Chapter 31
JINGYI
Annett was half-sprawled on her bed—head lolling, chest rising shallow and fast, belly tight with strain. Her face had gone pale, lips blue at the corners. The skin around her mouth twitched with each contraction. JingYi could tell even without touching that she was losing too much blood.
A woman turned as she entered, wringing a damp cloth with shaking hands. JingYi had seen her before, the mother of the boy whose scraped knee she treated—Jaana.
“She was fine before, Princess,” the woman stammered. “She wanted to sit outside and take in a bit of air. She was just rising when she started bleeding down her legs. Drenched her nightgown red, she did.”
JingYi’s gaze went to the blood seeping into the bedding, thick and steady. “How long since the contractions started?”
“An hour, maybe a bit more. The pains are sharp, but irregular.”
JingYi stepped closer, rolling up her sleeves. “Bring me hot water and fresh linens.”
The woman rushed without another word.
JingYi knelt by the bed, pressed two fingers against Annett’s inner wrist, and counted. The pulse was thready, weak. The uterus was too soft between contractions—tired already before the pushing really began.
Annett moaned.
JingYi leaned close. “Annett, can you hear me?”
Her flaxen lashes fluttered open, and her glazed eyes met hers.
“I’m going to help your body catch up to what it already knows. But you must listen carefully and do as I say.”
Annett nodded weakly.
She pressed gently. The baby had descended.
Progressing, if unevenly. First-time labour could be tricky, most often slow rather than swift, but it seemed the baby was ready to greet the world.
Still, something gnawed at her as she monitored the next contraction.
Annett’s bleeding hadn’t stopped. Her pulse still fluttered like a candle in the wind.
Jaana returned with the water and linens, setting them down with shaking hands.
“Lift her hips with a pillow,” JingYi ordered. “Tilt her pelvis. We need the head aligned faster.”
Jaana moved with renewed urgency.
JingYi guided Annett’s breath with her voice, each push with her hands.
The baby’s crown appeared—damp and dark beneath the lantern light.
The sight sent a visceral, unwelcome memory flashing behind her eyes: another dim room, the weight of a different newborn in her arms, and the hissed accusation that she would stain the child with her misfortune.
She shoved the memory down, leaning in to guide the delivery—
—and stopped.
Her heart lurched.
The infant’s skin had a grey pallor to it. An umbilical cord wrapped not once but twice around their neck, twisting like a silken noose.
“Do not push,” JingYi said sharply.
Jaana froze. “What—?”
“The cord is around the neck.” JingYi’s hands moved fast, sliding along the slick warmth of newborn skin. “I need space. Hold Annett still.”
She dipped her fingers in a bowl of boiled water and worked quickly, sliding them beneath the first loop. It gave easily and slipped over the damp crown. The second was more stubborn.
JingYi drew a long breath and let the room fade, focusing only on the feel of the baby’s skin, the pulse under the cord.
Please, she pleaded, not sure to whom. Luneth, the ancestors, the child, or herself?
Please don’t let me be too late.
She slid two fingers between the cord and skin, rotating it carefully.
A half-turn. Another. A cramp, deep and hot, clenched low in her belly—her body’s cruel, mistimed reminder of her own ticking clock.
She ignored it, the pain blurring into the background chorus of strain and fear. The loop slipped free.
“Now, Annett. Push!”
Annett cried out and bore down. The baby slipped into JingYi’s hands.
For a moment, there was terrible silence.
No breath. No cry. Jaana began to stammer, but JingYi cut her off with a raised hand.
She turned the infant swiftly, fingers trembling as she swept out the mouth and nose.
She rubbed the chest—firm, urgent strokes.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, little one.”
When there was no movement, she leaned down, lips brushing the baby’s as she gave a small puff of air, then another. Her heart thundered.
“Don’t leave her,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave your mother alone.”
One rub. Two.
A twitch. A shudder. A gasp.
And then—
A cry. Wailing, loud and alive. JingYi’s shoulders sagged as the room exhaled with her.
Whoops and cheers erupted outside. She rocked the infant against her chest, breathing hard, her eyes stinging.
Jaana clamped a hand to her mouth and wept.
JingYi checked the cord’s pulse, now slowing, tied two boiled linen threads near the baby’s navel, and cut between them.
She wrapped the child and brought her back to Annett.
“A girl,” she murmured. “A healthy, beautiful baby girl.”
She placed the child into Annett’s arms, guiding them together. The girl sobbed, clutching her daughter like she would never let go.
