"Master Novara! Master Novara!"
Icarus glared blearily up from the bottle of brandy, directing a half-eyed squint at the ugly House Elf screeching into his parlor. The stupid creature (Blat? Splat? He couldn't remember) wore a misshapen shift that was usually dirty, but never streaked with red. Panic pounded through the haze of drunkenness, propelling him to stand.
"Master Novara, please come quickly! Miss Ilia is not well, she is giving the baby and now she cries for the pain, Master! I think she is dying!" Blat burst into tears and covered her face with grimy hands.
Icarus was out of the chair like a shot, scrambling down the hall to the birth-room. As he passed, each torch on the wall sputtered and lit, following his procession and casting deep gray shadows in his wake.
The door flew open and he was immediately struck with the rich, sick smell of death. Icarus brought a trembling hand to his mouth and covered his nose.
Though the hallway was dark and shadowed, in here the fire blazed and the stars poured in through the skylight. The glow threw Ilia's sprawled form on the narrow bed into sharp relief, traced her sweat soaked limbs and face. Another House Elf stood by the bed, clutching a wriggling bundle in her tiny, spindly arms.
"Icarus," Ilia whispered. He drew near and knelt by the bed, averting horrified eyes from the sight of the still growing patch of scarlet that gathered between her legs.
"Oh, Ilia. You...you're going to be fine." Icarus stammered, taking his wife's hand and clutching it to his chest. Ilia winced and arched weakly as another dark sticky current of blood discharged from her battered womb.
"Icarus. Take care of Iphany," Ilia sighed, turning her pale face her husband's. Tears burned the corners of Icarus' eyes. Even in the moments before death, she was still unbearably beautiful.
"You're not dying," Icarus replied, this time in the stern and inarguable tone he used with disobedient servants. Ilia smiled softly, and used what was left of her strength to lay a hand on his cheek. Against every grudge and memory of vengeance ingrained in her soul, Ilia had fallen in love. She had not meant to; in doing so she had forsaken her sisters, forgetting the common peril that bound them in sorrow and revenge. She should have given birth in the sea, as had all of her sisters before her, but shame kept her locked inside the house as her time came, stepping out only long enough to take her nightly swim in the cove. Her body was not meant to bear a child as humans did, but stubbornness convinced her to ignore the unnatural pain, the nightmares of her own death, the visions of her daughter growing up alone in the shadow of her father's lost love. Poor little Iphany - she would never fully understand, she would not...
"Tell her who she is," Ilia whispered, her hand constricting feebly around her husband's. She took a breath, let it out, hitched another, and did not move again. The pupils in her watery green eyes grew until they eclipsed the color within. Her eyes fluttered, then closed.
A great gaping emptiness roared inside Icarus' chest, and he emitted a dry, choking sob. His love for Ilia had been his only softening, and as she slumped lifelessly in his arms, she took with her every ounce of decency and compassion that he had left in his heart.