Luminescent (Inheritance Cycle and Beyond)

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Blinding

Sliding his body in between the bedframe and Mal's back, Murtagh wrapped his arms around her body to grip her hands as she jerked in place, though this time a small, tortuous whimper escaped her lips. Murtagh felt Mal's fingernails dig into his hands as her grip tightened.

The bite from her nails he would take, for it was nothing like the type of pain she was experiencing at the moment. Yirlitá coached Mal through the contraction that was the source of the pain.

A few minutes went by, and Mal's body sagged against Murtagh's chest. The pain was temporarily over, but the effect had Mal's chest still heaving.

"How close have they gotten?" Yirlitá asked as she held up her hands, they sparkled as they were sterilized by magic.

"Close," Mal panted. "you did say this was going to be fast."

"Aye, I did." Yirlitá said as she adjusted the skirt of Mal's dress. "the little one is coming, it won't be long now."

"Murtagh?" Mal asked in between breaths, leaning her head back so she could look at him in the eye.

"Yes?"

"I really want to kill you right now." She told him in a deadly calm voice. Yirlitá let out a hearty laugh, for she had heard those words thousands of times before from the mouths of other women.

"Oh, really?" Murtagh replied. Mal narrowed her sharp blue eyes at him.

"You are lucky your cute. Otherwise, you'd be dead by now."

"Noted, my love."

"Ah to be young again." Yirlitá sighed as she shook her head. "now, dear, when the time comes, I want you to push as hard as you can."

It was a waiting game from then on, the three of them waiting for Mal's body to properly prepare itself to deliver the baby and for the baby itself to get into the right position, and when it was, Murtagh knew that all the training in the world could not prepare him for the screams coming from Mal's writhing body.

Murtagh thought his heart was going to tear in two as Mal screamed. Yirlitá was kneeling in front of her, a concentrated look on her face as she chanted to Mal.

"Push," Yirlitá encouraged yet again. Murtagh flinched slightly as one of the bones in his hand cracked from Mal's grip. "almost there, Shur'tugal, almost there."

"Doesn't feel like it," Mal gasped out in between heaving breaths.

"Aye, and men think that childbirth is easy," Yirlitá said, shaking her head. "fools wouldn't even last five minutes."

Mal laughed at the healer's words before the sound turned into a moan of pain. It was a time like this that Murtagh questioned why women even wanted children.

"Alright, Shur'tugal, your child is almost out, give me one last push." Yirlitá cooed, once again Ma's grip tightened in Murtagh's hands. With one last frustrated, pain-filled screamed, Mal pushed with every last drop of energy that her body held.

The bedroom went quiet for a few seconds until a piercing wail cut through the silence. Mal shuddered, breathing heavily as she and Murtagh stared at Yirlitá. The old healer was wrapping a squirming babe in a blue silk cloth.

Murtagh dropped his lips to the crown of Mal's head as a sigh of relief escaped him. Both the babe and the mother seemed to be alright after the ordeal.