Shame

All characters belong to Chris Wooding

Aurin waited.

She had waited several hours. She had to wait until she had heard the footfalls of the servants disappear into the lower levels of the palace. She had to wait until she heard her father go to his bed chamber, listen for him pattering around the room, watch for the white glowstone light to turn dark under the closed door, and eventually for the heavy silence of his sleep. And yet Aurin, waiting against the window of her own bed chamber, kept waiting.

If one had entered her room and questioned why she was still awake, in the middle of the Dominion night, Aurin would have simply used the summer weather as her excuse. As it was, Aurin hated the Dominion weather – too hot for her likings, must be the Kirin in her that wanted to stay in the dark – and the summers were near unbearable for her. She didn't want to be here, either, and if it had been her choice, she would be sleeping peacefully in her usual bed chamber. However, Macaan was staying at the palace for some time, and when he suggested to his daughter that she spend some time with him, it was an order, not a suggestion. Aurin dreamed of the day of when she would come of age, become seventeen winters, when a parent could no longer force their child to stay by their side.

Fourteen winters was a cruel age for Aurin – already the Princess of Kirin Taq, the ruler of an entire world, and yet in her father's eyes, still a child and treated as such. But what she was waiting for, was hardly what a child ought to be doing.

The pebbles thrown against her window woke Aurin up out of her mind, and she quickly swept the window doors open and leaned out. A young man, a good couple of winters older than herself, stood on the grass three levels below the window, the smile evident on his face from even her vantage point. As was the custom, he quickly scaled the trellis against the palace walls, and swung himself into Aurin's room.

Malion, the eighteen winter son of a thane of the Dominions, dark haired and blue eyed like herself, swept Aurin into his arms and kissed her. 'Mauni's Eyes, have I missed you.'

Aurin excused herself politely from his arms, but offered him a smile. 'And I you. You have suddenly made staying here much easier somehow.'

'Is the King asleep?'

'Doesn't suspect a thing.'

Aurin hated to know what would happen if Macaan did suspect anything. It had taken the combined efforts of several nannies a few years back to convince Macaan to let his daughter have a friendship with another male, for Aurin had had the unusual occurrence of meeting someone close to her own age, enjoying their company and the rarest occurrence of that person enjoying her company in return. Macaan would've much rathered chasing Malion into Deepwater, and keep Aurin up in her high tower, remaining innocent and full of chastity and away from any male her age until an arranged marriage of some sort, however, what made Aurin happy made Macaan happy, so he had let the friendship remain (the nannies had taken care to warn Aurin to never, ever let the friendship turn into a romance, otherwise Macaan would kill them both).

However, the nannies had been disposed of when Aurin had turned thirteen, and what Macaan didn't know, didn't hurt him. And so her father had no idea of these midnight visits between his daughter and her 'friend'.

Aurin held Malion's hand and led him to her bed, both sitting down, where she kissed him. This time, Malion pulled away. 'Are you quite sure about this?'

'Very sure.' Aurin laid down but looked sharply up at him. 'Are you afraid?'

'Of you, no. Of this…' Malion gestured to her, her body, her bed, her chambers, and crawled over the top of her, '… most definitely not. Of your father, who isn't?'

Aurin sighed, yet laced her arms around Malion's neck and dragged him down. 'Then don't think about him. Think about this instead.'

Aurin vomited for what felt like the millionth time in three days. Her head winced as she felt Macaan knock on her chamber door. 'Daughter, are you alright? Are you decent?'

'I'm fine!' Aurin yelled back in a snapping tone. In reality, she wasn't fine, and Macaan knew she wasn't fine. She had spent the last three mornings running for the toilet as soon as she awoke, and would proceed to spend the rest of the day struggling to hold down food. Macaan was convinced she had caught an illness of some kind, and though his fathering annoyed her, Aurin was not up to questioning him when he booked her in to see a private clinic today. Malion had to come to her window last night, and she had felt so unwell that she had had to turn him away.

Aurin looked up at herself in her mirror. Skin pale, hair damp and slicked to her face in sweat. Hardly the beautiful Princess, but it would have to do.

