fic: storm born - chapter forty
Merry Christmas, lovely readers!!! The baby, as promised.
Title: Storm Born
Author: Morgen
Summary: It was supposed to be their one chance to be together. Instead it plunged them straight into a nightmare.
Disclaimer: I don't own LOTS or profit from it in any way. Just worship it from afar.
Rating: PG-14
XL. DAYBREAK
Richard breathed in sharply and opened his eyes. A moment ago he’d been sitting on a rock, watching green plumes of flame dancing in the Underworld, but now Cara was looming over him, her hair in his face. An awful pain throbbed in his belly, but it lessened some as he breathed in again. He was lying flat on his back, the sky a wash of crimson above him, like spilled blood over the black cliffs of the rift. A scarlet sun was just appearing over the horizon. He was alive. He bolted upright, nearly knocking foreheads with Cara.
His shirt was stiff with his blood, the Sword of Truth encrusted with more of the same. He shoved it back into the scabbard filthy. There was no time to clean it now.
As he staggered to his feet, he saw that the lines of the Fatal Grace had been smudged and broken almost beyond recognition. “Zedd told me to do that before I woke you,” explained Cara, following his gaze. “Otherwise the magic would still be intact.” Richard nodded, feeling a surge of gratitude for his grandfather’s wisdom.
He scanned the rugged cliffs. “Where are they?”
“This way.” She took off at a run, tugging him forward by the hand. He felt clumsy and slow, his body still shaking off death as he stumbled after her. “Zedd set her down as soon as he got out of the rift.” The sooner to heal her, Richard thought, trying not to dwell on how close to death Kahlan had been. How close she might still be.
Soon he spotted them; Zedd kneeling over Kahlan, his hands pressed to her belly. She lay on her back, blinking weakly up at the blood red morning. Richard dropped to his knees so swiftly he could feel a rock tear a hole in the fabric of his breeches. “Kahlan,” he said, easing her head up to rest in his lap.
“Richard…” Her voice was faint, but she grabbed at his hand, her fingers weaving with his.
“How is she?” he asked Zedd.
The old wizard shook his head. “She’s awake, but the rest of it will have to wait if you want to try and save the child. It needs to come out now.”
Richard wanted to ask what all the rest was, and what it meant for Kahlan. If he could only keep one of them, spirits forgive him, but he’d choose Kahlan. But she was already speaking. “Save her, Zedd. Whatever you have to do to me, save her. If she dies, it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Richard, but she seemed not to hear him. Her face was slick with tears.
Zedd nodded, repositioning his hands over the fullness of her belly. “Then I’m going to restart your labor, dear one. Cara, get between her legs. Rip her skirts so you can catch the child.” Cara nodded gravely, as if she’d just been assigned to a mission of deadly importance.
“I’ll help you push the child out with my gift,” he continued, “but give it all you have. She needs out now.”
Kahlan nodded, her eyes bright with fear as Zedd began chanting softly, gnarled fingers dancing over her womb. A moment later, her head fell back against Richard’s chest, and she let out a low groan. She was breathing hard, and beads of sweat dotted her brow, as if she’d been thrown headlong back into the throes of labor. And he realized that was exactly what had been done to her. Her nails dug into his hand as she pressed against him, nearly lifting herself off the ground.
“That’s it. Help her to stand,” said Zedd, never taking his gaze from Kahlan’s belly, a faraway look in his eyes. The air tingled with the steady current of magic he was applying to help the child out. “Get her to bend her knees and squat. The babe will come easier that way. You’ll have to hold her up.” He heard what Zedd didn’t say; she still lacked the strength to move on her own.
Richard did as he was told; hoisting her up and helping her bend her knees. He held her to him, feeling every tremor of her body through his own. Kahlan cried out and grappled with his hands, groaning as she curled forward over her belly. A harsh, primal grunt escaped her, and Richard could no longer feel his hands, but Zedd nodded, encouraging.
“That’s it. That’s good, Kahlan. Keep breathing.”
