A Quiet Lamentation

Disclaimer: The world of Emelan and Namorn, and the characters Jorality and Niamara Bancanor are the property of Tamora Pierce. The plot and wording of this story are my own.

The healers had been helpless. For over forty hours Niamara kept a silent vigil outside her sister's room on the third floor of the massive House Meyodmah as gray-faced servants, midwives and healers came in and out. With every passing hour she could see hope, life & light eroding from their eyes, revealing the deep roots of uncompromising despair that lurked beneath. Toward the end, she tired of watching those foreboding faces and paced the antechamber, soundless in her summer slippers.

When she heard the door close for the last time, she knew. The great, double-winged doors, lovingly carved with trees, waterfalls and religious scenes, had opened and closed many times throughout those two days. Yet somehow, though her back was turned, her eyes boring through the window to the garden, Nia felt the finality of the sound in her bones. The door was closing on Jorality Bancanor Meyodmah.

Her face was grim. She knew it because the healer flinched when she turned to face him. "We did all we could," he said. "I'm sorry."

"The family?" there was a hard, cruel edge to her voice and the healer flinched again. Somewhere deep inside her a voice protested that she ought to be kinder to this worn, overworked man. When had he last seen his family? It's been a hard, cruel day, retorted the new Nia. He ought to indulge my grief.

Grief. The thought lingered, still and overpowering.

"The…" the healer's words stirred her. "The master and mistress of the house have been told, and a messenger was sent to fetch their son."

It was like the Syth had turned into a glacier within her, and now the fires of the earth were unleashed upon it. Wherever did the bastard think he was, whilst his wife was in labor for the first time?! With the searing certainty of twenty years of having an identical twin she knew how Jory would react to such a blaze in her heart. She'd sprint across the room, screaming, and put her fist through the window. Or jump out of it. Something like that. Anything massive and dramatic that would draw attention to her pain.

Her silent summer slippers seemed not to touch the polished floor as she left the healer there, not particularly caring what he did next. Nor did she care to see the face and body that mirrored hers lying there, limp, contorted with pain, as though no amount of eternal sleep would bring her true rest. She didn't care if she had a niece or a nephew, either. Maybe the infant had died as well.

The glacier was back, filling her. The sun poured into her eyes as soon as she stepped out of the house. Before her were two choices.

Her husband would not be home, either. This cold new Nia did not want his company now, anyway. She chose the garden, knowing full well that there was nothing much more for her in this house, anymore. She ought to go tell her parents. Whatever servant the Meyodmahs had sent could hardly be expected to comfort them. Suddenly a current stirred in the depths. Her mother and father. She was not alone.

Their impending grief settled over hers, heavy, bearing down on her. Her chest grew tighter and tighter. For one awful moment she thought she couldn't breathe. Nia's legs buckled under her. She shook with silent sobs, no words left to convey, no option but to bury her face in her hands and cry until the tightness in her chest was bearable again. When enough pain had been bled away and she could cry no more, she got up. Wiping her face with a handkerchief, Niamara left House Meyodmah, never to return.

It was midsummer.