'My Lady, you're pregnant.'

The doctor's words were said in hate and annoyment, at which any other time Aurin would've had her killed, but in this case knew she rightly deserved.

Suddenly the entire trip made sense. Why the doctor had thrown Macaan out of the examination room within minutes of studying Aurin, and demanded he not come back in until she requested. Why the doctor had poked and prodded her and drew blood. Why her stomach felt tender. Why she'd spent the mornings vomiting.

And yet, Aurin denied it. 'I'm not pregnant.'

The doctor raised her eyebrows. 'Oh, you are most definitely pregnant. At least two weeks.'

'What… what am I supposed to do?'

The doctor sighed. There were so many things she wanted to say to this stupid little girl, but none of them were worth her life. 'Well, if you take the route of a normal married woman, you'd bring the baby to term and have it. But you're fourteen winters, and unmarried I assume, and as you haven't come of age – '

Aurin panicked. 'No, please don't tell my Father. He doesn't have to know!'

'I can quite assure you he'd find out anyway. A pregnancy is not exactly something you can hide, he is going to notice if you have a baby, and you will need his permission for an abortion as you're under age. Would you prefer me to tell or would you like to?' The last sentence was spoken in sarcasm, and Aurin fell silent as the doctor left to room to retrieve her father.

Her life was over as she knew it.

Macaan strode into the room and took the chair next to his daughter, the doctor back in her chair. 'Is it treatable?' Macaan asked.

The doctor paused. Aurin suddenly found the ground at her feet fascinating, and wondered if it were possible to suicide in a few seconds. 'It is treatable… in a way…' A longer pause. 'My King, your daughter is pregnant.'

Aurin felt a swamp of emotions inside her father, and none of them were pleasant. Surprise. Shock. Confusion. Denial. Upset. Frustration. Anger. Rage. Silent Rage. Aurin didn't dare look up. She had understood now that it wasn't the fact that Aurin and Malion's friendship could turn into romance that would make Macaan kill them. It was the consequences of such a romance.

'Pregnant?' Macaan's voice was unnaturally calm. 'Are you quite sure? She's only fourteen.'

'Positive.' The cheerfulness in the doctor's voice made Aurin want to strangle her. 'She is at least two weeks gone. The nausea will pass over, and then your options are – '

'I am well aware of the options,' Macaan snapped. Aurin felt his stare drop from the doctor on to her. 'How… who…?' Aurin imagined his brain working into overdrive, and then heard him exhale, none of his rage leaving. 'Thank you, Doctor.'

'You're welcome!'

Aurin saw stars as Macaan backhanded her across her face.

This was the only time he had ever actually hit her. He'd come close to doing so once, when she was five winters old, and had 'accidentally' knocked over all his glow stone bowls in his sanctum as revenge for him being away on her previous birthday. Her innocent mother had heard the commotion and had come rushing into the room, in time to grab Macaan's fist from where it was raised in the air, ready to strike Aurin, to protect her daughter. 'What are you doing? She is just a child!' Aurin remembered her screaming, and her father quickly backing down.

But her mother was long gone, and even if she had been here, Aurin doubted her mother would have protected her daughter now. Her mother would have been just as angry, just as furious, just as full of rage as her father was currently.

'You stupid, idiotic girl!' Macaan shouted at her, while Aurin's world revolved back around her. 'How could you let this happen? Do you have any idea of what you've done?'

'Well…'

'Who is the father, Aurin? If he forced you, we can deal…'

Aurin raised her eyes to meet her father's, shame forcing her to do so, to protect Malion. 'He didn't force me, Father. I let him. I apologize.'

Despite his anger, Macaan burst out with a laugh, however a cold laugh. 'Apologies, Daughter? Apologies don't count for anything in this situation. Who is the father? Tell me, Aurin.'

'Malion.'

Macaan looked temporarily confused as he remembered who Malion was, then his rage seemed to cool. Aurin hoped for a moment that somehow, knowing that Malion was the father to his daughter's baby, that it was alright. 'I knew I was in the right, when I said this friendship shouldn't happen.' He sat down in his desk chair, gathered a blank scroll of paper and a writing instrument, and began to write.