She grunted again, her knees bent deep, nostrils flaring. Her neck was slick with sweat. “You can do this,” Richard murmured right against her skin. “I know you can.”
Kahlan groaned and cried out, her whole body heaving with the effort. The air crackled with the magic Zedd was using to draw the child down, out of its exhausted mother. He could tell by the look of intense concentration in his grandfather’s eyes that it was no small feat. But in the end, it happened rather quickly after so long a wait, such a time of suffering.
Kahlan gave one last, wild cry, and the child came slipping into Cara’s outstretched hands, a tiny, messy, lifeless thing. It didn’t move, and Richard sunk to the ground in the silence, cradling Kahlan in his arms.
He stared at the bloody infant, her hands clenched in tight fists, resting limply against her tiny chest. “Is she dead?” It was Kahlan speaking, her voice faint and tremulous. Richard clutched her to him. It would be okay. Cara would bring her back if she were gone. Cara would bring her back…
“No,” said Zedd, and already he was taking the babe from Cara. She fit in just one of his large, weathered hands. “Not yet.” He pressed a finger to her chest and resumed chanting, his voice taking on a different, more desperate cadence than it’d had before.
“Save her,” Kahlan wailed in a tone as if her own soul had come unhinged. “Please, Zedd, you have to save my baby, my…” And then she was sobbing uncontrollably, shaking like a storm against his chest. Richard wrapped his arms around her and tried to contain her grief, but it was a force like he had never felt before, and it broke against him again and again. He knew there was the afterbirth to see to, but he could not think. He could only hold Kahlan and stare at the motionless body of their newborn child resting in his grandfather’s ancient hand.
Eventually Kahlan stopped sobbing and stilled, sinking down until her head was a heavy weight in his lap. Tears swam in his eyes, and it seemed for the longest time that no one breathed, until Zedd lifted his finger and the tiny chest rose sharply as if in response.
The infant squirmed in his hands, miniature mouth opening to let out a sudden, strong cry. Richard laughed then, clutching at Kahlan’s tangled, sweaty hair. Above them the sky was still ruby red with dawn. Zedd couldn’t have worked on their daughter for more than a few minutes, but it felt as if he’d knelt before her all throughout the longest year of his life. “Kahlan,” he said, still laughing. “She’s alive.” His daughter was alive, and she was glorious. He was a father.
“Alive?” Kahlan echoed in a soft, tired voice, and Richard nodded, reaching out to take the infant from Zedd. He cradled her in the crook of his arm, taking in all ten of her tiny toes, no bigger than dew drops. They had made her, Kahlan and him, this red, wrinkled, perfect person. Her hair was a dark brown mess, and her eyes when they slit open were so dark and stormy he could not tell their color.
“Hello,” he crooned in a voice full of wonder. “Kahlan, say hello. Look at her.” But before she could answer, the spindly fingers of one little fist began to uncurl like petals on a flower. There at the very center of the baby’s palm lay a minuscule stone, red as blood. It was shaped like a teardrop and just as small.
“Spirits,” whispered Richard, plucking it from his daughter’s palm with the hand that wasn’t holding her. “It’s the Stone of Tears.” He stared at it in awe, feeling how it warmed in his palm like a living thing. Slowly it began to swell, growing in size until it fit his palm perfectly.
“So it is,” said Zedd. “Amazing… Nowhere is the power of the Creator stronger than in the creation of new life.” Richard nodded vaguely, still staring at the stone. He recognized it now. It matched the illustration on the opening page of the black book of Ashkari perfectly.
“No wonder we never found it,” Cara snorted. “It was with us all along.”
“No,” murmured Richard. “The Stone of Tears cannot be found. Only earned.” He wondered what they had done down in the forsaken depths of the Underworld to earn it. He turned it over in his palm, rubbing his thumb across the stone. It was perfectly smooth until he met a row of bumpy ridges. “There’s an inscription,” he said, studying it more closely. It was engraved in that strange language meant for the Seeker’s eyes alone, and as he stared at the senseless markings, words appeared in his mind. “I weep for the voiceless,” he read aloud. “That’s what it says. Kahlan, what do you think of that?”
