but if anything the Great Divine Liar should receive some punishment for what he's put us all through—"I fear that if I try to turn the babe, a contraction will shatter my hand. Your fingers are far slimmer than Gazzeg’s." I assume she means the farmer, so I simply nod. "I shall talk you through how to turn the child to allow the birth."

All at once, the midwife and I switch places. I find myself positioned on the crate between Ariadne's legs with the other woman at my back, her soft hand gentle on my shoulder.

"Alright," she says, "we're going to ease our way in." A strange sort of sickness takes root in my gut as I follow thewoman's commands. More blood, all over my hands, pours out. Ariadne cries out.

"She's in pain." I move to pull out. "I should stop."

"No!" The midwife's hand becomes punishing on my shoulder. "We must turn the child now." I glance back and see that her eyes aren't on me but Ariadne. She shakes her head. "If I didn't know better about you Divine Beings, I'd say that she's already on death's doorstep."

Fuck."What do I do?" I snap, grabbing her attention once more. Should Ariadne die here and the woman find out the truth of our secrets, I'll have to kill her. As much as I don't want to, to leave her living with the knowledge of our kind would be to punish her with something far worse. Tryphone would torture her for the information on who revealed themselves and then he would kill her, slowly and painfully.

The midwife shakes herself and refocuses on the task at hand. Then, after much twisting and turning, the sensation of a small body descending, head first, through Ariadne's womb makes my heart thud a new beat in my chest.A knowing. Not now. Please, not now. I clench my teeth and shove back the vision with sheer force of will.

"Almost there." The midwife's voice comes from somewhere far away, though I know she's still right next to me. "Alright, let me?—"

She moves into position, ready to take over, but it's too late. With another gush across my hands, I draw back and the babe follows. A sharp infant's cry echoes throughout the room and for the first time in hours, Ariadne seems to gain some strength. She sits up a bit more.

"My baby?" she asks, breathless.

"Oh, dear, good job," the midwife says, breathing a sigh of relief.

Bright gray eyes open as I hold the child in my palms, one behind her small head and the other beneath her butt. The midwife moves around, soaking one of the towels in the hot water and grabbing one of the utensils she'd asked me for to snip the cord still attached to the child's belly. I find myself unable to move to help her. All of my focus remains on the red-faced infant in my palms. Tiny. Fragile. Resilient.

"Congratulations, Mother darling," the midwife says as she wipes around my hands, cleaning the babe of the blood and other things coating her small form. "Your daughter is beautiful and, going by those lungs, quite healthy."

"A girl?" Ariadne's voice is high, hopeful.

Standing on shaky legs, I take four jolting steps around the frame of the bed to the head where Ariadne's wide eyes are staring at me and the bundle I hold. She reaches out and though it pains me, I release the infant into her waiting arms. "Oh, she's beautiful." A misty sheen I've never seen enters Ariadne's eyes. Through all that we have experienced—fleeing our homes, fighting with her parents over their poor choices reigning over the people of this world, losing friends—she's never cried. Not once.

She does so now. Big, fat tears roll down her face as she holds the babe close to her, right between her breasts. I'm only distantly aware of the midwife, cleaning things up, collecting as many of the bloodied sheets as she can and stuffing them into one of the crates, turned back over so that the hollow side is open.

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