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July 20, 1198
"Well... it's nice that Celina still invites me to family dinners," Nythran sighed as he sat down next to Cladelia on the bench. As of a quiet half-minute prior, they were the only two in the room. Cladelia's youngest was down for her nap. Her son was a couple years younger than Nythran's, enough that the older Ovrean likely found his cousin of the same name annoying, but Nythran's Ovrean had a slingshot and had been itching to show it off to an admiring party. When it came to the girls--minus the baby, of course--Cladelia's was the senior of the two, but Lileina fancied herself grown-up enough now to at least try to put up with the antics of younger cousins. She also wished others would fancy her grown-up, so of course she needed an excuse to play with her dolls--and what better excuse was there than a younger guest in need of indulgence? Not that it much looked like indulgence, what with Lileina being the one to drag Holladrin off in glee.
As for Celina and the visiting King Oswald, they were probably still in conference with Lorn. They'd be back soon, and not without Lorn's branch of the family in tow... but as unused as Cladelia was to being alone with her dead husband's dead sister's widower, she didn't want to guess at what her sweet, loving mother-in-law would have thought of that musing.
"Don't be absurd. You know Celina; you'll always be a son to her."
Nythran shrugged. "I know that's her intention, but it doesn't always play out that way. My father and Camaline rarely see each other if they don't have a reason to see each other, and he only sees much of Nata because my stepmother is her grandmother. I won't even get into the mess with Karlspan."
"Well, Karlspan did that to himself--practically abandoning your niece like that. You'd never do that to your children." Nor, if her cousin Ren's latest letter implied what she thought it implied, would Nythran had taken to sniffing out hints about Ren and Searle's twin nieces, who'd at least been spared those visits by virtue of being at the university. Those girls couldn't have been older than Karlspan's own daughter--if they were even as old.
"Fair point. But Camaline and Nata are still good people, and my father thinks highly of them--but if they come to dinner, it's mostly as the mothers of my nephews."
"Perhaps it's different with men; the lot of you do seem to take pride in pretending you don't feel much." The weight of the band around her finger might have been that of a cannonball. Searle, in that sense, had been different. Wonderfully different--to the point where she shouldn't have been surprised that they hadn't had long, because not many things of such beauty dared risk outliving their own perfection. "Celina is a woman, and she and you are the two who loved her daughter best. Riona is at her most alive when the two of you are together."
"Hmm." Thoughtful--oddly enough for a man of their age, most of them so unwilling to heed a woman's opinion--Nythran's lips eased into a faint smile. "I never thought of it that way. Thank you, for that."
Cladelia nodded. He'd been without his love longer than she'd been without hers. If such a realization had been lost on him, regardless of whether or not he'd outgrown the need to stroke his own ego, then what hope could she have had for herself, a few years down the road? "It wasn't any trouble."
"Perhaps not, but I needed to hear it." Nythran's hand moved a few inches outward, only to retreat back, as if he'd meant to pay a reassuring squeeze to Cladelia's own but thought better of it. They were kindred spirits now, she supposed, or would be in time--but for now, she appreciated the respectful distance. "I hope, once some time is passed, that you and her find the same with Searle."
Once some time had passed.
Six more months, another year, another five... the word 'some' could have meant as little as a few weeks, or as long as the rest of her life, and it would have been pointless to venture a guess. Whenever a mind thought it had a formula for the speed of grief, life would throw a new factor into the equation, and Cladelia had never been one for complex mathematics anyway. She preferred words. She would have preferred a better word than 'some'.
But, for now, 'some' was all she had.
"Thank you."
NEXT CHAPTER:
October 22, 1197
"There now," Celina soothed her newest granddaughter, determined to keep her focus more to the baby herself rather than the fact that Searle would never have another child. "Everyone gets the hiccups sometimes; you're doing quite well with breathing despite being so new to it."
The baby hiccuped again, face scrunched in a wail of discomfort against Celina's shoulder. Her face was as ruddy as either of her siblings' newborn faces before her, but her hair--what little of it she had--was more of a strawberry blond, as opposed to Lily and Ovrean's tomato red. Some part of Celina might have hoped to see Searle's auburn hair, but perhaps the lack of it was for the best; it was easier to see the baby as herself this way, and not just as Searle's baby. Baby hair could be fickle, but if it was to turn auburn, the girl would have grown into a personality by then.