She didn’t answer. He looked down to where her head rested in his lap. Her eyes were closed, and she lay motionless. “Kahlan?” The stone slipped from his grasp, and he was barely aware of handing his daughter to Cara before he pulled Kahlan to him and shook her. “Kahlan? Kahlan, wake up!” Her head lolled against his chest.
Glancing down, he saw a pool of blood spreading beneath her, red as the rising sun. “Zedd,” he cried out, though his grandfather still looked weary from the effort he’d spent healing their child. “Help her!” He cursed himself for letting the stone distract him from Kahlan for even a moment. The wizard had already leapt to the task, his hands hovering over her once more.
When Zedd looked up, his eyes were grim. “This is right on the edge of my skill to heal.”
“Cara, Cara will bring her back if she…”
But Zedd was shaking his head. “No. This is not a simple stab wound or too harsh a beating from an Agiel. This damage is deep within her. I shouldn’t have let this linger. There is a darkness in her blood I have never felt before.” His voice gave a faint tremble, but he went on. “Cara’s talents cannot save her, Richard. She would only bring her back into this body to die again.”
“No,” he choked out.
“I will still try,” said Cara, but he barely heard her. He felt his heart breaking open. This could not be the sacrifice the librarian had spoken of. He’d pay any other price, but not this one. Please, not this.
Zedd worked in silence as Cara held the baby in awkward hands, and Richard tugged at the ends of his hair, feeling as if he were going mad.
“Richard!” Cara’s voice broke through his thoughts, his head jerking up at the urgency in her voice. She pointed, and he followed to where a swarm of banelings was running towards them, weapons glinting, over the charred and rocky cliffs.
“Creator have mercy,” he heard Zedd mutter. There were hundreds coming, and with no end in sight. Cara passed him his fussing, squirming child and got to her feet. She pulled out her Agiels. The glint in her eyes told Richard she already understood that this was suicide. He could not bring himself to stop her, only nodding as she rose and took off running for the banelings. The baby wriggled in his arms, and Richard laid a hand against the sword at his hip. He would wait here to meet those who finally defeated her Agiels.
Then, before Cara had made it very far at all, the ground began to shake. Here and there it split open again in great, yawning chasms, tumbling down rock. Green smoke blossomed up out of the depths in thick plumes, and Richard made a desperate grab for the stone before it could roll away. It was as if the Keeper was making one last attempt to swallow them whole. Cara leaped boldly from rock to rock, avoiding the gaps. While here and there a baneling fell into a crevice, they kept coming closer like a wall of relentless, rushing doom. Overhead the red dawn darkened, and a crack of lightening split the sky. A spitting rain began to fall.
Carefully, Richard settled their daughter into the crook of Kahlan’s arm. Perhaps her nearness would draw Kahlan back. The rain picked up and washed the infant clean.
Richard clutched the Stone of Tears and waited for the gathering storm to strike. If only he knew how to use the stone. “I weep for the voiceless,” he murmured, looking down at Kahlan’s white face. Kahlan was voiceless now, and if Zedd couldn’t save her, she would forever remain that way. She would go down to join the unheard dead. Only he knew where they huddled, weeping and wailing to no end. And then he knew exactly where he needed to go. Back down to where every last tear went unheard, and all the souls were voiceless.
“I’m going into the rift,” he said as he scrambled to his feet. “Stay with them.”
Zedd looked up, magic still dancing wild in his eyes. “Richard, that’s certain death!”
He’d faced death once already and lived to speak of it. “I must.” He touched his daughter’s cheek and squeezed Kahlan’s lifeless hand, sparing time for only one word, “Live.”
He took off at a run. Already the banelings had almost collided with Cara. He slipped over the rain wet rocks, keeping a tight grip on the stone as the earth shook beneath his feet. With one last breath of fresh air, he barreled back into the foul darkness of the rift.
