NABC Chapter 617 - 616- The Trap Must Have Caught, right?
Chapter 617 - 616- The Trap Must Have Caught, right?
"AAAAARRRRGHHH~~!!! IT HURTS!!"The scream came at midnight.
Evriana had been staying in the Redwood estate for a month. The birth was expected. The healers were prepared. The room was ready.
Nothing was ready.
The labor was long. Twelve hours. The screams that came from the room were not the dignified, controlled, healer-supervised sounds of a planned delivery. They were raw. Primal. The tearing, guttural, inhuman sounds of a body being pushed past its limits.
Evriana stood outside the door.
Her hands were shaking. Her sword was at her hip — a habit, a reflex, the particular, useless instinct of a woman who solved problems with steel and was confronted with a problem that steel could not touch.
She could hear Celestia screaming.
"HELP MY SISTER NOW!" Evriana yelled at the healer who emerged from the room, his hands bloody, his face pale.
"The baby is breached," he said. "We are trying to—"
"TRY HARDER!" Evriana grabbed his collar. The particular, desperate, irrational violence of a woman whose sister was dying and whose fists were, once again, the only court available.
She was pulled off by the guards. The healer went back in. The screaming continued.
Hours passed.
The screaming stopped.
The silence was worse.
Then — a cry. Small. Thin. The particular, piercing, unmistakable sound of a newborn’s first breath.
Evriana’s legs gave out.
She sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her hands over her face, her tears soaking her sleeves. The particular, overwhelming, full-body relief of a woman who had been holding her breath for twelve hours and had just been given permission to exhale.
The door opened.
The healer emerged. In his arms, wrapped in cloth, was the baby.
Small. Red. Wrinkled. Ugly, in the way that all newborns are ugly — the particular, temporary, unappealing appearance of a human who had just completed the most difficult journey of their life.
His eyes were closed.
His fists were clenched.
He was perfect.
"A boy," the healer said. "Healthy. The mother is exhausted but alive."
Evriana took the baby.
Her hands — the hands that held swords, that broke jaws, that had been clenched in terror for twelve hours — cradled the tiny, red, wrinkled thing with the particular, instinctive, tender care that she had not known she possessed.
She looked at his face.
At the closed eyes. At the small, pressed mouth. At the fists that were smaller than her thumb.
"Viktor," she whispered.
The name Celestia had chosen. The name that had been discussed over dinner, debated over tea, finalized with the particular, solemn, ceremonial gravity that the Redwood family applied to naming.
"Little Viktor," she said.
She held him.
For hours. While Celestia slept. While the healers worked. While the estate settled into the particular, exhausted, post-crisis quiet of a household that had survived a catastrophe.
She held him and she made a promise.
The same promise she had made about the baby before it was born. She would be there. Always. Present. The aunt who did not visit on holidays. The aunt who stayed.
She taught him to walk.
At one year, she held his hands — tiny, soft, the fingers curling around her index finger with the particular, trusting, complete grip of a baby who did not know what trust was but was doing it anyway — and she walked him across the floor.
At two, he fell. She picked him up. He fell again. She picked him up again.
At three, he ran. She chased him. He laughed — the particular, high, delighted, full-body laugh of a child who had discovered that running was fun and being chased was better.
At four, he talked. Not well. Not clearly. The particular, broken, adorable, half-formed speech of a child whose tongue was learning to shape words and was not yet good at it.
At five, he fought. Not with sticks. With his fists. Small, soft, the punches landing on Evriana’s knees with the particular, harmless, enthusiastic force of a child who had watched his mother spar and had decided he was a warrior.
At six, he was quiet. The particular, watchful, observing quiet of a child who was learning that the world was more complicated than running and laughing and punching.
At seven, he was beautiful.
The Redwood bloodline had begun to assert itself — the pale skin, the dark hair, the particular, fine-boned, ethereal quality that would, in later years, become the face that women pressed their tits into and men hated on sight. But his eyes — his eyes were the Ktorian amber, deep and warm, the inheritance of his mother’s bloodline.
He looked up at Evriana.
She was thirty-four. She had spent seven years visiting the Redwood estate, teaching the boy, holding the boy, being the aunt she had promised to be. She had watched him grow from a red, wrinkled newborn into a child who ran and laughed and fought and watched.
He looked up at her with those amber eyes.
He blinked.
The particular, slow, deliberate, eyelash-heavy blink of a child who had learned that blinking slowly was adorable and was deploying the technique with tactical precision.
He opened his mouth.
"Aunty," he said.
The word, delivered in the particular, broken, sweet, half-formed speech of a seven-year-old whose tongue was still learning, hit Evriana’s chest like an arrow.
"One day," he said. "I will marry you, Aunty."
Evriana stared at him.
The words hung in the air — the innocent, absurd, utterly sincere proposal of a child who did not understand what marriage was but understood that it meant ’staying together forever’ and had decided that Evriana was the person he wanted to stay with.
She laughed.
The full, genuine, surprised, delighted laugh of a woman who had been proposed to by a seven-year-old and was, for the first time in a very long time, completely, uncomplicatedly happy.
"Silly boy," she said. "I am your aunt."
"One day," he repeated. Firmly. With the particular, stubborn, absolute certainty of a child who had made a decision and was not going to be talked out of it.
She ruffled his hair.
The gesture — the same gesture Celestia had used on her, twenty years ago, in the training yard — landed on Viktor’s dark hair with the particular, inherited, passed-down tenderness of a woman who had been shown kindness and was now showing it.
"One day," she said. "We will see."
Tears slid.
The memory dissolved. The garden, the boy, the laugh — all of it faded, replaced by the present. The camp. The fire. The soldiers.
Evriana sat on a tree log.
She was no longer Evriana — the small, bloody, ten-year-old girl in the training yard. She was Evriana Ktorian. Princess. Sword of the Ktorian family. Thirty-nine years old. The woman who had been given her sister’s name — or rather, who had taken it, who had adopted the identity that the family had assigned her, the branch family member elevated to the main line, the half-blood who had been given a title and a sword and a place.
She sighed.
"Would that woman have done her work?" she murmured.
She looked around the camp.
The soldiers were eating. Talking. The fire cracked. The tents rustled. The ordinary, mundane, military evening of a hunting party at rest.
Viktor was not there.