Chapter 193
Solomon really meant it. First thing in the morning, barely oh-six-hundred, he was knocking on Valkyrie and Nadia's bedroom door and waking them up. Nadia, holding back tears, holding Valkyrie tightly, asked to come with her to help with her 'procedure'. Valkyrie had asked Solomon, practically begged, but he had categorically said no. There was absolutely no way Nadia could come with them. She could stay with the Dead Men and Tanith, with Valkyrie's aunt and uncle, with friends, she could even try and stay with Tanith's parents, but there was no way she could travel with Valkyrie even just for her getting her eggs removed. Nadia had cried into Valkyrie's shoulder up until the very last second.
Fletcher had very quietly teleported Valkyrie and Solomon away. Valkyrie's last image of Nadia for possibly months was of her in tears, wearing Valkyrie's ratty old t-shirt and shorts, both way too big on her, arms wrapped around herself and nails digging into her skin. She tried to smile at her fiancée, but the tears in her own eyes didn't seem to help.
"It'll be over soon," Solomon said quietly as soon as Fletcher had teleported away, leaving them wherever they were. Valkyrie's hadn't even looked at him.
"I know," she whispered, holding back the tears.
"She's safer where she is."
"I don't even know where she's going to stay."
Solomon stayed silent, letting Valkyrie have her moment, before she eventually turned, picked up her small leather backpack and nodded.
"We have a two days travel," he told her. "We're on the outskirts of Sweden. Fletcher hasn't been near where we need to go, unfortunately, and we must travel without drawing attention to ourselves. We can still use some magic, thankfully, as the world is not quite at that point, but we really have to be careful of being recognised."
Valkyrie nodded despondently.
"Buck up, Valkyrie," Solomon said, wrapping his arm around her as they left the small public restroom that was thankfully deserted, getting some freaked out looks from the early morning locals walking their kids to school, probably worried about the young girl coming out of the men's restroom crying. She didn't look at them, instead focusing on wrapping her thick Bespoke coat tightly around her body to fight the frozen temperatures. "I know you are worried about Nadia, and I understand entirely, but she's a smart girl. She'll find somewhere safe, and Fletcher will make sure she makes it there before he leaves."
.*****.
Three days later
It took them two days and one night to get to Uppsala, a city not drastically far from Stockholm, where Fletcher had left them. Solomon had kept her busy, getting her to use her magic in small capacities again and again, trying to improve on the aim of her strikes, the level of power, what body part it came from. Valkyrie personally wanted to make the magic come out of her eyeballs so she could shoot eye laser beams at criminals and fry them, but Solomon had given her a look of disappointment at her lack of serious attitude and that little bit of humour she'd found vanished.
She'd also had to abandon her phone. She had it, just turned off, for emergencies but she wasn't allowed to use it. She thought a lot about Nadia as they walked.
They slept an extra night in Uppsala before Valkyrie was admitted to a small local clinic by Solomon. The doctor had not looked at Valkyrie once, only speaking in broken English to Solomon, and had refused to let her talk to him before the operation. Solomon had briefed her before going in that it was a simple operation. Usually a woman, or other person with ovaries, would have to go on medication for around ten days before the 'egg retrieval' as only mature eggs that had a certain hormone Valkyrie couldn't remember the name of could be collected. Normally the hormone was released before ovulation to mature the eggs ready for their unfruitful journey down Valkyrie's lesbian fallopian tubes, ready to be fertilised by something Valkyrie never wished to touch. But in this case, they would be collected three hours after an injection of something that made Valkyrie's arm tingle and gave her a feeling akin to horrible period pain. It obviously affected more than just her uterus too as her breasts felt tender to the point of painful, her nipples felt as if they were uncomfortable swollen and she felt nauseous. The collection process would leave her "sore" – Solomon's words – as the eggs would be retrieved vaginally, rather than surgically.
She wasn't sure how she felt about that, but that was how they were collected everywhere, all over the world, so she took her lumps for Nadia and their future possible children, and drifted into sleep when the anaesthesiologist made her.