Now it was Aurin's turn to be confused. Her father's rage had a tendency to disappear just as fast as it came on. Maybe now was one of those times. Maybe he had accepted this problem. The voices in Aurin's head were screaming at her to leave, to back away, but she had to ask. 'Father… what are you writing? Can I tell Malion about the baby?'

Macaan looked up strangely at her, and she felt her stomach drop to the floor. 'You can certainly not tell Malion about the baby. I will deal with him. And this letter – ' Macaan waved the scroll at Aurin, ' – is a letter of permission for your abortion.'

Aurin felt sick. It wasn't the abortion herself that filled her with dread. In a world with no real way of birth control outside of women monitoring their monthly cycles or staying away from sex altogether, abortions were common and relatively safe procedures – the doctors drugged the woman to sleep, and half an hour later, she woke up with no baby and a bit of pain. But something inside Aurin wanted to keep the baby. 'Father… I can have this baby…'

Macaan sighed. 'Aurin, whether you can have this baby is not a question. You will not have this baby, and you will have the abortion – I will see to it that you have the abortion. Am I understood?'

'Yes.'

'Yes, what?'

'Yes, Father.' Aurin lowered her eyes. Once again, she couldn't stop herself from speaking, and she heard herself mumble. 'You shouldn't be angry. Mother had the same problem.'

The pen stopped scratching on the scroll, as Macaan struggled to find words through his newly infested rage. 'That… your mother's case was different to yours. Your mother certainly wasn't only fourteen.'

Aurin didn't think it was all that different. Possibly, her mother's case was worse. As far as Aurin was concerned, her mother hadn't learnt from one pregnancy and abortion. Two out of four pregnancies had lead into abortions. Abortion, Abortion, Aurin, Death. A second Princess, alive long enough to be named and then dying, her mother shortly afterwards. Aurin felt renewed anger now towards the stupid rule of etiquette, one that her grandparents had forced her parents into on both occasions, one that might've saved her mother had the rule not existed. Her parents might not have tried for more children had she been allowed to keep the first two.

All babies conceived outside wedlock must be aborted; otherwise, prepare to bring great shame onto the family and the child brought up to believe he or she is worth nothing, making half-breeds look like praises to the gods. No matter what your family status was – exceeding poor, or the royal family – you obeyed the rule. Becoming married while pregnant counted for nothing.

Macaan took Aurin's long silence to be acceptance, and when he looked up, the tear running down his daughter's cheek was nearly enough to for him to reverse his decision. Considering his decision wasn't only about this pregnancy, it would effect his daughter's entire life. But there was the rule, Macaan knew that to reverse would bring great shame on his daughter and on himself, and he would not let his daughter go prematurely over what was, what Macaan knew deep inside, a stupid mistake. No matter how much Aurin cried.

'I will arrange the doctors to come here, rather than humiliate yourself in public. They should arrive in a few days.' His voice was calm now, nearly gentle, and he left his study, closing the door, letting Aurin stay inside.

Once her father was gone, Aurin began to cry in earnest.

Aurin felt like she'd left her body behind and was drifting above, watching the scene.

The poison making its way through her veins made her feel detached from herself, forming a cloud across her brain, the feeling of the heaviness making her unable to move. She knew she wouldn't feel this way for long, soon her eyes would close in forced sleep, and she could escape.

A nurse held her hand, in what felt like a caring gesture but Aurin looked up at her face, and under her face-mask she could see the disgust across her face, a mind judging her. A fourteen winter girl pregnant. If she had any strength, Aurin would have the nurse gone, and wondered why her father wasn't doing anything about it. Her head lolled over to her other shoulder to see Macaan watching her carefully, standing a safe distance away from the bed, his face unreadable.

Aurin struggled to keep her eyes open as she looked down at herself, dressed from the waist up and a white sheet covering her hips and legs. A doctor sat at her feet, waiting and watching. The doctor, the nurse and her father, waiting for her to sleep.

Aurin tried to hold on, but she was being forced to give up her fight, and let her eyes drift shut. After a few moments, she felt her mind plummet off the cliff, tumbling into the abyss of unconsciousness. The tear she shred on the way down was not one of relief.

