Sisters Three (Completed)

53. Morna

Afton was back at her side, and she pulled him close. "If I don't make it," she said, her voice uneven and raw, "I want you to keep looking for Adair."

"You're going to make it," Afton said, his voice stern. He pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. She leaned into him, still so grateful that he had come back to her.

"Promise me you'll find her," she insisted.

"We don't even know if this is her we're trailing. A raving madwoman coming down from the mountains sounds like any folk tale a village would create. Witches are common in country stories."

"Not these mountains. Her mother was from here." She gasped as she waited for a wave of pain to wash over. "It has to be her. They always called her a witch."

Afton was silent for a moment, but then he gripped her hand. "Of course I'll keep looking for her."

The pain continued, and Morna felt her strength draining from her. Afton knew nothing of babies, and though he tried to assist, he was just as helpless as she was.

Hours blended into nothing, until suddenly the pain was speared through with the wavering cries of a newborn baby. Morna laughed and cried at the same time as Afton shakily lifted up a writhing little body. Tears spilled from his cheeks as he held the baby, a boy, close to his chest and lay next to Morna. She took the baby from him, feeling its warm skin against her arms as Afton kissed her.

The baby screamed into the storm, but Morna treasured his red face. It meant he was alive and well, and that none of the horror of her pregnancy had harmed him. And, most importantly, the water falling outside didn't seem to bother him at all.

Afton ran his hand over the bald little head, beaming as he gazed on the baby. "He's beyond anything I could imagine," he whispered. "Thank you." He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, letting her rest her tired head against his shoulder as the baby wriggled into the warmth and shelter that she offered.

It wasn't long before she fell asleep, exhausted, and only awoke as the sun tipped over the horizon and her child's voice filled the cave with his demands for food. Morna opened her eyes to the glitter of the sun reflecting off the dripping water at the cave's mouth. Rainbows danced in her eyes and she groaned as she lifted her arm up to shield them.

She was first greeted by Afton smiling at her as he rocked the baby back and forth in his arms. Morna's heart seized at the sight of her child's rosebud lips, puckered and perfect, and his round nose that sat prominent on his face. She wasn't sure he looked like either a Glenfarrow or an Ildersong, but she didn't care. He was part of her and Afton, and he had an entire future ahead of him.

Afton handed the baby over for Morna to feed while he went out in search of anything dry enough to feed the fire so they could cook their own meal. While he was gone, she stared at her baby in awe of his little fingers and toes. When he finished eating, he fell asleep against her shoulder, and she pat the back of his soft head.

The sound of someone shuffling into the cave brought Morna's attention back to the present. She looked up, expecting to see Afton, but instead saw a woman standing in tattered animal pelt, staring at her with wide eyes and shaking in the breeze. Her snow-white hair hung heavy with water down her back and though she was unearthly beautiful, her eyes looked unfocused and her mouth was a slit across her blue-pale skin.

Morna opened her mouth to scream for Afton, but then the woman stepped closer and Morna realized she recognized something in her face. The regal tilt of her head, inherited from the blood of queens, was still visible even though the grime that coated the woman's face.

"Adair?" Morna whispered.

The woman didn't answer, but did wander closer. Her eyes focused on nothing, flitting from one place to the next. Morna felt the mists of mourning hanging around her older sister. She'd gone through the same sort of grief, unhinged from the world. But here Adair had nothing to hold onto, and though she now looked like a grown woman, Morna knew she was almost as helpless as the baby.

"I missed you," Morna offered, adjusting the baby so that she could offer a hand to her older sister. Adair's eyes skittered to her offered palm, but quickly left again like a dog avoiding a beating. Morna retracted her hand, but scooted over to offer a place to sit by her side. She lowered the baby, making sure his face was visible.

"Do you want to see your nephew?"

Through whatever mists separated Adair from reality, this seemed to reach her. Her eye still danced around the room, but she inched toward Morna and the baby. Morna took her hand as she approached, surprised to find it so cold, and pulled her down to sit by her side.

Adair sat still as Morna moved the baby over to her arms, and her shivering seemed to stop as his warm little body settled against her tattered animal pelts. Morna smiled as she watched one of her sisters hold her baby. A lump formed in her throat as she watched Adair slowly begin to warm to the child. Her fingers ran over his skin, though she still wouldn't look at him, and the smallest lift at the corner of her mouth let Morna know that her sister was still inside the damaged mind. Their family could still be salvaged, and here was the proof.

Morna leaned into Adair, resting her chin on her sister's shoulder. Where once she might have sought comfort from the older sister who had always been so sturdy and capable, Morna knew she would be the one to take charge now. She was the one who would rescue Adair from whatever depths of sorrow she had sunken into. It might take years, might take them their entire lives. But that was the beauty of this new life. Her life was her own, and she could spend the entirety of it protecting the lives she loved so much.