Betrayal of Blood

Chapter 6 - Bloodline

Sindri—

Summer had been left behind, along with Fall as it to came and went, allowing way for frigid temperatures and abundances of snowstorms as Winter came with Her vengeance. Communication once again was delayed between Taryn and the rest of Gharash as travels were difficult during the wintry months, blizzards often halting messengers from going up or down the mountains and sickness gripping those vulnerable to the cold, those who travelled or were feeble.

The last message I'd received was from my sister and that had been a week before the snow had become packed and dense, and icicles had consistently hanged off trees and roads had become difficult to clear by shovel as ice had mixed in with the snow. 

My sister's letter had spoken only of how healthy her pregnancy was going, that my nephew or niece was doing well according to the physician who saw to her health. She was around two months pregnant and was set to birth the child in early Summer if all went well, and if all did, I had plans to be there when the child would be born.

However, because of the conception of her first child, Aelfgar had been apprehensive to continue our discussions on mutually benefiting treaties and land dispersals. He'd brushed it off in his address to me, stating he had his wife and child to think of first, and that he considered me last in all his affairs. I'd taken no offense that he cared for my sister and her child, but it had been frustrating that he thought me last. 

His delayal had set my plans back, my plans to extend Taryn by late Fall, which had already come and gone.

The only thing I wasn't behind in or having to delay were my plans to propose to Hrafn before the end of the year. I hadn't thought of anything special or romantic, only had bought a ring for him, had it crafted by a metalsmith then fitted with a sapphire stone by a jeweler.

Despite how my father had always reiterated that marriages should have a purpose, one besides love, I couldn't find it within myself to marry someone else, someone who would benefit Taryn. I refused to marry someone for their status or what they could bring me. It wasn't me and would never be. I would marry Hrafn regardless of the input of others because what we had was between us and nobody else.

"Sindri, did you hear anything I just said?" My mother asked, pulling me out of my thoughts, and into her searing blues eyes that gazed at me. She was laid up in bed again, for the third month in a row, and she'd asked to speak with me about Hrafn once more. I shook my head and wanted to offer an apology, but she waved me off. "You're about as bullheaded as your father was. I swear—"

She coughed noisily, interrupting herself, and it set me on edge again as I sat next to her on her bed. When she leaned forward, wheezing, and trying to catch her breath, I reached over, rubbing her back to help comfort her. 

It was all I could do, though I wanted to do more, to somehow figure out a cure to her sickness, but I knew nothing of medicine nor anatomy, only war and strategy, neither suitable for helping.

Our physician, Namald, had diagnosed my mother with a persistent infection in her lungs that had been caused by repeated illnesses, damaging her lungs and her ability to come back from sickness. Her body was weak, worn down from battling constantly, and even though I wouldn't give up on her, Namald had given my mother a low survival rate as the infection wasn't clearing up, only worsening.

My mother coughed up blood every day now and struggled to get enough air, while the potions and supposed cures did nothing to ease her pain or help her passing. It would be a horrid, slow death that I would have to sit by and watch, but her peace and acceptance had somehow comforted me, despite how every part of me didn't want to let her go.

When she settled, I helped her lean back against the headboard of her bed, and then I adjusted her blankets around her once more before she clutched my hands, her hands feeling icy to my heated ones. Feeling how cold she was, I glanced to the hearth, ensuring it was roaring still, before I looked back to her and cupped her hands in mine, trying to heat them.