Title: Storm Born
Author: Morgen
Summary: It was supposed to be their one chance to be together. Instead it plunged them straight into a nightmare.
Disclaimer: I don't own LOTS or profit from it in any way. Just worship it from afar.
Rating: PG-14
XL. DAYBREAK
Richard breathed in sharply and opened his eyes. A moment ago he’d been sitting on a rock, watching green plumes of flame dancing in the Underworld, but now Cara was looming over him, her hair in his face. An awful pain throbbed in his belly, but it lessened some as he breathed in again. He was lying flat on his back, the sky a wash of crimson above him, like spilled blood over the black cliffs of the rift. A scarlet sun was just appearing over the horizon. He was alive. He bolted upright, nearly knocking foreheads with Cara.
His shirt was stiff with his blood, the Sword of Truth encrusted with more of the same. He shoved it back into the scabbard filthy. There was no time to clean it now.
As he staggered to his feet, he saw that the lines of the Fatal Grace had been smudged and broken almost beyond recognition. “Zedd told me to do that before I woke you,” explained Cara, following his gaze. “Otherwise the magic would still be intact.” Richard nodded, feeling a surge of gratitude for his grandfather’s wisdom.
He scanned the rugged cliffs. “Where are they?”
“This way.” She took off at a run, tugging him forward by the hand. He felt clumsy and slow, his body still shaking off death as he stumbled after her. “Zedd set her down as soon as he got out of the rift.” The sooner to heal her, Richard thought, trying not to dwell on how close to death Kahlan had been. How close she might still be.
Soon he spotted them; Zedd kneeling over Kahlan, his hands pressed to her belly. She lay on her back, blinking weakly up at the blood red morning. Richard dropped to his knees so swiftly he could feel a rock tear a hole in the fabric of his breeches. “Kahlan,” he said, easing her head up to rest in his lap.
“Richard…” Her voice was faint, but she grabbed at his hand, her fingers weaving with his.
“How is she?” he asked Zedd.
The old wizard shook his head. “She’s awake, but the rest of it will have to wait if you want to try and save the child. It needs to come out now.”
Richard wanted to ask what all the rest was, and what it meant for Kahlan. If he could only keep one of them, spirits forgive him, but he’d choose Kahlan. But she was already speaking. “Save her, Zedd. Whatever you have to do to me, save her. If she dies, it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Richard, but she seemed not to hear him. Her face was slick with tears.
Zedd nodded, repositioning his hands over the fullness of her belly. “Then I’m going to restart your labor, dear one. Cara, get between her legs. Rip her skirts so you can catch the child.” Cara nodded gravely, as if she’d just been assigned to a mission of deadly importance.
“I’ll help you push the child out with my gift,” he continued, “but give it all you have. She needs out now.”
Kahlan nodded, her eyes bright with fear as Zedd began chanting softly, gnarled fingers dancing over her womb. A moment later, her head fell back against Richard’s chest, and she let out a low groan. She was breathing hard, and beads of sweat dotted her brow, as if she’d been thrown headlong back into the throes of labor. And he realized that was exactly what had been done to her. Her nails dug into his hand as she pressed against him, nearly lifting herself off the ground.
“That’s it. Help her to stand,” said Zedd, never taking his gaze from Kahlan’s belly, a faraway look in his eyes. The air tingled with the steady current of magic he was applying to help the child out. “Get her to bend her knees and squat. The babe will come easier that way. You’ll have to hold her up.” He heard what Zedd didn’t say; she still lacked the strength to move on her own.
Richard did as he was told; hoisting her up and helping her bend her knees. He held her to him, feeling every tremor of her body through his own. Kahlan cried out and grappled with his hands, groaning as she curled forward over her belly. A harsh, primal grunt escaped her, and Richard could no longer feel his hands, but Zedd nodded, encouraging.
“That’s it. That’s good, Kahlan. Keep breathing.”
