Ten
Asariel 9:33 Dragon
"I want a son."
The door to Lady Junia's bedchamber remained open, simply to facilitate the constant in and out of slaves coming and going with whatever was demanded.
It had been twenty hours since she had felt the first contractions sounding the alarm that it was time.
It had not been an easy pregnancy, and there was a sense of relief that washed over the house when it finally started.
However, there was also a good measure of concern. The delivery was coming alarmingly early. Ten weeks early.
It was Lady Junia's sixth pregnancy, but she was absolutely sure that this time, she was carrying a son for her husband.
The doctor had moderated hopes — a baby's sex was always a coin flip and Junia had flipped the same way five times before — but had shocked the household when he had informed the lord and lady that there was no doubt that she was carrying more than one child.
At first examination, he could say no more than that with any certainty. But as the pregnancy continued and her womb had grown and grown, the physician had surmised with some confidence that she was carrying triplets.
Pregnancy was no mystery to her after carrying and birthing her five daughters, but the months had not been easy. Junia wasn't quite to her fortieth year yet, but even her previous pregnancy with Flavia two years earlier had been a strain. The weight and intensity of carrying multiple children had taken nearly everything out of her.
She had been on bed rest for weeks and she had needed it just to carry on. So when the time had come to deliver she had braced herself mentally and physically but embraced the opportunity to finally gift her husband with the son they had always wanted.
That being said, the tension in the Arrentius house was thick.
And it thickened every hour that there was no news from her bedchamber.
Junia had delivered Flavia in just six hours. It had been more than triple that now and there had been no progress made yet. At least, that was what the slaves said every time Valerie grabbed one and stopped them and demanded they give her an update.
Magister Arrentius had locked himself away in his study and was not to be disturbed until the babies arrived. It was standard practice that the fathers were kept away from the birthing room, only to arrive when his wife's labors were complete. Each and every time, five times before, Flavius had been summoned to the room to greet his new daughter.
This time would be different though. He swore. She swore. They knew. This was the time.
"Something's wrong," Valerie said as she paced back and forth, threatening to wear the carpet threadbare in the hallway down from her mother's room as she chewed her fingernails.
"Nothing has gone wrong," Cassius reassured her, sitting in the chair and folding the book closed again. He was not making any progress, as Valerie's nervous energy vibrated down the full length of the hallway.
"It shouldn't be taking this long," she said, looking longingly down the hall at her mother's open door where another slave popped out carrying an empty pitcher and headed toward the kitchen.
"Junia said it took nearly two days to birth you," Cassius reminded her. Her mother had been sharing stories of her other pregnancies, including a long retelling of the ordeal that was Valerie, her first. The first child was always the most difficult. Valerie's younger sisters had all come into the world much faster and with far less complication.
Valerie scoffed and continued her pacing. She stopped again in front of Cassius, crossing her arms over her chest and stomping her foot.
"I'm going in there," she declared.
"No you're not," he disagreed. "They said no one but the attending slaves and the midwifes."
"They're not going to stop me if I go," Valerie said.
"That's why I'm here," Cassius said with a small smile in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I've been tasked by your father with stopping you if you try."
"You wouldn't," Valerie said, narrowing her eyes.
"I am bound to obey your father," he reminded her.
Valerie scowled, stomped her foot, and then returned to pacing the hallway.
An hour more passed, with Valerie repeatedly stopping, threatening to go into the room, being talked down, pacing, stopping again. Cassius tried, and failed, to convince Valerie to go to bed. It was nearly midnight. Valerie had been awake for nearly a day straight now. She fervently declined. Cassius at least was able to find a free slave to fetch her something to eat.
Cassius has returned to reading his book when Valerie stopped suddenly and slapped his arm to get his attention. He looked up to see Valerie's frantic pointing down the hall, to where the head midwife had stepped out into the hallway.
Valerie started bounding down the hall and Cassius was on his feet to chase her just as quickly as she went. The midwife was hurrying too, to meet them.
"What's happened?" Valerie demanded, noticing the rushed look on the midwife's face.
The older, portly woman ignored her and instead had her eyes fixed on him. "You're Cassius?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Why do you need Cassius? What happened?" Valerie said, inserting herself in between them.
