Daughter of War

Chapter 2 - Werewood

Thora runs into the castle, dropping Fredrick's knife in the dirt.

She runs up the castle stairs two at a time, knowing exactly where her mother is. She finds her father pacing in front of a door, his face hard as stone and his hands clasped tightly in front of him.

Thesos looks at Thora whose face is deathly pale.

"It's too soon," she says and her father's face softens as he walks over to his daughter and embraces her in a tight hug.

"It's going to be all alright," her father whispers as she holds him close, Thora's mother screams out again in agony and her father flinches and holds onto Thora tighter. Thora looks up to her father, his eyes are closed tight and his hands are shaking against her back.

"It is going to be ok," Thora says to her father as her mother cries out again.

The two of them stay outside the room for nine hours, they sit on the cold hard floors and wait while Diana screams on the other side of the door. After the ninth hour, a different cry echoes through the castle, a baby's cry. However, Diana has gone silent. Thora's heart leaps into her throat as a midwife emerges from the room and stands in front of Thesos holding a child wrapped in a blanket.

"Would you like to hold your daughter?" the midwife asks and Thesos stands and looks past the midwife and into the room.

"What's wrong with Diana?" he asks, "Is she ok?"

"There is a little more bleeding than last time," the midwife says as she gently rocks the baby, "Mother Sabina is doing all she can."

Mother Sabina is a part of the Many Mother's, a group of women who help others in time of sickness and birthing. Men often refuse to doctor women in their bodily matters, claiming that it is unclean and is damaging to their reputation. Mother Sabina is the best birthing doctor there is, she has delivered at least a hundred babies without a fault to the baby or mother.

Thesos looks back into the birthing room and sees Mother Sabina standing between his wife's legs. He looks at the baby in the midwife's hands and then looks away, refusing to acknowledge it until he knows that his wife is safe. Thora looks at the tiny baby, its face pure and soft and round. The midwife looks down to Thora and smiles.

"Would you like to hold?" she asks and Thora nods eagerly, the midwife hands the baby to Thora and Thora holds the baby very carefully.

"Someday you'll have your own child as well," the midwife says and Thora scrunches up her nose at the thought which makes the midwife laugh, her laugh wakes the sleeping child and it begins to wail, Thora is shocked at the sound but is more shocked at the colour of this child's eyes. They mirror her own.

"Where is my baby?" her mother's weak voice calls, and the midwife takes the babe from Thora and delivers it to Diana's arms. Thesos walks into the room and closes the door behind him, shutting Thora out. Thora looks down to her feet and then walks into the dining hall, her sisters all sit around the table with their maids nearby.

"Is it a boy?" Genorra asks when she sees Thora. Thora shakes her head.

"Another girl," she says taking a seat at the table, "Big green eyes and dark black hair."

Servants bring Thora food to eat as the rest of her sisters begin to go upstairs to their rooms, they all hate the sound of their mother in pain, they don't like to be anywhere near the sounds, but Thora knows that her mother might need her, she is always close when her mother is in pain.

Then the bells start, high up in the castle there is a set of large bells that ring whenever something important is happening. They ring when someone has died, they ring when someone is born, they ring when they are in danger, they ring for marriage, they ring for funerals, they ring when her father goes away and they ring whenever her father comes home.