TO LOVE A KING || Maegor II Targaryen [SLOW UPDATES]

038▪️PAINS OF MOTHERHOOD

Suddenly, A faint sound cuts under the noise of the crowd.

A woman’s scream. A high, drawn-out wail.

The sound floats in, barely audible beneath the clamor of the melee. But it’s not from the field. It comes from the castle. From the Red Keep.

A few heads turn. Most ignore it.

Back at the Red Keep, Queen Mellario's shrieks continue, ragged and primal, a sharp contrast to the cheering at the tourney. Her body writhes on the blood-soaked birthing bed. The maesters and midwives are frantic, their linen cloths soaked crimson.

Outside the window, the bells of the Sept toll faintly, though not for the Queen. It is an ordinary chime, but it feels ominous.

The air in birthing chamber was a thick, choking veil of blood, sweat, and incense. It clung to the tapestries like a funeral shroud.

“GAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Queen Mellario wailed, her voice cracking like thunder.

She lay naked from the waist down on the birthing bed, body slick with perspiration and streaked with crimson. Her hands clawed at the silken sheets, twisting them into knots soaked in pain. Her legs trembled violently, held apart by two anxious midwives, each woman silently praying as they braced the queen's limbs with shaking hands.

Queen Aemma, standing nearby, pale and drawn, knew this dance all too well. Her own womb had been a battlefield for years. But even she looked away at Mellario's screaming, as if watching her own memories tear open anew.

“Hold her steady!” barked Grand Maester Mellos, eyes sharp behind his spectacles as he leaned forward, peering into the shadowed valley between the Queen’s legs.

Around him, midwives moved like ghosts, quietly, dutifully, desperately, their hands full of warm cloth, bloodied linens, and bowls of bitter-smelling tinctures.

“Mistress! The fever rises!” one handmaid warned, holding up a cloth drenched in scarlet. Another stood behind the queen, wringing her hands. “Her body is resisting, Maester. She’s fighting it, but... the babe....”

“I know,” Mellos cut her off sharply. “The child is in breach. No position is right, no pressure is working.”

The Queen was in war with her body, a cruel, primal struggle that turned her bedchamber into a battlefield. Her scream echoed down the stone corridors of the Red Keep, a piercing siren of mortal peril.

But the rest of the realm was too enraptured by jousts and merriment to notice the death rattle wrapped in those cries.

Maester Mellos exhaled, his face damp. He raised a hand, gesturing his attendants to halt. “Give her rest,” he murmured, his voice weary. “Let her breathe.”