Fine.
If her body knew, then it had better finish this quickly before she fired it from living inside her.
Another pain ca before she could complain out loud.
This one was deep and cruel. It gripped her from her lower back to her stomach and dragged a scream from her throat so loudly that even the two experienced won flinched. Cyrus imdiately held her tighter from behind, his chest pressed against her back, his bitten arm near her mouth again in case she needed it. His face was pale now, far too pale, but his eyes stayed fixed on her as if the whole room could disappear and he would still see only Isabella.
"Push now," the older woman said.
Isabella pushed.
She pushed with everything she had left.
Her whole body shook. Sweat rolled down the side of her face and soaked into her hair. Her breath broke into a sob, and when the pressure beca too much, she bit down on Cyrus again. Her teeth sank into his skin, and the taste of his blood touched her tongue, warm and sharp and strange.
The second baby moved lower.
Cyrus felt it and imdiately pressed his free hand over her stomach, careful and steady. "Good. He moved. Isabella, he moved."
"I know he moved!" she cried against his arm before releasing him. "I can feel him trying to drag my soul out with him."
The younger woman, who had been wiping Isabella’s face with warm cloth, almost looked like she wanted to smile from relief, but the situation was too tense for that. "Again. The next pain is coming. Save your breath until it starts."
Isabella wanted to tell her there was no breath left to save.
Still, she tried.
She leaned back against Cyrus and panted, her eyes wet and half closed. Her legs were trembling. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body felt too tired to belong to her. The safe delivery package had kept death away, yes, but it had not taken away the pain. It had only made sure she suffered safely, which made Isabella feel like Bubu truly deserved to be thrown into a pot and boiled with bitter roots.
Outside the birth room, the palace had beco a battlefield.
The attack had reached the inner halls.
So enemies had broken through the outer defense and forced their way into the lower part of the palace. The guards at the first stone entrance fought them back with spears, claws, teeth, and beast forms. The won and children had already been moved deeper inside, hidden behind thick stone doors and watched by older males who could still fight even if they were past their strongest years.
The winter wind rushed in each ti a door was broken open. Snow swept across the floor and mixed with blood. The palace slled of smoke, wet fur, iron, and fear.
Zyran stood near the passage leading to Isabella’s room, his black hair loose around his face and his red eyes dark. Shadows moved around his feet and across the walls like living things. Any enemy who ca too close to that passage did not get a second chance. One man rushed toward him with a blade raised, and Zyran only lifted two fingers. The man’s shadow twisted up from the ground and wrapped around his throat. A sharp crack sounded. The body dropped.
Zyran did not even look at it after that.
His attention kept turning back to the closed door.
Every ti Isabella scread, his eyes tightened.
Every ti a baby cried, his chest loosened for one breath before fear returned again.
He could not go in. He knew that. Cyrus had shut everyone out except the won and Glimora, and Isabella needed the room quiet enough to survive what her body was doing. So Zyran guarded the door instead, and for once he did it without teasing, without smiling, and without a single shaless word.
Far outside, Kian was still fighting.
His huge white lion form was stained with blood now. So of it belonged to the enemies. Too much of it belonged to him. The wound in his stomach had not closed properly because one of the attackers had used a black stone blade coated with sothing bitter and cold. The mont it entered his flesh, the strength in his body had started draining in a slow and poisonous way.
Kian knew it was not ordinary poison.
A four-striped beastman like him could recover from many wounds. Even deep cuts and broken bones could be pushed through in battle. But this thing had entered his blood and was eating at his strength from inside. His limbs felt heavier with every breath. His vision blurred at the edges, then sharpened, then blurred again.
But he did not stop.
He could not stop.
The enemy was still trying to reach the palace.
They wanted Isabella.
They had chosen the night of her birth. They had chosen the hour when her screams could shake the hearts of every beastman loyal to her. They had chosen well.
That only made Kian more furious.
A tiger beastman lunged toward him from the side. Kian turned and slamd his giant paw into the man’s chest. Bones broke. The tiger flew into the snow and did not rise again. Another enemy tried to crawl past the line while Kian was turned. Asael cut him down before he got three steps.
"My king," Asael shouted, blood running down his own face. "Your wound."
Kian’s answer was a low growl.
He already knew.
His body was weakening.
But the palace was still standing behind him.
Isabella was still inside it.
So he forced his paws forward and roared again.
The sound rolled across the snow-covered village and made even the attackers hesitate.
Osiris heard that roar while surrounded by enemies near the broken western gate.
His brand was burning so badly that he wanted to rip his own back open. Fire curled around his arms and shoulders, but his full form still refused to co.
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