A court of wicked lies

Prologue

The labor, when it began, was hard and full of blood. Nothing less was to be expected from a Willow, especially as one do headstrong and battle-hardened as Lottie Willow now known as Countess Lottie Bathory due to her long marriage to Count Cal Bathory, the ruling Count of the southern province of Hybern.
Lottie Bathory or as she still liked to be called, Lottie Willow, knew her husband was standing in the hall outside his wife's confinement room, whose heart was nearly bursting with pride as he heard each yell and scream of pain. Already six hundred years old, Cal Bathory had watched his friends - dukes and earls - beget heir after heir. Each one now knows that their blood was in the next generation of elite that would rule their great island of Hybern. And now it could be Cal and Lotties time to welcome their own child.
The midwife - fae of course, Cal did not want any humans in the birthing room that could bring their weaknesses onto this heir - pressed a wet cloth to Lotties forehead.

'The pain is nothing.' Said Countess Lottie Bathory as she waved the midwife away. 'I am a Willow. I was born for this pain.'

'Perhaps, countess. But Willows easily die on the birthing bed.' Replied the midwife as she pushed the wet cloth onto Lotties forehead again. 'Please countess, you're overheating as it is.'

'Overheating!?' Lottie nearly laughed at the midwife. 'Please! This is just the excitement of labor.'

The Countess Lottie then looked towards the door, where Cal could be glimpsed pacing back and forth. Lottie's green eyes watched him and then the midwife, her Willow red hair shone slick with sweat, it even curled around her neck. The countess was naked on the birthing bed, her small breasts only covered by her long red hair. Her pink nipples glowed still in the late moonlight. Her womanhood was exposed to everyone walking past the hallway, but Lottie did not mind.

Willows like their nakedness and I am no different, I am the blood of the Willow. The blood of High lords of old runs in my veins. I welcome this! Lottie thought to herself again and again as she watched her husband.

Husband. Not mate. There was no mating bond, at least not one Lottie was aware of.
This was not Lotties first pregnancy or even her second or third . . . She had managed to conceive five times before in the hundred and fifty years they had been wed, however only two had she carried to full term, and both those infants (girls of course. Willows only birthed girls) had been stillborn. However, in the fifth pregnancy, which had ended with a bloody miscarriage in the fourth month, midwives and maesters alike had warned their graces that they absolutely must not make another attempt to have a baby. The countess's very life was in danger. She was too weak and perhaps . . . They said, too old.

Lottie had only laughed in their faces.

Lottie looked at her husband again, 'He wants this to be over. He had no idea what he was getting into when his mother told him to wed and bed a Willow.'

Nor had anyone. Willows were more rumor than truth. And the true Willow herself was said to be more legend than fact, the only evidence of her existence being that the Westa Family no longer ruled the Spring Court and that the Tansmia Family did and for a fact a handful of woman look just like her, those of her descendants, those who called themselves Willows in a way to remember their ancestor and how she changed the Spring Court. Lottie strained as another labor pain hit her. She moved her knees to find her cunt covered in blood and what seemed to be an opening for the babe to come out of. She swore as she saw her womanhood . . . That was her favorite part of herself. The part she worshiped and loved, almost as much as her husband's tongue worshiped and loved.