On the bed, Cladelia rubbed at her now-vacant womb. The poor woman. She'd been so protective of this baby, so keen to keep to strict dietary regimens and the recommended bracket of activity and everything else the midwives had to offer, even though this hadn't been much of a risky pregnancy to begin with. The last month had brought this to an even higher notch, with Searle dead and buried. This baby was the last Cladelia had left of him.
And she still was. But a baby in the belly was a different matter from a baby in the arms, as Celina knew better than most. Once outside the womb, a baby was a separate creature, a whole new human--not just some surviving piece of Searle for Cladelia to keep inside of herself.
But, she'd come to realize--Celina hoped, at least--that there was still a piece of Searle inside of her. It just sat rather upward of the womb.
"There--I think that was the last of them." Celina patted the baby on the back, the hiccups now reduced to a steady pant of recovery. "She's a good weight for a baby--bigger than the other two were. But not big enough to give you any more trouble, I hope?"
"No." Cladelia shook her head, though she didn't dare look toward the baby. "No, she was good. Easier than Ovrean, actually. Very good."
"Have you chosen a name for her?" When Arydath had announced the baby's sex, the name was precisely the reason Celina had been relieved to hear she was a girl. A posthumous boy would have been--and should have been, perhaps--named for his father, but Celina didn't think she could handle another little Searle in the house just yet. And she doubted Cladelia would be ready for another little Searle before it was her own grandson.
"Well, I suppose she should have your name; Searle ought to have a daughter named for his beloved mother." Cladelia made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. It was no more convincing than a dairy cow in stallion's tack, but Celina could appreciate the effort. "A good thing we chose Ovrean's name for our son; had we used my father's name, Searle never would have had a son named for his father."
Cladelia, grief-stricken as she was now, was still young and healthy and beautiful. Celina wouldn't dare mention it just yet--surely she would have clawed the eyes out of anyone who'd suggested it when she'd been mourning Dalston!--but she doubted very much that Cladelia would be unmarried for too many years. She would have a son named for her own father yet.
So, knowing that, Celina nodded. "Searle and his father were always close."
NEXT CHAPTER:
February 13, 1197
"So... your mother said you were thinking some time in May?" Cladelia was positive that her sister-in-law was tired of discussing her upcoming wedding, and she herself had no idea what to say to Eldona about it. Eldona and her betrothed seemed to be more a platonic match of companionship than anything else, but then again it was difficult to conceive of either party being romantic with anyone ever, so it may have been a moot concern--and, again, probably one Eldona was sick of hearing about.
But, if she didn't talk about something, then she'd start talking about her husband, and she couldn't talk about her husband. Not now. Not while no one else knew just how sick he was.
Not while she didn't want to think about how sick he was.
"Yes, I was thinking the fifteenth. Searle's father and sister said they should be able to come in from Dovia around that time." Eldona glanced over at Cladelia's son on the floor, who wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to their conversation. It wouldn't be long, if Cladelia's suspicions about her own malfunctioning body were correct, before Ovrean was no longer her youngest. At the same time, who knew if it would be too long for her new youngest to know their father. "But, how is our other Searle doing? I think Mother suspects something."
Cladelia caught her bottom lip on her teeth. Searle had told her not tell anyone yet, as he didn't want to worry them. Part of her wished he hadn't told her either. How was she supposed to go about as if everything was fine when four different doctors had confirmed the presence of that mass in his abdomen? "He, uh... he's taking things easy for now. Not training so hard, and he's been given some relief from any organized duties that might come up."
"Hmm. Well, I'm glad to hear he's not straining himself, at least."
Though it would be nice if he were able to. "I suppose."
"I hear Aerina Frey just released some new tonics. Perhaps one of those might be worth a try?"
There wasn't a tonic in the world that could do much for a mass in the abdomen. But, for the sake of not telling, Cladelia nodded. "Maybe..."
NEXT CHAPTER:
