Chapter Fifteen: She Remembers

The midwives raced back and forth between rooms, trying desperately to prepare everything. They brought buckets filled with warm water, white sheets for makeshift towels, and some herbs to ease the pain.

Arden lay on the bed. Sweat broke out on her brow, and she took fast short breaths. Healers fussed around her, making various herbal teas and sorting numerous metal instruments. One of the healers reached over and dabbed at the girl's forehead with a crude towel.

"How soon now?" Arden panted.

"You're almost there," one of the healers answered, "another half an hour or so should have you completely ready."

After a few short gasps, Arden's breathing eased. She sighed deeply and relaxed.

"You're doing great," the healer told her with a smile. "That baby should be coming soon!"

She closed her eyes and went back as far as she could. Back to the first person she could remember. Her Nanny. At least that's what she called her. "Nanny." She was not her mother, nor anyone even related to her. She didn't even remember how she met the woman. All she knew was that the woman looked after her from as far as she could remember. An old, tall thing with receding silver hair, strange violate eyes, and lips that were always moving.

Belgorath looped around to land in small clearing in front of Senny's cottage. Kifka leaped off and headed for the door. To his amazement, he found it locked.

Arden almost screamed as the contractions came once again.

Then there was the issue of her name. She had never doubted it until recently. She began to wander if the name was something that Nanny made up for her, or if it in fact was her real name. She had hoped it was her real name; she liked the way it sounded when the father of her child said it ever so gently.

Kifka looped around. "She's not here!"

"Then where?" Belgorath boomed.

"West, far west!" Kifka exclaimed. He felt his body pulsate with a strange kind of power he never felt before, and it tugged on him, as if to tell him that whatever he sought was west. This power was very similar to the power he felt when around Sennymay, but it was not that. He felt Senny's awesome power surges, stronger than ever, but this power - it was not hers. He hopped back on Belgorath's sleek scaly back and they were off.

She thought back to when she ran away from the village, and from dead Nanny, and again from her past. That brought more questions to her. True, she thought, she was so small when she showed up on Nanny's doorstep… Yet, could she somehow have ran away from her past there, too?

"You're getting very close!" the healer reassured the thief. Arden took short wheezing breaths and squeezed Artemis's supporting hand as another contraction swooped through her.

"Oh dear Arden, you'll do alright," Artemis whispered gently.

"The castle!" Kifka exclaimed! "Hurry, she's there!" Belgorath swooped over the courtyard, startling a few mares in the mews, and perched on one of the castle towers. A few of the shield knights threw up a commotion in the yard, but were quickly silenced by Kifka's wave of the hand.

"I will be waiting here," the dragon said. Kifka thanked him briefly and was off.

And so she ran off with a young rogue - the head of the Rogue Guild. His name was Red, and he was beautiful. He wore a single golden hoop in his ear, and had a luscious indigo scar across his handsome face. He'd take her into stores and tutor her on how to steal and not get caught. At nights he'd hold her in his cloak and whisper stories from faraway mythical lands, and a strange dimension.

"Argh!" Arden screamed. Her ethereal voice echoed throughout the castle, startling a few unexpecting maids.

"Oh, just one last time, you're almost there!" a healer soothed.

And one day he was dead. No one knew what went wrong. Not even the Rogue Guild. He just dropped. Fell to his knees under the gaze of the Beautiful Athena, and uttered his last words. To her. No one else. Only her. And then, with his last strength, he pulled out his earring and put it into the palm of her hand. His eyes closed, and died with a smile on his face that left the Guild, and her, crying. That was the first time that she knew she was in love.

Kifka raced through the castle. He stopped only to ask a maid where everyone was.

"Her Holiness Princess Artemis and His Highness Prince Darad are helping the Lady Arden with the girth of her child, Lord," she answered.

"Who in the Hell is Arden?!" Kifka exclaimed. Then it dawned on him. "Where are they?"

"West Tower, the healer rooms."

And Kifka was off again.

She never fell in love again. Gods only know how the Rogues had tried to win her heart. They never succeeded. She left the guild at fourteen. She explored the world. She left Crescent Continent and came to the central continents where she thought she could find a new life.

The thief calmed for a moment, her face and hair streaked with sweat. A healer handed her a cup of herbal tea.

"Drink this, Lady, and it will easy your pain," he said. Arden took a drink.

Suddenly her body became hotter than ever, and she felt as if she had burned.

"What did you put in this blasted drink?!" she screamed.

"It is made with pothinir grass," the healer answered nervously. "It is supposed to make your body cool."

"Then why is it making me burn? WHY AM I BURNING?!"

"Oh my god," Darad uttered. "Healer, look at her hands! What's wrong with her hands?!"

The healer leaned over Arden only to find burning runes on the backs of her hands. "What do they say?"

"It's the symbol of the Drake…" Darad answered. "The symbol of … my brother."

And then HE came. He was everything and nothing. He was the earth and the sky. He seemed to lift her up to the highest point of the universe with happiness, then drop her to the deepest point of the Abyss with sadness and anger. He was divine. He was demonic. He was everything and nothing. He was the father of her child.

Kifka reached the healer rooms. A strangely sublime aura circulated around and through it. Whatever it was that drew him from the island into the castle was here, and it was power beyond his wildest dreams. He flung the doors open.

What he saw was pure sanctity. The room was filled with golden light, and everyone seemed to glow in his eyes. He saw the healers running back and forth with basins of water. He saw Artemis with her won familiar Green glow. He saw Darad with a strange, dim blue aura about him. He saw the bed, the source of the Gold, and in it, someone he had not seen in a long time.

His name was…

"Kifka!" Arden screamed. She stared right at him, as if petrified by his presence. Th Wizard seemed somewhat disoriented, looking around the bleak room with a dazed expression on his handsome face, until he spotted her.

"Se… Senny!" he exclaimed.

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