While mother and child nestled together, JingYi turned her attention to the rest. The afterbirth came soon after, with no sign of tearing or retained tissue.
She worked quickly, hands steady despite her fatigue.
The village women came and worked alongside her—cleaning, binding, rinsing basins, stoking the fire.
Together, they settled mother and child into a freshly made bed.
Only when the cottage was calm did Jingyi finally pause, her sleeves stiff with dried blood, her limbs aching.
She was about to slip out, as unseen as she had always been, when Annett’s voice caught her.
“Wait, Princess.”
JingYi paused. Annett looked up from the child at her breast, cheeks streaked with tears, but her gaze was clear and unwavering.
“You saved her. You saved us.”
“I only did what was needed,” JingYi said, the old script falling readily from her lips.
“You did more than that,” Ulrik’s voice rumbled from the doorway. He had entered without a sound, his face lax, dust still smudged on his cheek. His eyes, however, were soft as they settled on the bundle. “That’s my granddaughter. My daughter. Both breathing because of you.”
JingYi’s throat burned, and she took a half-step back. “You should rest. The child needs warmth—perhaps one of the village women could—”
Annett shook her head and carefully extended the swaddled bundle. “Please. Will you hold her? Just for a moment.”
JingYi’s arms locked at her sides. The request was a knife, poised at the tenderest part of her—the part that had ached for acceptance since she was a young girl in the Imperial Palace, standing in the physician’s place.
She remembered Consort YiLan’s labour, the weight of her newest half-brother, and the cutting words that followed.
But here, in this humble cottage a world away, another mother was offering her a miracle. Not as a shadow, but as the central figure in its story.
Her arms moved of their own will, gathering the tiny weight. The baby was all warmth and newness. Her breath came in little huffs, soft as flower petals. JingYi stared down, and something long frozen inside her began to crack and melt.
“Would you name her?” Annett asked suddenly.
JingYi looked up. “Me?”
Ulrik, for once, laughed. His voice went hoarse. “Yes, you, Princess.”
“But . . . Lord Wulfbane is outside. I’m sure he’d be—”
“You brought her into this world,” Annett said softly. “It should be you.”
JingYi couldn’t speak. Her hands closed around the baby as she bounced her tenderly. Then, she said, “Aniva.”
Ulrik raised his brow, but his eyes softened. “An Isseric name?”
“A name from a language spoken across the Nine Kingdoms.” She watched as the baby dozed off. “Wear it with my hope that no matter where you are, you will always feel at home.”
Annett repeated it softly, and the name seemed to settle into the room, a gentle truth. The baby—Aniva—sighed in her sleep, nuzzling into JingYi’s hold. And in that moment, JingYi did not feel like a shadow trailing at the edge of life.
She felt, unmistakably and terrifyingly, like she was standing in the light.
Outside, the cold struck her like a bell, cutting through her exhaustion. Her breath clouded in the air. The moon hung low, silvering the garden.
By the fence, Alexander paced in tight strides, the night leaching the gold from his hair. Nearby, Duskwane shifted restlessly.
He spotted her at once and closed the distance.
“Jaana said it’s a girl,” he said. “All well?”
JingYi nodded. She was so tired that her bones might melt into a puddle. But the image of the baby sleeping in her mother’s arms drew a smile from her lips. “A beautiful girl. Her name is Aniva.”
He gave a faint smile, and for a moment, the sharpness in his expression softened. “Did you choose the name?”
JingYi lowered her head. “The family gave me too much honour.”
“They were wise to do so.”
She didn’t know how to answer that, or how to tell him no one had ever called her wise or honourable before. The words felt like a language she was only beginning to learn.
When they mounted up a while later, the ride home was silent, but it was a comfortable silence.
Ahead, Parandor’s towers emerged from the mist. A few windows glowed with light, softening the keep’s jagged silhouette.
In the hush of pre-dawn, the castle looked less a fortress and more a home waiting for their return.
A few people waited in the courtyard: Yrenna, Conrad, Tedric, and Darion—all alert despite the hour. Duskwane halted before them, and Alexander swung down first, then reached up to help her dismount.
“I suppose you’ve heard,” he said to the group. His voice, though fatigued, was buoyant.
The lightness in it caught her off guard. She’d grown so used to his solemnity that this glimpse of something unguarded felt like standing in a sudden patch of sunlight. It was a tonic for her exhaustion.
“I told them,” Darion replied. “But tell us properly now. How’s the babe?”
Yrenna’s worry flickered behind her eyes. “We’ve been waiting all night for word.”