She woke however many hours later in a bright room wearing the same teal-green hospital gown that only covered her front in burning pain. Her vagina and insides were on fire, her whole body felt woozy and she didn't feel right at all. Unable to move, she began to panic, breathing faster, hearing her heart machine going wild, tears pricking at her eyes.
"Valkyrie! Calm down!" She heard through the fog. Solomon. She couldn't see him, couldn't open her eyes, but even with them shut the bright lights were giving her a headache. She tried to make a noise, a grunt, anything, but she couldn't. "It's alright. I've got you. I'm right here."
She breathed heavily, tears leaking rapidly as the panic made her feel sick and awful, suddenly able to feel his hand in hers, one on her forehead, and him softly kiss her cheek. The fight left her and she sobbed, as well as she could through the drugs, slowly regaining her movement and curling up into a ball. Solomon held her close, letting her work through it.
"It hurts," she whispered into his chest through her crying.
He leaned back slightly, worried he was crushing her. "Where honey?"
"Where do you think?" She cried.
He tutted. "I'm sorry Val. I'm so sorry. I – I don't know how to help you. In an hour we can go to our hotel and I'll get you ice and something to eat."
"Why does it hurt so much?" She whispered, feeling the panic coming back. "You said it would just be sore!"
"I don't know," he said honestly. "Can you feel blood? Should I get a doctor?"
She shook her head.
"I'll see about some pain relief, give me a moment."
He left and was gone long enough for Valkyrie to cry herself out and find a twisted position on her back, still sort of curled up with one leg in the air, one off the bed, and arms over her eyes to keep the light out. She drifted in and out of consciousness, hearing Solomon raise his voice angrily but too far away for her to hear her. Even longer after that, after a time she must have slept for, he came back and picked her up, wrapping her in a hospital blanket and leaving the clinic with her. She groaned in pain, getting hot flushes from the jolting and angry steps, and then again in the back of a car.
She didn't recall getting into their hotel, but woke much clearer and out of any pain, a box of regular non-magic painkillers on the bedside table already open and two gone.
"Did I take those?" She asked sleepily, yawning.
Solomon looked over from the window he was looking out of. "Oh. Yes, just a few pills to help the ache. I… How do you feel?"
"Alright actually. I thought I'd be a lot worse off but I'm okay. A bit achy. Did the removal go well?" She asked, taking a long drink of water.
"Yes, they were able to retrieve a few hundred mature and healthy eggs from you. It should be enough for you to have a family of your own," he smiled.
"That's more than I thought."
"Well, to alter one cell into another is difficult work. After picking the most healthy, changing the deoxyribonucleic acid and ultimately changing an egg to a sperm, you'll lose at least half of the eggs, and then not all the sperm will be healthy, and then only one is needed for one of Nadia's eggs. And then not every in vitro fertilisation attempt is successful, as it may fail before the cells turn into an embryo, and then you have the normal risks of the embryo not latching to Nadia's uterus properly, and the obvious but upsetting potential of miscarriage. By the time you have a biological child, you may not have enough eggs for a second."
"That's… kind of shitty. Also, can you not turn every acronym into their proper words, it makes this way harder. And also, couldn't Nadia's eggs just be turned into sperm and then the embryo put into her? Instead of risking my limited eggs?"
He paused and smiled slightly, the first in a few weeks. "Yes, that would make more sense. I just wanted to be totally honest with you. At any rate, you always have other options if you want more children and can't have more biologically for whatever reason, or perhaps science will have improved more and every egg cell removed this morning will be guaranteed to end in a healthy pregnancy and child by the time you make that choice."
She smiled. "I prefer that last one."
He nodded and stepped over to the small double bed. They were having to share the grotty hotel room, not that it bothered Valkyrie as she had had to share her bed on outings since she joined the Dead Men.
