The first gray light of dawn touched the window, and Phuwin heard footsteps in the corridor before the knock came. Three short raps. Star's rhythm.
He did not move. Aric still slept against his chest, warm and soft, a small fist curled against Phuwin's collarbone. The song had died in his throat somewhere between the second and third verse, replaced by a silence that felt heavier than any word he could have spoken.
The door opened. Star entered first, her gold dress traded for a simple gray tunic, her face drawn tight with the same exhaustion that had settled into Phuwin's bones. Behind her came Mistress Elara, a leather satchel slung across her shoulder, her gray-streaked hair pulled back so tight it pulled at the corners of her eyes. Two maids followed, young women Phuwin did not recognize, their eyes fixed on the floor.
"Empress." Mistress Elara inclined her head, already moving toward the bed, already setting her satchel on the footboard. "I must ask you to prepare."
Phuwin's arms tightened around Aric. "He is nursing."
"Then finish quickly." The healer's voice was not unkind, but it was firm, the voice of a woman who had seen bodies fail and knew time was a luxury. "The longer we wait, the greater the risk to both you and the Twins."
Star crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, her hand finding Phuwin's knee through the rumpled silk. "I will take him," she said softly. "He will be with the wet nurse. He will be safe."
Phuwin looked down at Aric's face. The small mouth, the closed eyes fringed with dark lashes, the perfect curve of his cheek. This child who had nearly killed him. This child he would die for. This child who was sleeping, unaware that his mother's body held a ghost.
"Help me," Phuwin said, his voice barely a whisper.
Star reached for Aric, her movements slow and careful, sliding one hand beneath his head and the other beneath his body. Aric stirred, his mouth searching, but Star lifted him smoothly, cradling him against her shoulder, and began to hum a low, steady note. The baby settled, his breath evening out.
"I will bring him back when it is done," Star said. She paused at the door, her eyes meeting Phuwin's. "You will survive this."
She said it like a command, not a hope. Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her, and Phuwin was alone with the healer, the maids, and the gray morning light.
Pond was not here. Pond did not know the dawn had come. Phuwin had not sent for him—had told Star not to, had insisted on facing this alone. But now, with the empty space in his arms where Aric had been, the loneliness pressed against his ribs like a blade.
Mistress Elara opened her satchel. The smell of herbs rose from it, sharp and medicinal. She removed a bundle of cloth and unrolled it on the footboard, revealing a row of instruments laid out in gleaming order. Needles. Forceps. A small curved knife. And at the end, a silver tool, curved like a hook, polished to a dull gleam.
Phuwin's stomach turned. He looked away.
"I will give you something for the pain," Mistress Elara said, selecting a thin needle and a small glass vial. "It will dull the body but not the mind. I need you awake to tell me if something is wrong."
Phuwin nodded. His hands were shaking. He pressed them flat against the mattress.
The healer approached, the needle glinting. "Hold still."
Phuwin felt the prick at his inner arm, a brief sting followed by a spreading warmth. The room did not spin so much as soften at the edges, the candlelight bleeding into the gray air, the sounds of the palace becoming distant and muffled. He blinked, and the ceiling seemed farther away than it had been a moment before.
"Good," Mistress Elara said. "The maids will help you position yourself. I need you lying back, your knees raised and apart."
The maids moved forward. One took his ankles gently. The other reached for his shoulders, easing him down against the pillows. Phuwin let them. The drug made his limbs feel heavy, distant, as if they belonged to someone else.
"On your count, my lady," one of the maids said softly, and they lifted his legs together, bending his knees, positioning his feet flat on the mattress. His robe fell open, the cool air touching his thighs, his belly, the tender skin where life had grown and died.
Phuwin stared at the canopy above him. He could feel the maids' hands, impersonal and efficient, spreading him open. He could feel the morning air against the most vulnerable part of his body. He could feel the memory pressing up from beneath his skin, the memory of being held down, of being taken, of the old emperor's hands and the healer's fingers and the blood—
"No." The word came out thin, barely a breath.
Mistress Elara did not pause. She reached for the silver hook, her fingers closing around its handle, lifting it into the gray light. The instrument caught the dawn, a crescent of brightness, beautiful and terrible.
Phuwin's body moved before his mind caught up. His heels dug into the mattress, his knees snapping together, his hands pushing against the maids' grip. A sound tore from his throat, raw and animal, and his hand shot out, finding the edge of the bed, finding nothing—
And then it found Pond.
Pond was there, his fingers closing around Phuwin's, his palm solid and warm, his presence so sudden that Phuwin did not understand where he had come from. He was still in his nightclothes, his hair uncombed, his eyes wild. He must have heard something, must have sensed it, must have come the moment the door closed.
"Stop," Phuwin said, the word scraping out of his throat, his grip on Pond's hand so tight his knuckles went white. "Not that one. Not that one ever again."
Pond's hand tightened around Phuwin's, his knuckles pressing against Phuwin's palm like a promise made bone. He did not ask questions. He did not pull away. He looked at the silver hook in Mistress Elara's hand, and something cold moved behind his eyes.
"Put it down," Pond said. His voice was quiet. It was not a request.
Mistress Elara's hand did not move. "Your Majesty, I understand the Empress is distressed, but this instrument is necessary for—"
"I said put it down."
For a long moment, the healer did not move. Then, slowly, she lowered the hook to the cloth, her fingers releasing it with deliberate care. The silver clicked against the other instruments, a sound that seemed to hang in the air.
"There are other tools," Mistress Elara said, her voice carefully neutral. "Less precise. More painful. But if the Empress cannot tolerate the curette, I will work with what remains."
Phuwin's breath came in short, shallow pulls. The drug softened the edges of the room, but not the memory. The memory was sharp as the hook itself, a curve of silver that had once been pushed inside him by hands that did not belong to a healer. The old emperor had liked that instrument. Had liked the way Phuwin screamed.
Pond's thumb traced a slow circle on Phuwin's wrist. "Look at me."
Phuwin turned his head. Pond's face was close, his dark eyes holding Phuwin's, steady and present. He looked like a man who had not slept, whose nightclothes were wrinkled, whose hair was uncombed. He looked like a man who had run here without thinking.
"You are not there," Pond said quietly. "You are here. In our bed. I am here. The healer is here to save you, not to hurt you."
"She has the same hands," Phuwin whispered. "The same—"
"She is not him." Pond's voice did not waver. "And I will not let anyone touch you with a tool that brings you pain. Do you understand me?"
Phuwin's throat closed. He nodded.
Pond looked up at Mistress Elara. "Find another way. If you cannot, send for the palace healer. Send for anyone. But that instrument does not come near my Empress again."
Mistress Elara's jaw tightened. She looked at the row of instruments, her gaze moving slowly across each one, weighing, discarding. Then she reached for the small curved knife, lifted it, examined the blade.
"This," she said, holding it up. "It will require a small incision. More risk of infection. More pain afterward. But it will reach the same place."
Phuwin's stomach turned. But the knife was not curved like the hook. It was straight, meant for cutting, not for scraping. A different shape. A different purpose. He could look at it without seeing his father-in-law's face.
"Will it work?" Pond asked.
"It will work." Mistress Elara set the knife on a clean cloth. "But I will need him still. Very still. If he moves, I may damage and Possibly kill thw twins."
Pond looked at Phuwin. "Can you be still?"
Phuwin did not know. His body was trembling, fine tremors running through his thighs, his hands, the delicate skin of his belly. The drug had softened his limbs but not his fear. The fear was a living thing, coiling in his chest, ready to spring.
"Hold me," Phuwin said.
Pond moved without hesitation. He climbed onto the bed, settling behind Phuwin, his chest against Phuwin's back, his legs bracketing Phuwin's. His arms came around Phuwin's torso, one hand splayed across his sternum, the other resting low on his belly, above the place where the dead child waited. He was warm. Solid. A wall of living heat against Phuwin's shaking back.
"I am here," Pond said against his ear. "I am not leaving. You will feel my breath on your neck the whole time. You will feel my hands. You will know it is me."
Phuwin's eyes burned. He blinked, and the tears slid sideways, catching in his hair, dampening the pillow.
"The maids will hold your legs," Mistress Elara said, her voice clinical now, all business. "I need you to keep your knees apart and your feet flat. If you need to stop, you tell me. But stopping means starting over, and I cannot guarantee the same results twice."
The maids moved back into position. Their hands were gentle on Phuwin's ankles, easing his legs apart, positioning his feet against the mattress. The cool air touched him again, intimate and exposed. He felt Pond's arms tighten around him, a silent message: I am here. I am here. I am here.
Mistress Elara picked up the knife. The gray morning light caught the blade, a silver line no thicker than a thread.
"I will begin," she said. "You will feel pressure, then a sharp sting. Do not move."
Phuwin closed his eyes. He felt Pond's heartbeat against his back, steady and slow, a rhythm to breathe by. He felt his own pulse racing beneath it, a bird beating against a cage. He felt the maids' hands on his ankles, impersonal and firm, keeping him open.
And then he felt the blade.
It was cold. That was the first thing. Cold and sharp and precise, a line of fire cutting through the numbness the drug had laid across his skin. He gasped, his hands flying up, and one of them found Pond's arm, digging into his forearm with nails that bit through the thin fabric of his nightclothes.
"Breathe," Pond said. "With me. In. Out."
Phuwin tried. The air came in ragged, stuttered, half a breath at a time. The knife moved deeper, and he felt something shift inside him, a pressure that was not quite pain, a sensation of being opened from the inside.
"Good," Mistress Elara murmured. "The incision is clean. Now I need to reach the womb."
Phuwin heard the words, but they seemed to come from far away, filtered through the drug and the fear and the steady thud of Pond's heart against his spine. He focused on the heartbeat. One beat. Another. Another. A lifeline in the dark.
The healer's fingers entered him. He felt them, slick with something warm, pushing deeper than any touch should go. His body convulsed, a reflexive clench, and he heard himself make a sound, a whimper that he could not control.
"Hold him," Mistress Elara said, not looking up. "I am almost there."
Pond's arms tightened. His mouth pressed against Phuwin's hair, his voice a low murmur, words that Phuwin could not quite parse. Promises, maybe. Prayers. The sound of a man who was holding his world together with his hands and would not let it shatter.
Phuwin's vision blurred. The ceiling swam above him, gray and distant. He felt the healer's fingers searching, searching, and then a different sensation—something releasing inside him, a pressure that had been held so long he had stopped noticing it. The release was warm. Wet. A flood that spread through him, pooling beneath his hips, soaking the sheets.
"There," Mistress Elara said, her voice heavy with something that might have been relief. "I have it."
Phuwin heard the words but could not process them. Have it. Have the dead thing. Have the child that had grown and died inside him without ever drawing breath. It was gone now. Empty space where life had been.
He did not know whether to weep or to breathe.
"The twins is still whole," Mistress Elara said, and her voice changed, a note of surprise creeping in. "The wall between them held. I can feel the heartbeat—fast, but steady. The children are alive."
The words landed like blows. Alive. The twins was alive. The children he had been carrying alongside the dead one, the children he had been trying to protect, the children that had been slowly starving inside him—still alive.
Phuwin's hand pressed against his belly, over the place where Pond's hand already rested. He felt nothing. No kick, no flutter, no movement. But somewhere inside him, a two hearts was beating. Small and fierce and stubborn.
"I need to close the incision," Mistress Elara said. "This will sting."
Phuwin barely felt it. The needle, the thread, the pull of skin being drawn together—it all happened somewhere far away, in a body that no longer seemed to belong to him. He was floating above the bed, looking down at a man being put back together by a healer's steady hands, held by an emperor who had not let go.
When it was over, Mistress Elara stepped back. Her hands were stained red to the wrist. She wiped them on a cloth that one of the maids held out, her movements methodical, unhurried.
"The next hour is critical," she said. "He must not move. He must not strain. If he bleeds again, send for me immediately. I will leave instructions for a tea that will help with the healing and reduce the risk of fever."
Pond nodded. His hand had not left Phuwin's belly. His other hand was still wrapped around Phuwin's, their fingers interlaced, damp with sweat.
"The dead child," Pond said. His voice was hoarse. "What will happen to it?"
Mistress Elara hesitated. "I will take it with me. It will be given to the earth, properly. It deserves a name, if you wish to give one. It was a child, however brief its life."
Pond's jaw tightened. He looked at Phuwin, and something passed between them, a question that did not need words. Phuwin thought of the name he had saved for the child he had lost before—the one the old emperor had forced him to give up. He had never spoken it aloud. Had never told anyone.
"Towa," Phuwin whispered. "Eternal. Because it should have had forever."
Pond's breath caught. He pressed his forehead against Phuwin's hair and held still for a long moment, his shoulders shaking with a silence that was louder than any sob.
Mistress Elara retrieved a small cloth bundle from her satchel. She wrapped the instrument and the dead tissue separately, her movements precise and respectful. When she was done, she tucked the bundle into her satchel and closed it with a soft click.
"I will check on you at midday," she said. "Do not let him sit up. Do not let him eat anything heavy. Broth only, and the tea I will send. If he develops a fever, send word immediately."
She gathered her instruments, the curved hook still lying untouched on the cloth. She looked at it, then at Phuwin, and something flickered in her eyes—not judgment, not pity. Understanding, perhaps. The look of a woman who had seen enough of the world to know that some tools carried more than their weight in steel.
She left without another word. The maids followed, their footsteps soft on the stone floor, the door clicking shut behind them.
The room was quiet. The gray morning light had begun to brighten, tinged with gold at the edges. Phuwin lay still, cradled in Pond's arms, his body aching and empty and strangely light.
"You came," Phuwin said. His voice was a thread, barely audible.
"I came," Pond said against his hair. "I will always come."
Phuwin's eyes closed. He felt the truth of it in the arms around him, in the heartbeat against his back, in the hand that still rested on his belly, protecting what remained.
One child gone. Two children still clinging to life inside him. And three daughters somewhere in the palace, waiting for their mother to be whole again.
He was not whole yet. But he was still here. Still breathing. Still held.
And somewhere in the distance, he heard the waterfall. The sound carried through the stone walls, a low and constant murmur, the same sound that had been there before the old emperor, before the pain, before the loss. The water did not stop. It kept moving, kept falling, kept finding its way.
Phuwin let it carry him. He let himself fall into the darkness behind his eyelids, into the warmth of Pond's arms, into the fragile hope of a children still alive.
(Another end for chapter)..
👇🏽👇🏽
Mistress Elara's hand did not move. The hook hung in the dawn light, a silver crescent, and the room held its breath around it. She looked at Phuwin's face—at the white-knuckled grip on Pond's hand, at the wild terror that had replaced the drugged calm—and something shifted behind her eyes. Not pity. Recognition.
She set the hook down on the cloth. The clink of metal against wood was loud in the silence.
"I will not use it," she said. Her voice was not gentle, but it was final. "You have my word."
Phuwin's breath escaped him in a shudder, his body collapsing back against the pillows. The maids still held his legs, their grips impersonal, waiting. But Pond's hand was the anchor, his thumb moving in a slow, steady circle against Phuwin's wrist.
"The dead child must still come out," Mistress Elara said. She did not soften the words. "Every hour it stays inside you, the poison spreads. Your surviving children cannot wait."
"Then find another way." Pond's voice was low, rough, the voice of a man who had spent the night learning a new kind of fear. "You are a healer. Heal."
The healer's jaw tightened. She looked at the row of instruments, her fingers hovering over them, then drawing back. "There is another method. It is slower. It is more painful. And it may not fully complete, requiring me to go in after the remnants with instruments I do not wish to use."
"But not that one." Phuwin's voice scraped out of his throat. He was not asking. "Not ever that one."
Mistress Elara met his eyes. "No. Not that one."
She turned to her satchel and withdrew a clay jar sealed with wax, then a bundle of dried roots, their brown stalks twisted and gnarled. She held them up. "A root tincture from the mountain monasteries. It induces the body to expel what it cannot keep. It will feel like labor. It will take hours, not minutes."
"I have done labor before," Phuwin said. His voice was steadier now. The drug was still in his veins, softening the edges of the room, but Pond's presence was the sharper anchor, pulling him back to himself.
"Not like this," the healer said. "This is a labor without a child at the end of it. This is a body fighting itself."
Phuwin closed his eyes. He could feel the dead twin inside him, a weight that did not belong, a hollow where life had been. He could feel the surviving ones, smaller, tucked against his spine, waiting.
"Do it," he said.
