Page 40 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
Winter Solstice
Editor’s note: the text contained in the hidebound journal kept by Parisi of Madurai is partially damaged, and some words are illegible due to water splotches. The editor has done her best in making coherent sentences in those cases.
My beloved Parisi is dying. She asked me to make note of the events of this day in her journal, and I will do so only because I have sworn to do whatever she asks of me.
In the middle of the night, Parisi’s woman fetched Desi from Abaddon, telling him, “My beloved Sovereign has asked for you. I told her that to have one as you around her would only suck the good miasma away from her body, but she insists.”
“She has started birthing?” he asked as he flung her up on a fresh horse, and mounted his own.
“Yes. Several hours ago.” Mags’s voice wobbled as they set off at a speed Desi knew they couldn’t keep for long. Fortunately, Parisi had caused a little-known portal to the Court to be made within an hour’s ride of the Bali entrance to Abaddon. “All is not going well. She sent me to fetch you in case ...”
Desi refused to finish her sentence, either mentally or out loud. It seemed to take both forever and no time before he followed Mags into the entrance, and was immediately hustled into a darkened room pierced by pools of flickering light.
“My love,” he said, clutching at Parisi’s hand where she lay propped up on a number of pillows. Her face was pale and damp, tendrils of her hair clinging to her sweaty face. “My life, my heart, my sun and moon.”
“Always so dramatic,” she answered, her voice rough as if she’d been screaming. She turned to look at him, a small smile curling the edges of her mouth. “But I am glad you are here to see our child born.”
“Is there no water to wipe her face?” he asked when she sank back into her pillows, obviously exhausted. The thin shift she wore was glued to her body, the mound of her belly making him feel simultaneously happy and terrified. What if something happened to her or the babe? “Where is the midwife? Can nothing be done for Parisi’s distress? Are there no medicines?”
Mags had been in the corner, speaking with an aged woman who looked to be as old as the rocks that made up the walls of Parisi’s keep. All others had been sent from the room, no doubt to keep them from becoming aware of his presence. The old woman shuffled forward, gesturing toward him. He frowned, unsure of what she wanted before Parisi said, “That is Aurora, our wisewoman. She wishes you to kneel before her.”
Instantly, Desi felt irritated that some old woman thought he would so debase himself before her—he was Desislav the Destroyer, prince of Abaddon, and lord of seven hundred legions. He did not kneel before anyone.
The old lady stopped before him. He knelt, forcing himself to be passive when she took his chin in her hand and studied him with eyes that were clouded white. For a moment, he felt something akin to panic as she saw through to his soul ... and the tally of sins he had committed in his long life.
“You have much darkness in you, but it is countered by the light that shines from your soul,” the old woman said, releasing his chin to shuffle over to Parisi.
“Him?” Mags asked, sounding as surprised as he was. “Light? He has light in his soul? Are you sure it is not merely a reflection from our beloved Sovereign?”
Parisi moaned then, and clutched the bedclothes beneath her.
“Get behind her and help her push,” the old lady told him. He complied, whispering into Parisi’s ears just how much he loved her, and how she was his everything. That started what he mentally called the period of screaming, when Parisi was trying to push from her body their child.
It was afternoon before the babe was born. He barely glanced when the midwife Aurora showed him a blotchy face almost obliterated by the soft linen wrap that wound around him.
“My love? We have a son,” he told Parisi. She lay back on the pillows, her body drenched and heaving as she panted, tears mingling with sweat on her face.
She smiled despite her obvious exhaustion, a smile unlike any he had ever seen, filling him with piercing joy as she said, “A son. We have a son. Show him to me.”
Aurora, who had been attending to the cord, laid the babe gently in her arms. Parisi made noises that Desi had never heard, odd little coos that seemed to bind him to her and the babe in a way he could never imagine.
He spent the next day there, hidden in her chamber so the Court would not know their most hated foe was present.
She has not stopped bleeding since the birth. It has been a day, and still, she bleeds, and with each passing hour, she grows more pale and weaker. I despair. I begged the midwife to do whatever she needed to stop the bleeding.
After a day, Mags took me aside and said Parisi was dying.
Desi railed and begged and promised the healers and midwife untold riches if they would stop the bleeding, but they could do little.
“She has to go into the Beyond,” Mags told Desi in a whisper on the second night after the birth. “She is failing, Lord Desi. You can see that as well as I can.”
“She’ll get better,” he said, ignoring the desperation in his voice. “She can’t die, not of this. She’s the Sovereign.”
“Even immortal beings can die if they have no blood left in their bodies,” Mags said, her own eyes swimming.
He felt her grief, but could do no more than acknowledge it with a squeeze to her shoulder before turning to look at Parisi.
Mags was right. She was dying. She had to go into the Beyond. But that would leave him with the babe—