She grunted again, her knees bent deep, nostrils flaring. Her neck was slick with sweat. “You can do this,” Richard murmured right against her skin. “I know you can.”
Kahlan groaned and cried out, her whole body heaving with the effort. The air crackled with the magic Zedd was using to draw the child down, out of its exhausted mother. He could tell by the look of intense concentration in his grandfather’s eyes that it was no small feat. But in the end, it happened rather quickly after so long a wait, such a time of suffering.
Kahlan gave one last, wild cry, and the child came slipping into Cara’s outstretched hands, a tiny, messy, lifeless thing. It didn’t move, and Richard sunk to the ground in the silence, cradling Kahlan in his arms.
He stared at the bloody infant, her hands clenched in tight fists, resting limply against her tiny chest. “Is she dead?” It was Kahlan speaking, her voice faint and tremulous. Richard clutched her to him. It would be okay. Cara would bring her back if she were gone. Cara would bring her back…
“No,” said Zedd, and already he was taking the babe from Cara. She fit in just one of his large, weathered hands. “Not yet.” He pressed a finger to her chest and resumed chanting, his voice taking on a different, more desperate cadence than it’d had before.
“Save her,” Kahlan wailed in a tone as if her own soul had come unhinged. “Please, Zedd, you have to save my baby, my…” And then she was sobbing uncontrollably, shaking like a storm against his chest. Richard wrapped his arms around her and tried to contain her grief, but it was a force like he had never felt before, and it broke against him again and again. He knew there was the afterbirth to see to, but he could not think. He could only hold Kahlan and stare at the motionless body of their newborn child resting in his grandfather’s ancient hand.
Eventually Kahlan stopped sobbing and stilled, sinking down until her head was a heavy weight in his lap. Tears swam in his eyes, and it seemed for the longest time that no one breathed, until Zedd lifted his finger and the tiny chest rose sharply as if in response.
The infant squirmed in his hands, miniature mouth opening to let out a sudden, strong cry. Richard laughed then, clutching at Kahlan’s tangled, sweaty hair. Above them the sky was still ruby red with dawn. Zedd couldn’t have worked on their daughter for more than a few minutes, but it felt as if he’d knelt before her all throughout the longest year of his life. “Kahlan,” he said, still laughing. “She’s alive.” His daughter was alive, and she was glorious. He was a father.
“Alive?” Kahlan echoed in a soft, tired voice, and Richard nodded, reaching out to take the infant from Zedd. He cradled her in the crook of his arm, taking in all ten of her tiny toes, no bigger than dew drops. They had made her, Kahlan and him, this red, wrinkled, perfect person. Her hair was a dark brown mess, and her eyes when they slit open were so dark and stormy he could not tell their color.
“Hello,” he crooned in a voice full of wonder. “Kahlan, say hello. Look at her.” But before she could answer, the spindly fingers of one little fist began to uncurl like petals on a flower. There at the very center of the baby’s palm lay a minuscule stone, red as blood. It was shaped like a teardrop and just as small.
“Spirits,” whispered Richard, plucking it from his daughter’s palm with the hand that wasn’t holding her. “It’s the Stone of Tears.” He stared at it in awe, feeling how it warmed in his palm like a living thing. Slowly it began to swell, growing in size until it fit his palm perfectly.
“So it is,” said Zedd. “Amazing… Nowhere is the power of the Creator stronger than in the creation of new life.” Richard nodded vaguely, still staring at the stone. He recognized it now. It matched the illustration on the opening page of the black book of Ashkari perfectly.
“No wonder we never found it,” Cara snorted. “It was with us all along.”
“No,” murmured Richard. “The Stone of Tears cannot be found. Only earned.” He wondered what they had done down in the forsaken depths of the Underworld to earn it. He turned it over in his palm, rubbing his thumb across the stone. It was perfectly smooth until he met a row of bumpy ridges. “There’s an inscription,” he said, studying it more closely. It was engraved in that strange language meant for the Seeker’s eyes alone, and as he stared at the senseless markings, words appeared in his mind. “I weep for the voiceless,” he read aloud. “That’s what it says. Kahlan, what do you think of that?”