Aurin woke up and screamed.

Her hips felt like they were on fire. From all accounts, such a procedure was to leave the woman with a little pain, not pain that felt like it would tear the person apart. Aurin thought that either women lied to disguise the pain of the procedure, or she had the weakest pain tolerance in the worlds.

Her chamber door flew open and Macaan ran in, medicine in hand. Aurin managed to hold back on her screams long enough to take it, and within minutes she felt the pain subside, slowly, and instead being filled with a gentle warmth. She rested back down into her pillows, the screams lost in her throat, as she watched her father sit carefully on the edge of her bed.

'I didn't think it hurt this much,' Aurin complained, surprised to find her voice hoarse from the screaming.

'A usual abortion doesn't.'

Aurin looked at her father suspiciously. A usual one. Macaan was looking everywhere but at her, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation they were about to have. 'What happened, Father? Am I alright?'

Macaan gestured down at her hips, under the covers, and Aurin looked. A long white scar crossed from one hip to the other, under her stomach. She felt unwell at the sight at it, as she knew abortions weren't meant to leave visible scars. As she gazed down, she heard her father speak. 'Aurin, you can't have children.'

Aurin looked blankly at him. 'For how long?'

'You can't have children, ever.' Macaan still refused to look at his daughter. 'They… the doctor aborted your baby, then performed another surgery on you… you're unable to have children now.'

Aurin felt panic bubble up inside her at his words, and unlike the screaming, the panic could not be subsided with drugs of any kind. 'Why did you let them?' Her voice was high pitched, hurting her throat, but she didn't care.

'It was my idea.'

Aurin didn't think there was anything that could make her hate her father more, but she was wrong. She had never actually said she hated him to his face, but she felt that this occasion granted those words. Was this her punishment? Wasn't giving up her baby enough, but now she had to give up every hope of ever having a baby, married or not? What sort of decision was that for him to make, that was her decision! She felt tears well up in her eyes and twisted her body as unpainfully as she could, to hide on her side, trying to escape her father.

Macaan wasn't going anywhere though; he rested his hand on Aurin's shoulder and ignored her mumbled and tearful 'leave me alone'. 'Aurin, this wasn't anything against you.'

'Then why did you let them do it? To punish me?'

'I think the abortion is punishment enough. I told them to do it to save you.'

Aurin held down the pain as she twisted back to face him, the anger clearly etched on her face, but the tears failing to evaporate. 'Save me? Save me from what? Making such a stupid mistake again?' Her voice amplified the anger she felt. She wanted her father to feel some of that anger, but Macaan wasn't rising to the challenge. He was the adult and she was the child – she was allowed to be angry, and Macaan hoped she may cool off once she heard the explanation.

'Aurin, the disease that killed your mother… it shows itself in late pregnancy or in childbirth… if the mother dies, the baby dies as well. Your mother survived the birth with you. She didn't with the second baby.'

Aurin very vaguely remained her sister, the only time she had ever seen the baby, held in Macaan's arms. Such a tiny thing, no longer than her father's forearm. Searching for every agonizing breath, managing to hold on for two hours before being whisked away. It had happened so quickly, and Aurin hadn't understood at the time what was happening, other than knowing that she was quickly losing her mother as well. But despite that, Aurin failed to see what it had to do with her, and why couldn't have children.

Macaan continued. 'Women with the disease have a high risk of not surviving the birth. We didn't know your mother even had it before the baby was born. No one knows how men get sick from the disease. But it's genetic, Aurin, and your mother had it, and I will get it eventually.'

Aurin now understood, and closed her eyes in acknowledgement. Macaan didn't have to say anything else, and they were both surprised when Aurin whispered a thank you.

Present Day

Whist wasn't exactly quiet in his wanting to have children, someday. He often wanted to discuss it, and Aurin always wanted to avoid the subject. She knew Whist would want to get married first though, and as he and Blink were still happily searching across the worlds for god knows what (Aurin lagging behind), they probably wouldn't settle down, marry and attempt to have children any time soon.