Mistress Elara moved to the small table near the window, her hands working the wax seal loose. The smell rose as soon as she opened the jar—a bitter earth smell, like turned soil after rain, like grave dirt. She mixed the dried roots into a bowl, adding water from a pitcher, stirring until it formed a dark paste.
The maids adjusted Phuwin's position again, propping him higher, his back against the pillows. But before they could finish, Pond shifted behind him, his hands finding Phuwin's shoulders, guiding him back until Phuwin's spine met Pond's chest.
"I will hold him," Pond said. His arms came around Phuwin, crossing over his chest, bracing him. "Give him something to push against."
Phuwin did not have the words to thank him. He let his head fall back against Pond's shoulder, let himself be held. The drug made everything distant, but Pond was not distant. Pond was solid, warm, his breath stirring the hair at Phuwin's temple.
"I am here," Pond said, his voice low enough that only Phuwin could hear. "I should have been here before. I will not leave again."
Phuwin said nothing. He reached down and took Pond's hand, guiding it to his belly, pressing it flat over the place where the dead child had not moved in days. Pond's hand was warm. His thumb traced a slow circle over Phuwin's skin.
Mistress Elara approached with the bowl. The paste was dark, nearly black, and she scooped a generous amount onto her fingers. The first touch against Phuwin's lower belly made him flinch—it was cold and thick, and the smell was stronger now, acrid and medicinal.
"It will draw heat first," she said, spreading the paste over his skin in broad, even strokes. "Then it will pull inward. You will feel a deep cramping. That is the root working."
The paste warmed against his skin. At first it was a gentle heat, like a compress, but within minutes it deepened, spreading through his belly, settling low in his pelvis. Phuwin felt his body respond—a twitch, a clench, the deep involuntary pull of muscle that recognized the signal of labor.
He closed his eyes. He had done this before. Three daughters. One son. He knew the rhythm of his own body opening. But this time there was no child to meet, no cry to welcome. Just the body expelling what it could not save.
The first contraction hit like a wave: slow, building, pressing down through his pelvis. He gasped, his hands gripping Pond's forearms. Pond's arms tightened around him.
"Breathe," Pond said. "Like you taught the midwives. Breathe through it."
Phuwin tried. He dragged air in through his nose, let it out through his mouth. The pain crested and held, a grinding pressure, and then receded, leaving him trembling.
"Good," Mistress Elara said. She had pulled a stool close to the bed and sat waiting, her hands folded over her knees. "The tincture is working. The body is responding."
The second contraction came faster. Phuwin felt it build as the first had barely faded, a deeper ache, a more insistent pull. He heard himself make a sound—low, animal—and did not recognize it as his own.
"Look at me," Pond said. His voice was rough, his lips close to Phuwin's ear. "Stay with me. Look at me."
Phuwin turned his head. Pond's face was pale, his dark eyes bright with a fear he was trying to hide. But he did not look away. He held Phuwin's gaze, his hand still pressed against Phuwin's belly, feeling the contractions ripple beneath his palm.
"I am here," Pond said again. "I am not going anywhere."
The hours passed in contractions. Phuwin stopped counting them. He stopped measuring time. There was only the pain and the release, the pressure and the grip, the sound of the healer's voice and the feel of Pond's chest against his back. The maids brought water. Mistress Elara pressed on his belly, guiding the downward movement, murmuring words of encouragement that barely reached him.
At some point the cramps changed. The pressure shifted lower, more urgent, a need to push that Phuwin could not ignore. He bore down without meaning to, his body taking over, his hands gripping Pond's arms hard enough to bruise.
Then The healer watched and he hands moved.
The dead child. She held it and took a cloth and wrapped its body inside of it and set it aside.
Blood spilled from Phuwin and The healer took cloths and wiped, and she put a tissue to block more blood and placed pressure on it. Phuwin eyes were blurry. “Oh god, That's not my child.”Phuwin said before he quickly He passes out after seeing the dead childs face, covered in blood and droopy.
Pond tries waking him, calling his name and brushing his cheek softly. Elara watches as maid loose Their grip on Phuwin’s legs and They quickly get Blankets and fresh dress gown for Phuwin. Elara stands and takes the baby out of the blanket. It's body is dead. Like it's melting. Face is chubby and it's skin isn't normal. Elara looked at it and sighed before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, cutting the cord around its neck and gently rubbing its head and places it in the sink.