I had a board exam so I had to focus on my studies. However, I am back to my weekly updates.

Chapter 73

Crown Princess Elora
Furia

Any woman who is with child is intimidated by the day in which they are to give birth. There are many variables not in one's control and a lot that could go wrong.

What if Elora became an awful mother? Would she do well being both a mother and leader? Worse yet, what if her child did not survive and was stillborn?

All those questions anxiously raved in her mind, but for her mother, it was something else. What if her back did not break and her wings did not come? There are many ways to kill a cat and so are there many ways to attain one's wings. They had decided since Elora was already pregnant they could utilize the contractions to help birth her wings.

"Mother," Elora whispered. "I am thirsty."

Her mother dabbed her forehead with the damp cotton cloth. A servant rushed over to them with a cup of water, which her Mother handed to her.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel the pain in my back, though not yet unbearable." She gulped down half the water, failing to drink it all due to her discomfort.

Elora looked at the roof that was entwined brunches of the lavender tree, and a myriad of purple, and took a deep breath in for the comfort it provided. With her favored flower drenching the air with its scent, her body calmed.

The past month, her mother built the lone-standing two-roomed house, West of the palace. One room for herself and her child, and the other for those who would attend to them. Everything present was to serve the purpose of ensuring a safe birth and the survival of her child.

The Priestess took her wrist from the other side of the bed and listened for pulse reading. Nodding her head in satisfaction, she let her wrist go.

"Your Highness, please sit," she asked her.

With the assistance of her mother, she managed to sit. Her body had never felt as heavy as she did as moving any part of herself was indeed strenuous.

At 34 weeks, they decided to induce her labor. It was after all the only way Queen Elora and the Priestly Sect had concluded to be what would ensure the safety of both mother and child. In the past months, the focus had been on avoiding miscarriage and keeping the pregnancy as long as possible. It was a fight to stop her body from quitting and ejecting the child it saw as foreign and a threat to itself. Her child took so much from her body that she was only bones at this point.

Queen Elora would have much preferred to ensure the birth of her grandson and Elora to recover first before they could focus on the birth of the wings. However, the situation would not allow that. Nevoria's military had begun stationing around the borders of Furia and Huticah under the pretense of peace and want to test drills.

Elora needed her wings to seize her predominal power. A noble Furian with no wings could not exercise the needed cultivation to increase her power. Furthermore, would she not be strong enough to walk into the battlefield. Going to war without her wings would be the same as one fighting with no weapon.

"Since the contractions have begun, we will redirect them to her back," the Priestess rubbed Elora's back.

All her body knew was it needed to birth something. They would manipulate that desire by making her body think it was wings it was birthing. Only after birthing her wings would they redirect that energy back to her womb so she could birth her child.

In the past, they grew her wings with the right conditions(food, baths, exercises). The same way a gardener knows to use sunlight, water, and the right soil to nurture seeds underneath the ground. Within her back, the wings grew, but they could not sprout out without assistance.

Every noble Furian was born with the ability to grow out their wings when the set age came, the same way any girl child would naturally start her blood cycle in puberty. However, her mother took the innate ability for Elora to produce wings, thus though she was of age, she had nothing on her back. Her body needed to be reminded and probed into birthing its wings, a process of three years of massaging the back until it softened and broke.

This was the longer way and they did not have all that time to wait. Taking advantage of the contractions was the fastest way as these contractions were similar to those Elora would have had to birth her wings if her mother had not fed her the blocking potion.

"I am starting to feel the pain..." Elora breathed in as she felt heat searing her back.

The air whooshed as if the wind was blowing into the room due to the Priestess's power forcefully charging into her back, waves of red blazing like fire.

"I am almost done." The Priestess charged even more power before she stopped. "Her Highness may relax but you can no longer lie on your back until the wings burst through.

"I will help you sit, or would you like to stand?" Her mother offered.

"I want to lie down," Elora moaned as gruesome pain surged across her back.

"You cannot lie down on your back or stomach," her mother coddled.

"I am in pain," she groaned. "It hurts, Mother."

"Bare with it. I know."

The next six hours became the most excruciating Elora had ever experienced. She tossed herself to the floor, tried to walk, and writhed, but no relief would come. Sweat bathed her body and even blood began to trickle behind her back as her skin tore to make way for her wings.

There was a point where she urinated on herself, yet she did not remember how, all she could feel was pain. The outside world started howling back at her, the same way dogs howled at each other during the night.

Wind whirled and the sky squealed with lightning slashing the dark grey skies, while thunder blasted as if it was the base to the soprano of lighting.

When a jelly-yellowish substance started to trickle on her back, her mother rejoiced that the birthing was almost done. Because that is when Elora started to hear crackling sounds as those of the breaking of tree brunches.

Crack, crack, crack!

The sounds came continuously before she started to feel something feathery, soft, and warm on her back. When her curiosity peeked to look behind, she did not have to as her wings softly hugged her and blanketed her entire body. They were magnificently huge and outstandingly beautiful. Pure snow white with streaks of yellow.

Queen Elora laughed. "Look, they are greeting you. They have wrapped your entire body in greeting. They are happy to see you."

Elora frowned. She always heard people say that wings were their own person, and she did not understand until now. Wings were like a pet that did not speak verbally but through actions could communicate what it sought to.

"You will never be alone anymore, child. You have your wings now, your life companion." Her mother sighed. "I am sorry I kept you from this bond. If only I had known years ago that you are indeed purely royal-blooded, I would not have given you a potion to block your attributes from manifesting." The last words came silently as if they were not intended for Elora to hear. "And certainly not given you up to that man I thought to be your father."

At that moment, before Elora could respond did the Priestess step behind her and redirected her contractions back to her womb. And so did the birth of her child begin.

If the birthing of the wings was painful, this process was the pit of hell. Because half of it was she not conscious.

She would faint and her mother would wake her by sharing her own powers.

"If you keep fainting, your child will die in your birth canal," Queen Elora probed her to focus on pushing.

Elora would then huff and puff screaming, before blacking off again. It was a heartbreaking repeat of that before she would feel something pass from beneath her.

She had done it. Her child had taken the first step into the world.

They pulled out a small bundle of flashed pale skin. And she waited. She waited for a cry that did not come.

S.V