But still, the thought unnerved her.

Aurin had never, really, gotten around to telling Whist that she wasn't able to have the children he seemed to want so much. She knew the reason behind it was so that she wouldn't have a premature death like her mother, and weighed against the benefit of having a baby, the benefit become a big con, but it wasn't easy to say to Whist. The right moment never showed itself for Aurin to say 'I can't have babies because Father made me have an operation to make me infertile so a birth wouldn't kill me.' There was a conversation stopper if there ever was one.

Aurin knew she needed to speak to someone about this. Ideally, first port of call would have been Ryushi. Despite this being a female problem and him being male, they understood one another. They both also understood that if she attempted to speak to Ryushi, his wife Calica would soon find out and have the entire new world of where they lived chasing after her with fires and chanting 'Kill The Slut!', as Kia had so delicately described to Aurin one day.

The years between Macaan's downfall and now had failed to reverse Calica's hatred of Aurin in any way, and if anything, had made Calica more chilly towards her. Aurin had always failed to see why – if it had to do with the whole Ryushi-as-her-prisoner episode (now years ago), then how was Aurin supposed to know that Ryushi was taken already; if it was because they were Splitings, who honestly cared?

If it was because of Macaan, then go figure. But Calica had never actually explained why to her, and if Calica could ever get over her problem, then maybe they could discuss problems such as Aurin's.

Peliqua and Elani lived much closer to where Aurin was currently situated, and while they spoke to each other in a friendly manner the few times they had since found each other's company, they were hardly what Aurin could call friends.

Which left Kia.

While Kia and Aurin didn't talk a lot, Kia seemed to have let bygones be bygones (at least in Aurin's case; she would always hate Macaan), and had told Aurin that she would always be grateful for her dragging her out of the mines. In return, Aurin had no grudge held against Kia – she had accepted Aurin as her friend, even after being revealed that she was the Princess – and so the two of them got along quite well. So Aurin sent a letter forward to Kia, and on receipt of Kia's positive invitation to spend some time with her in the deserts, she informed Whist that she was going on a short holiday and was gone.

As she made her way through the Dominions towards the deserts, Aurin remembered with sadness the first time she had made such a journey, with Corm and Tatterdemalion by her side. Corm had never learnt of Aurin's pregnancy – it was not his place to ask what had happened in the two months that she had stayed with Macaan, and it was not his place to be told. Shortly after, Tatterdemalion had been sent by Macaan to join them, and while it had never been discussed between the pair, Aurin knew that being turned into a Jachyra had been Malion's punishment for impregnating the King's daughter. And while Macaan had said that the abortion was punishment enough for Aurin, she understood that the sending of Tatterdemalion to stay with her in Fane Aracq was also punishment for her, having her first lover nearby her at all times, and not being able to do anything about it.

And now they were gone, and Aurin only had herself to deal with.

After several days, she reached the deserts, and Kia met her enthusiastically. Kia had since married Jedda, and now they had a bouncing baby boy, whom Aurin had taken to be rather fond of, yet Kia would notice that Aurin was rather sad when she played with her son. When Kia mentioned so, Aurin burst out with her story, and then her predicament.

Kia was quiet for some time, then shrugged. 'Out-of-marriage pregnancies happen here all the time. Teenagers just can't help themselves,' she smiled.

Aurin felt relief that Kia hadn't judged her. She had been the first person ever told about her pregnancy apart from her father, and when she told Kia so, Kia was delighted and humbled that Aurin trusted her enough to tell her such things. Kia had always had an inkling something was wrong in that regard, having noticed the white scar in flashes of second in the past, if Aurin's shirt moved above her stomach in the breeze or if she reached up too high, but Aurin had always rightened herself instantly if she caught someone noticing.

In regards to Whist, Kia's advice was for Aurin just to tell Whist what happened, like she had done with her, and to ignore any shame he felt. Besides, if Whist loved Aurin, then he should stay with Aurin children or no children, otherwise he wasn't much of a lover to begin with.

And despite Whist's self-centered and selfish attitudes, he loved Aurin, and when Aurin told him, he wasn't going anywhere.