He looked at her nervously. "I have to admit, Valkyrie, something happened while you were under anaesthetic. The doctors didn't use the correct painkillers. They did the job and have stored the eggs correctly, and they are already in the safe hands of another company… but I am sorry. I should have done further research into the doctors. I was so focused on keeping this a secret I didn't think to check that the doctors may have a vendetta against you."
Valkyrie laid back, looking away from Solomon. "They did?" She asked blankly.
"They admitted it after you woke in pain. They said it was revenge for something Skulduggery did to a family member some time ago. But I am to blame here, I should have known and I'm so sorry."
She looked over and smiled, hoping it reached her eyes. "It's okay. I don't even remember it. Can I have some ice cream now?"
He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed next to her, balancing his cane on the bedside table before taking one of her hands in his. They were the same size, but rougher and more battle scarred than her own. "It isn't okay. So many times through your life you've had to suffer in ways no child should have to. You've been betrayed, abandoned and orphaned by the people that should be here with you today. And now, you have only me with you," he said. Her eyes watered at his words but she held his hand fiercely. "One part of the Magic Keeping Ritual is overcoming your fears. It essentially means you have to overcome your internal hang ups and phobias so that all your magic and energy goes into the Ritual. I can't imagine a doctor doing this is helping the matter."
"No, I–"
"I can see it in your eyes, dear," he interrupted softly. "You've always fought anyone trying to hurt you in this way. But you've never had it happen by a doctor. Or when you were totally incapacitated."
She stayed silent.
"It's not your fault. None of it is. I want you to be happy, healthy and live a beautiful life. I'd die for you, Valkyrie, and I am very much afraid of death." She looked up at him from her pillow, feeling like a little girl.
"You remind me," she said slowly, "of a memory from when I was little. When that man… the one Tanith and the others killed, and then Aine found out about us. You know the one. After what he did to me, and I escaped, I remember crying and my mum holding me. And then her and Gordon sitting by my bed and asking me what happened." She took a shaky breath. "Neither of us can change what happened because it already has. We made those choices and live with the consequences, both now and when I was a kid. And if I have to come to terms with what happened for the Ritual, I have no idea how you plan to make that happen in just a few weeks, but I suppose I'll try. And, considering everything in my life, everyone that's been in it… I'm glad you're here now. Because I feel safe with you, and I'm happy here, and I love you like how I should a father. So I'm okay with what happened today. I'm mad. But at least you're with me."
She looked up at the end just as a tear slipped down Solomon's cheek. Seeing him break down made it worse for Valkyrie and she immediately burst out sobbing. He patted her back. "Thank you," he said simply.
"Why am I even crying?" She asked stupidly, grabbing the water and draining the last bit in one gulp. "I feel so stupid!"
"Oh," he said with a small laughed, standing and going to the bathroom. "The injection that made your eggs mature is still in effect. By tomorrow you'll be back to normal, but for today you'll be slightly more… hormonal."
"Hormonal?!" She asked in horror.
"Yes. Symptoms have been described as extreme anger, hysterical and continuous crying, mood swings, extreme hunger and thirst, impatience–"
"Yeah, yeah, I know what hormonal mood swings feel like, I was being dramatic," she snapped. "Can we order McDonald's? I really want a burger. And chips. Oh, and I really want chicken nuggets. Do you think they do the mozzarella sticks here?"
"I believe they deliver nowadays," he sighed before turning on the tap to wash his face.
It is done. The first step towards completing the Magic Keeping Ritual. Valkyrie's possible future babies are no longer inside her. Did you know, a girl is born with her babies inside her already? Because she's born with eggs. We will literally never escape our children, it's so gross.
Remus Crux: I know, it's all coming together now! I'm trying to sinch it into the perfect plot explosion and climax and all that, it's very difficult, I have a lot of respect for authors that can pull this off to be honest! I'm more of a family happy times writer. I'm hoping book 14 of the actual series has less depression in it now, I want happiness and Valitsa only. If we just had a book of those two going on constant dates and being happy I'd be so good with that.