The midwife again ignored her, bending around to address him. "Please, come with me. Hurry."
"Wait, what happened? What happened!" Valerie shouted as the midwife had already turned back toward the birthing room with Cassius in tow.
"The delivery is not advancing," the midwife finally said, addressing the question as they rushed back toward the room. "I'm concerned about the children. We're going to deliver them surgically. I need another mage to assist. I wanted Magister Arrentius, but the mother asked for this one specifically."
"I'm coming in," Valerie said as they reached the doorway.
"Lady Valerie, I insist you–" the midwife started to protest.
"I'm coming in," Valerie declared again much more firmly, nearly on the verge of violence in her voice.
The midwife didn't have the energy or patience to argue and turned into the room.
As Cassius entered, the smell of burning fragrances couldn't cover up the overpowering smells of sweat and blood in the air. The windows were thrown open to the cool night air but the room still felt oppressively hot. The midwifes were buzzing around the bed, making preparations, assisted by the slaves coming and going and getting everything prepared.
"Lady Junia, please, I must insist," one of the midwives was saying.
Junia was shaking her head violently. "No. No, I need to be awake."
"My lady," the midwife continued. "There will be incredible pain. I cannot give you a draught to dull the sensation, as it would affect the children."
"I understand," Junia said with steely resolve. Her eyes looked toward the doorway where she spotted her daughter and Cassius and waved her daughter over. Valerie cut through the crowd in the room in an instant and crawled to the side of the bed with her mother, sobbing almost immediately.
Mother went to work consoling daughter, a conversation lost in the noise of the rest of the room making final preparations for the procedure. The head midwife ignored it, instead grabbing Cassius by the arm and pulling him to the side of the bed, where the others were cutting the sheet to expose Junia's bulging belly.
"All I need you to do is stand here and use your healing magic to slow the bleeding as much as possible," the head midwife said. "I will work as quickly as I can. Do you understand?"
Cassius nodded his head, looking up the bed at Valerie, who was listening to both her mother and the buzz around her bed and had nearly blanched at the prospect of what was about to happen.
Within a moment, the activity around the bed slowed as Junia lay surrounded by about a half dozen midwives and Cassius, all ready to do their duty as the final preparations were made.
"Are you ready, my lady?" the head midwife asked with a level of grim seriousness in her voice.
Lady Junia took a deep breath and nodded. The head midwife nodded to one of her assistants, who pulled the pillow out from under the magister's wife and assisted her flat on the bed.
"Are you sure you do not want us to summon the magister?" the head midwife asked.
"Yes," Junia said as she looked at the ceiling preparing herself mentally.
The midwife paused again, that look carved in stone across her face. She opened her lips and paused before speaking again. "There's a very real possibility you may die."
Cassius' eyes shot to Valerie, who had tears streaming down her face and looked ready to collapse into a puddle. Perhaps she was now better understanding why the midwives had tried to keep her away. This was not the typical birth. This might be a funeral.
Junia closed her eyes and took another deep breath and nodded. "I'm aware," she said. She took another deep breath. "Whatever happens, save my children."
"Mother…" Valerie mewled from her side.
Junia turned her head, lifted her hand and stroked her daughter's hair, giving a small, reassuring smile as she cooed to her daughter. "I love you, Valerie."
"I love you too," Valerie sobbed back to her mother.
"You can hold your mother's hand, if you like," the head midwife said, motioning slightly with a nod of her head as one of the slaves produced a chair next to the bed. Valerie collapsed into it, leaning across the bed with her hands wrapped tightly around her mother's palm.
Junia turned her gaze back to the ceiling and closed her eyes, taking one more deep breath.
"I'm ready."
The head midwife wasted no more time as her hands started to move, conjuring her magic as she pressed her palm to Junia's flesh, sending a jolt of paralytic energy through the woman's body. Junia's entire body went rigid as the magic froze her muscles in place. The midwife moved around the bed, pressing her palms against Junia's wrists and ankles, locking them to the bed with magical shackles. She traced a line across Junia's chest, sealing her torso to the bed and placed another magical restraint across both thighs. There were prisoners being put to torture in the dungeons of Minrathous who suffered less restraint than this, but if one thing was apparently clear, they did not want Junia to move for what was to come.