She didn’t answer. He looked down to where her head rested in his lap. Her eyes were closed, and she lay motionless. “Kahlan?” The stone slipped from his grasp, and he was barely aware of handing his daughter to Cara before he pulled Kahlan to him and shook her. “Kahlan? Kahlan, wake up!” Her head lolled against his chest.
Glancing down, he saw a pool of blood spreading beneath her, red as the rising sun. “Zedd,” he cried out, though his grandfather still looked weary from the effort he’d spent healing their child. “Help her!” He cursed himself for letting the stone distract him from Kahlan for even a moment. The wizard had already leapt to the task, his hands hovering over her once more.
When Zedd looked up, his eyes were grim. “This is right on the edge of my skill to heal.”
“Cara, Cara will bring her back if she…”
But Zedd was shaking his head. “No. This is not a simple stab wound or too harsh a beating from an Agiel. This damage is deep within her. I shouldn’t have let this linger. There is a darkness in her blood I have never felt before.” His voice gave a faint tremble, but he went on. “Cara’s talents cannot save her, Richard. She would only bring her back into this body to die again.”
“No,” he choked out.
“I will still try,” said Cara, but he barely heard her. He felt his heart breaking open. This could not be the sacrifice the librarian had spoken of. He’d pay any other price, but not this one. Please, not this.
Zedd worked in silence as Cara held the baby in awkward hands, and Richard tugged at the ends of his hair, feeling as if he were going mad.
“Richard!” Cara’s voice broke through his thoughts, his head jerking up at the urgency in her voice. She pointed, and he followed to where a swarm of banelings was running towards them, weapons glinting, over the charred and rocky cliffs.
“Creator have mercy,” he heard Zedd mutter. There were hundreds coming, and with no end in sight. Cara passed him his fussing, squirming child and got to her feet. She pulled out her Agiels. The glint in her eyes told Richard she already understood that this was suicide. He could not bring himself to stop her, only nodding as she rose and took off running for the banelings. The baby wriggled in his arms, and Richard laid a hand against the sword at his hip. He would wait here to meet those who finally defeated her Agiels.
Then, before Cara had made it very far at all, the ground began to shake. Here and there it split open again in great, yawning chasms, tumbling down rock. Green smoke blossomed up out of the depths in thick plumes, and Richard made a desperate grab for the stone before it could roll away. It was as if the Keeper was making one last attempt to swallow them whole. Cara leaped boldly from rock to rock, avoiding the gaps. While here and there a baneling fell into a crevice, they kept coming closer like a wall of relentless, rushing doom. Overhead the red dawn darkened, and a crack of lightening split the sky. A spitting rain began to fall.
Carefully, Richard settled their daughter into the crook of Kahlan’s arm. Perhaps her nearness would draw Kahlan back. The rain picked up and washed the infant clean.
Richard clutched the Stone of Tears and waited for the gathering storm to strike. If only he knew how to use the stone. “I weep for the voiceless,” he murmured, looking down at Kahlan’s white face. Kahlan was voiceless now, and if Zedd couldn’t save her, she would forever remain that way. She would go down to join the unheard dead. Only he knew where they huddled, weeping and wailing to no end. And then he knew exactly where he needed to go. Back down to where every last tear went unheard, and all the souls were voiceless.
“I’m going into the rift,” he said as he scrambled to his feet. “Stay with them.”
Zedd looked up, magic still dancing wild in his eyes. “Richard, that’s certain death!”
He’d faced death once already and lived to speak of it. “I must.” He touched his daughter’s cheek and squeezed Kahlan’s lifeless hand, sparing time for only one word, “Live.”
He took off at a run. Already the banelings had almost collided with Cara. He slipped over the rain wet rocks, keeping a tight grip on the stone as the earth shook beneath his feet. With one last breath of fresh air, he barreled back into the foul darkness of the rift.