Herbalists' Cache sleeping mist

her ears ring.
the words flung around her blur—black hawk’s sharp tongue, blackfell’s simmering demand, gjalla’s steady ice. star eater stands in the heart of it, wrapped in caribou hide and the ghosts of her own reign, listening as her name is thrown back and forth like a bone between dogs. the seven...
her breath is thin.
there had been strain for days, but the moment rips through her now like a clawed hand. sharp, squeezing. her belly tightens hard enough to make her grimace, lips pulling back from her teeth. not now.
her voice is meant to be strong when she lifts it, meant to quell the heat rising between them. she steps forward, chin high—enough of this. all of you!—but as the words leave her mouth, her body betrays her.
a trickle, warm and unwelcome, slides down her thigh.
her eyes widen. ears slick back. oh.
and then louder, rasping and almost laughing for the absurdity of it, how comely of your queen.
the anger, the stress, the tension—her womb is fed up. the babes are coming.
her gaze scrapes across them: sun eater, full of smoke and wounded pride; gjalla at her flank, ever her shield; black hawk, fierce and righteous; blackfell, all venom and flame. this is not how it was supposed to happen. not here, not now, with the air still thick with violence and unspoken declarations.
the seven curse us all, she hisses, more at the moment than them, before sucking in a sharp breath, curling slightly around the searing cramp. fuck.
the words drop like stones in the snow.
her belly clenches again. her legs are unsteady. gjalla... her gaze finds her first, pleading. help me to the shelter.
there is no time left for choosing sides. no time for crowns or titles or who bows to who. only this.
the children come now.