The head midwife took a breath and surveyed the bed, looking to each of her midwives. She nodded to the one at the top of the bed, who opened Junia's mouth, placed a tightly-wound rag inside of it and closed her bite back down on it.
Another assistant produced the knife to the head midwife, who took up the sheer blade in her hand. The edge was apparent even from a distance. The blade would cleave flesh and bone with little resistance, Cassius knew. The head midwife carefully traced a finger over the edge, her magic heating the steel until it glowed a slight orange, sanitizing the steel, before cooling.
"All right," the midwife said as she eyed Junia's belly. "You all know what to do. Let's deliver these children."
Cassius reached out to the Fade, touching the power as he prepared his mind to begin drawing on his magic. He could feel turbulence on the other side. Several of them in the room would be drawing the same source, but it felt as if there were ripples on the other side of the Veil, some sort of unease that would require his utmost focus and concentration.
Cassius was ripped out of his mind by the first muffled scream as the midwife put the edge of the blade to Junia's belly and began to cut, making a large incision vertically down the length of her stomach. The paralyzed and restrained Junia didn't even flinch as the blade bit through her skin and muscle wall, but the paralysis didn't stop the pain as Junia clenched her eyes and screamed into the cloth in her mouth.
The midwives with towels began wiping away the blood with rags as soon as the knife was out of the way of threatening to remove their fingertips as the head midwife moved back up her body and pushed the knife in a second time, cutting deeper to get through the abdominal wall to the womb underneath. The incision was a bubbling geyser of blood as she worked her way in, a steely, unblinking concentration on the midwife's face as she worked.
"I'm in," the head midwife said, offering the blade over her shoulder to an assistant who carefully plucked it from her blood-slickened fingers and removed it from the bed. "Towels! Get this bleeding stopped!"
Cassius jumped into action, eyeing the incision and beginning to push his healing magic toward the surgical wound, as another young midwife on the other side had also started. Normally he'd aim to knit the wound back together, but the incision needed to stay open, so he simply focused his magic around the edges of the cut in hopes of slowing or stemming the bleeding as much as possible.
Her assistants were pulling and stretching the opening wider even as they worked to heal around it, the head midwife with her hands now fully inside of Junia's stomach as she dove in deeper toward the babies, trying to peer in as best she could as she worked her arms into position and her assistants did their best to hold the section open.
"I'm there!" she exclaimed with some restrained excitement. "Here we go! It's time to be born!"
The midwife began to pull her arms out and emerged from the incision, holding between her two palms a tiny, squirming child.
"A boy!" she declared. "It's a boy!"
There was an electric jolt of excitement through the room, a momentary celebration before everyone snapped back to the task ahead of them as they pulled Junia's first son away. "Clear its airway and cut that cord!" the head midwife ordered to her subordinate, who immediately went to work as their chief took a deep breath and dove back into the incision to seek the next child.
Cassius glanced up the bed to where Valerie was white-knuckled squeezing her mother's hand as she watched the flurry of activity around her mother's womb. Junia's face was streaked with tears as she cried, no doubt both in joyous celebration but also excruciating pain.
"Come to me, little one…" the head midwife whispered to herself as she maneuvered back inside of Junia's womb.
Then, the room fell silent and still in an instant as the air was pierced by a shrill cry from Junia's first-born son.
It was then that Cassius felt tears upon his own cheeks at the realization that everything his master had wanted, prayed for, wished for, was now coming true. He would have a son and heir, someone to carry on his legacy to the next generation. It had taken him decades, but no one in the Magisterium would be able to taunt him with the moniker Flavius Five-Daughters any longer.
And then, just as quickly as it had cried out, the child went quiet.
"What's wrong?" the head midwife barked out, immediately sensing something amiss, not taking her eyes off her work as she was forearms deep inside the womb again.
"He's not breathing," her second said with a tinge of alarm in her voice.
"Clear his airway!" the head midwife ordered.
"I did," the second responded. "I'm checking it again…"
"Second baby coming out!"
"It's clear… it's clear!" the second shouted out as she placed the boy down onto the table and frantically examined him. "Come on… come on… breathe little one."
"Take this!" the head midwife shouted to another assistant, producing the second child and passing it off as quickly as she had pulled it from Junia's womb as she stepped back from the bed. "Keep that incision clear!" she shouted back at Cassius and the other as she went to attend the first-born.
"Another boy!" the midwife holding the second son announced, but no one was celebrating this time as three women surrounded the first born on the table.
"What's happening?" Valerie asked Cassius from her seat.
"He's not breathing," Cassius said, swallowing hard as he tried to maintain his focus. The Fade was growing increasingly violent and turbulent and he was struggling to maintain his connection as it felt like the mana was coming across the barrier at a furious boil.
The clamor was punctuated by a new cry as another midwife cleared the second son's airway.
No one seemed to notice as they still attended to the first boy, a rapid exchange of conversation that Cassius couldn't make out as the women shouted back and forth to each other with increasing alarm.
"Mistress!" another shout rising over the din in the room, causing the midwife to snap her attention to the second boy. "He's stopped breathing!"
"Save that child!" the head midwife shouted in almost a furious growl, leaving the first-born to her assistants as she grabbed the second and began attending to it.
"Caz!" Valerie was shrieking, another sound he didn't notice over the calamity unfolding around him.
A different midwife was now back at the foot of the bed, her sleeves up as she slid her hands back inside, continuing the birth before Lady Junia bled to death on the bed.
Cassius felt light-headed, caught in the swirl and tempest of the birthing chamber, the Fade rocking and smashing against his consciousness, the heat choking him, the tension and shouting as the midwives worked to save Junia's children, the heavy smell of blood overwhelming his senses as he swayed on his feet, trying to shut everything else out as he struggled to hold his healing.
Her third son was born and cried once.
Her fourth son was born and cried once.
Her fifth and final son was born and cried once.
By the time Cassius collapsed sweat-soaked and exhausted to the floor and by the time the midwives began to close the incision after delivering five boys, the pall in the room was suffocating.
When the procedure was over, and when they had finally removed the rag from Junia's mouth and peeled the paralysis back enough so that she could move her head, her wails of agony and sorrow were those that would haunt Cassius until the end of his days.
She screamed and wailed until her strength gave out and she fell out of consciousness on the bed.
Those left in the room were left paralyzed in grief.
Valerie was draped over Cassius' lap as he sat up against the wall, her entire body jerking and convulsing as she cried from the deepest pit of her stomach in the most violent and painful sobs and as he stared forward, not seeing or thinking anything as he was unable to comprehend what had happened.
He shivered at the feeling of a sinister presence in the room, of a disturbance across the Fade as the spirit realm darkened and seemed to choke him, too.
She had delivered five sons.
All of which had taken their first breath, cried a single cry, and then suffocated.
Flavius II. Varus. Longinus. Titus. Quintus.
None had survived their first few minutes of life.
It was not until three weeks later that they all discovered what had truly happened.
Junia, in her desperation and love for her husband, had sought out the Desire Demon. The spirit had cut a devious deal.
"I want a son."
In exchange for Junia's voice, she would give the woman the son she wanted.
The Desire Demon had not just given her one son, but five to match her five living daughters. She had agreed to see them through to birth.
But it had made no explicit guarantees that the boys would continue existing past that.
In a cruel twist of demonic trickery, the demon had let the boys cry out just once, one moment of joy for their mother, one vocalizations to confirm that she had fulfilled her end of the bargain, before she stole their voices, their breaths and their lives.
When Junia had finally fallen into slumber after the massacre of birth, the demon had appeared to collect on their bargain, leaving her with a wicked scar, a reminder of the danger of dealing with demons.
It claimed her voice, too.
Asariel 9:41 Dragon
The tap of knuckles on the open door frame snapped Cassius up from his pages.
"Terro," Fiora said, standing in the open entry with Lady Junia at her side. "It's time."
The men looked up from their piles of papers scattered around the office at the smiling lady of the house in the doorway with Cassius' slave. She nodded to her husband and to Cassius, followed by a big smile crossed Magister Arrentius' face as he rocked himself to the edge of his chair and reached over and clapped his son-in-law across the back.
"Congratulations, my son!" Flavius declared, clapping him on the back two more times. "You're a father now."
Andria had gone into labor last night and had been whisked away to her birthing bed as the midwives came upon the house and took up their duties. It had been eight years since they had last descended on the manor. Perhaps they returned with some trepidation after the outcome of their last excursion back then, but the Arrentius boys were not the first children they had lost in their careers and certainly would not be the last.
The men had retreated to Flavius' office to await news. There remained no shortage of work for them to attend to during the waiting.
Over the past two months, the war effort in the south had been floundering. After suffering a rout in Ferelden, the Inquisition had turned its gaze into Orlais and specifically toward the Grey Wardens in the west. Their forces had made contacts with the Grey Wardens and descended into the Western Approach.
They had captured Crassius Servius and the gold-grubbing man had turned cloak as quickly as he could, selling out the Venatori in exchange for his life and freedom. He had surrendered stolen artifacts back to the Inquisition and furthermore betrayed information about Venatori supply lines, which had led to a series of successful raids that snapped logistics into the area.
Magister Arrentius had reorganized the supply routes as soon as he heard word of the betrayal, but by then it was too late. The Inquisition had already stormed Adamant Fortress, dislodged the Grey Wardens and, worst, captured Magister Erimond.
The Inquisitor had put him to the sword himself.
His remains were shipped to Minrathous with a rather lengthy letter attached from the Inquisition's ambassador explaining the circumstances of his involvement with an appeal to the archon and Magisterium to root out the extremists amid their ranks unless the Imperium as a whole wished to be labeled an enemy combatant in the ongoing war in the south.
A resolution had been filed condemning the actions of Magister Erimond as a rogue agent not representative of Tevinter's noninvolvement in the strife of southern nations. The chamber had been content to voice vote the resolution through, but Magister Tilani had objected and had demanded a full roll call. No doubt she had been seeking to root out other sympathizers, yet the effort was wasted as the resolution passed unanimously as Venatori had already agreed behind closed doors to fully disavow any association with the man amid his epic failures in Orlais.
Now the Inquisition was pushing the lines in the Exalted Plains, where the Venatori's agents were not primarily on the field but instead lurking behind pulling strings and goading both Empress Celene's and Duke Gaspard's forces into as many confrontations as possible, while the bulk of Venatori forces reinforced their clutch and position elsewhere in Orlais.
During a recent conference, Flavius had suggested the Venatori not totally abandon their pursuits in western Orlais and suggested an expedition to the Hissing Wastes, following scholarly work of the dwarven thaig that once existed topside. Paragon Fairel had built weapons so great that the dwarves had used it to nearly annihilate each other in the past. Fairel had left the underground for the surface, taking his sons and his inventions with them and locking them away so they might never be used to such dark effect again.
Or so the records stated. No one had ever seen dwarven ruins in that pitiless desert of sand and heat and biting wind.
But Flavius had made so convincing a case, including producing records pinpointing the location as closely as could be hoped for considering the time that had passed, that the leadership had agreed to divert exploratory resources to investigate. They had appointed Magister Urathus and his son Estoris to lead the expedition but named Juliex as overseer as a check and balance due to Urathus' previous failures leading attacks in Ferelden. Whether the assignment to the desert was an honor or a punishment, Cassius hadn't been able to decide.
Flavius had been running himself ragged just trying to hold everything together.
Lysander Vespasian had returned to his household some weeks back, having been called back to attend to matters in his own family, but continued to offer financial support and assistance to the Venatori in whatever way he could. With the loss of a third man in the manor, Flavius had taken more of the share of work onto his own shoulders while only delegating a bit more Cassius' way.
Daily reports continued to pile in, few of them positive lately, and the magister spent hours upon hours every day drafting letters, conducting meetings and poring over ledgers and invoices. He had been scarce around the manor as he was so consumed in his work.
But this, this was an occasion worth breaking for, as Flavius rocked himself out of his chair.
The stress and long hours had caused him to lose weight but not in a healthy way. The magister looked drawn and wan and had since been battling indigestion, had contracted a respiratory illness that had cleared but that left behind a nagging cough, and had been having on and off stabbing pains in his right side as stones had formed in his kidneys and been pushing through his urinary tract. That, and his gout continued to flare depending on the day of the week.
