The Broken Crown

Chapter 32

Adrianne

Adrianne hummed silently to herself, her hand caressing her growing stomach lightly as she stared into empty space. She had passed the point in her pregnancy where she would usually wake up, bloody and body aching, but still her fear had her in its tight grasp. A tight knot had settled in her stomach day and night and it took her hours to calm herself down enough to sleep when she went to bed. Sometimes, it seemed the air vanished around her and all she could do was lie still and focus on her breathing.

Luckily, she still had Miriam. Her family had decided to stay for a little while and Adrianne had ordered her old handmaiden into her service for the duration of their stay. She hoped that her family would be in Westhall for long enough that Miriam could join her in her confinement. She had had enough offers from both her ladies-in-waiting and others but she could not imagine any of them to be right.

Miriam had told her that sometime soon, the baby would begin kicking. Then Adrianne would know that it was alive and healthy. She could not wait for it; she was afraid that maybe she was not carrying a son, an heir. That maybe, all she was carrying was death and more blood. She would not even mind for the child to be a princess; she promised the gods she would love a girl as much as a boy, if only she could prove herself capable of bearing children at all.

“Are you feeling well?” Miriam asked as she entered the room, carrying a bucket of water for the bath.

“Yes.” She smiled in reassurance. “Don’t make it too hot. And not too cold either,” she hurriedly added.

“I’ll make it just right,” Miriam said with a warm smile before disappearing behind the screens surrounding the bathing area of her room.

Outside, the afternoon was beginning to turn into evening. Adrianne stood up, one hand still on her stomach, and walked to the bed where her clothing for the night had been laid out. It was a gorgeous dress, made in cloth-of-gold with embroidered sapphires. She touched the material and wondered how long it would be until she could no longer fit into dresses like this one. Not long, she decided.

In these late afternoon hours, everything went so quiet. Outside, she could hear hoofs against the stone pavement and once in a while, a worker would shout something. Then there was the strangely distant mumble of voices, as if she was in a dream. This used to be her favourite time of the day when she lived in Lionhall; the nearly unbearable heat would be slowly cooling and the screams and roars from the markets would be quieting. Everyone would be getting tired, ready to return to the privacy of their homes.

The silence was broken by a crash, followed by the clatter of glass against the floor and Miriam’s shrill scream. Then a sound like a powerful wind blowing filled the room and Adrianne’s face was attacked by a wave of heat.

Where the screens had once stood intact, flames were now licking up the painted images. Out from the inferno of orange and red, and of black and grey smoke, came a creature she no longer recognized. She screamed in fear and pain as she saw her handmaiden, her mother in so many ways, collapse onto the floor, deformed by the heat and the flames. She watched as the fire from which the woman had just escaped crawled up her back once more, consuming her.

“No,” Adrianne whispered in fear, and then realization hit her, hit all of the air out of her lungs with a blow so powerful she doubted she would ever recover. “No! No! NO!”

A coolness like the wind, or water, hit her back and she turned around to find herself in the arms of a guard. His mouth was moving but no sound escaped, nothing. All sound had vanished, only the image of Miriam on the floor, crawling together as to protect herself from the flames, remained. Her screams had replaced the hoofs and the workers’ calls.