Flavius hobbled to standing, grabbing his cane — he had finally been convinced to abandon pretenses at Valerie's insistent badgering and now used it to keep some of the weight off of his foot as he walked — as the foursome headed down toward the birthing chamber.
"How did it go?" Cassius asked. All he could think about was the last birth that took place in this house. He wondered how often Lady Junia thought of it. Perhaps every time she dressed, as she had not only the scar left behind by the demon at her throat, but the large scar from the incision into her womb.
"As far as I heard from the other slaves, good enough," Fiora provided. "Your lady may not flaunt it like Val, but she's stronger than she lets on."
Cassius couldn't disagree. She had carried her pregnancy with a quiet conviction. She had faced challenges and discomforts, but she had found her ways to overcome them, even despite Cassius' persistence to help. She had been insistent that Cassius had more important work to do helping her father than her and had put her personal needs below those of her family.
That's not to say she hadn't leaned on her sisters more often, especially in the waning months of her pregnancy when she moved a step slower and grimaced more than usual, even if she tried to hide it, but she had given it her all.
And here he was, now, standing before the door to the birthing room, where his wife had just brought their first-born into this world. Cassius stopped and looked at the door for a moment and prepared himself to meet his child.
Flavius clapped him on the shoulder once more.
"Go ahead, son," he said, with a little push. "Go greet your child. We'll wait here until you're ready for us."
"Thank you, my lord, again, for everything," Cassius said, offering his appreciation once more to his master. Had he not taken Cassius in, had he not placed his trust and love into him, had he not given him the privilege of his daughter's hand in marriage, none of this would be happening right now.
He then felt Junia's hand atop his other shoulder and turned to be greeted by her warm smile, the ever-silent declaration of the boundless love she offered to all in her family. Cassius knew that, even more than the child's own mother and father, its new grandmother would doubtless be its greatest caretaker, advocate and supporter as it grew into its life.
Flanked by the magister and his wife, Cassius nodded, gathered his resolve and placed his hand on the door knob, turning it and entering, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.
Andria sat on the bed, dressed in a fresh white nightgown, with her long, straight dark hair slightly disheveled atop her head. The midwives around the room were quietly cleaning up, their work now done, their faces alight with smiles at a job well done, especially considering the history here at the Arrentius manor. Valerie was sitting next to her sister on the bed, both admiring the bundle of swaddled blankets held in Andria's lap.
It was Valerie who looked up first, spotting Cassius a step inside the doorway. She tapped her sister, drawing her attention up from her child for a moment to her husband, then whispered something, gave her sister a kiss on the forehead and got up. She crossed the room and stopped before Cassius and smiled.
"Congratulations, Caz," she said quietly, wrapping him in a hug with a squeeze. "She's perfect."
Valerie unwrapped herself, put her hand on the door and spoke around Cassius, "I'll be back in a bit," she said to her sister, and then slipped out of the room.
Cassius took another deep breath and stepped to the bed, sitting down alongside his wife where Valerie had sat just a moment before. He leaned over, first, and planted a kiss upon his wife's cheek. But before he could even get a first look at his child, he was stopped by his wife's face.
There were tears upon her cheeks.
"What's wrong?" he asked, touching a tear as it was about to dribble out of the corner of her eye.
His question only made it worse, as her face scrunched and she mewled a small cry.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Sorry?" Cassius asked, seriously confused.
That, too, only made her cry a little harder as she broke into small sobs.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, punctuating the racked sobs as her body shook. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Cassius wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him, stroking her hair and quietly shushing her, none of which actually helped. Sorry? What would she be sorry for?
It was only then that he took his first look at his child and remembered what Valerie had said.
"A daughter?" Cassius asked.
"She's perfect," Valerie had said.
The question elicited one more burst of tears from Andria, who nodded her head and turned her face away from her husband. "I'm sorry," she repeated again. "Don't be mad."
"Mad?" Cassius said with some exasperation. "No. No, no, no. How could I ever be mad? Look at the amazing thing you've done. Look at this perfect child you've brought into the world. Our daughter…"
Andria sniffled and squeezed the child to her chest and summoned the courage to look her husband in the face again. "We needed a son."
The word "needed" stabbed his heart like a dagger.
Andria had grown up in a household with four sisters. She had lost five brothers in a permanent pall that hung in the house like stains in the walls that could never be washed out. She had lived her life knowing of the way those in the Imperium called her father Flavius Five-Daughters as a mark of shame.
He was now perhaps on the first step toward them calling him Cassius Five-Daughters himself, one day.
Andria was not so naive as to know the threats that faced her entire lineage and its future. One son, just one son born to the direct line from her father and imbued with the gift of magic might solve everything. Her father and mother had not been able to deliver a true and secure heir — they had produced five daughters, none of whom had the gift — and so it had now fallen to their daughters to carry that burden.
Andria had carried it for nine months, filled with both hope and anxiety, and then delivered another daughter into the Arrentius household.
It turned Cassius' stomach to put the picture together. This day was supposed to be nothing but joy. But crushed under the weight of expectations and the political woe of her family, Andria felt nothing but failure.
"No," Cassius disagreed. "All we needed, all I ever wanted, is for our child to be healthy and perfect. I swear to you that I will love this beautiful little girl with all my heart, in the same way your father has always treasured you and all of your sisters."
Cassius kissed her temple again lightly and smiled as he gazed down upon his new little girl. "You have given me the greatest gift any man could ask for."
Andria took a deep breath, squelching the sobs for the moment although her eyes and cheeks were still wet. "You mean it?"
"Of course I do," he answered immediately, squeezing his wife close to him and brushing his fingers across his daughter's cheek. She slept so peacefully wrapped in her mother's arms. "Our little… what are we going to call her?"
Andria wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm and snorted, sniffled. "I don't know," she admitted. "I had only been thinking of names for boys, honestly."
"I had been tossing around a few ideas," Cassius said.
"I thought you were convinced we were having a boy?" Andria asked.
"Well, it never hurts to be prepared, right?" he teased.
For the first time since he had joined his wife and his child, she cracked a smile as she nodded her head. "What do you suggest?"
"Well, I'd like to name her, in part, after her beautiful mother," Cassius said, "Because who better to name her after than the woman who gave her life?"
Andria rested her head on his shoulder, mother and father admiring their daughter. "So, what is it?"
Cassius touched his fingertip to his daughter's nose and smiled. "How about Anna?"
"Anna…" Andria said, testing the name on her tongue. "Anna Arrentius… Double A's?"
"I like it," Cassius said. "Rolls off the tongue. Like, 'Have you heard about that Anna Arrentius? As beautiful and proper as her mother, with none of her lowly Praeteri father in her.'"
"'That Anna Arrentius is the greatest mage the Circle has ever seen,'" Andria said, testing it out herself and countering her husband's self-deprecation. "'They say she learned everything she knows from her talented and intelligent father. Can you believe her mother's not even a mage?'"
"It may be a bit strange, though, someday when it's three A's in Archon Anna Arrentius," Cassius offered.
"Oh, she's going into politics now?" Andria asked.
"Well, who in the Imperium is going to be able to stop her? Half you. Half me. They'll have no choice but to put her in charge," Cassius joked.
Andria chuckled, a sweet, quiet chuckle that evaporated all her tears and the lingering sadness that had hung around her like a thundercloud. She turned her head and kissed Cassius, her eyes cleared of tears and instead filled with the kind of beaming light of love she inherited from her mother.
"Our little Anna," Andria cooed. "It's time to meet your father."
Andria carefully shifted in the bed, lifting the bundle from her lap and passing their daughter to Cassius. He carefully scooped her into his arms, a bit unsure of how to hold her. He cradled her in his arms, rocking her gently as she snoozed, swaddled in her blankets.
"Hello, Anna," Cassius whispered to his daughter.
She didn't answer. That was fine. Cassius never wanted this quiet moment to end.
"Should I get the others? They'll want to meet her," Andria asked as she sat up in the bed, stretching and yawning after a day of hard labor.
"No," Cassius said, unable to take his eyes off his daughter. "Not yet. I just want to stay here a bit longer, just the three of us."
He was a father now.
His daughter. His Anna.
He was bound to cherish her forever.