ELYRA
The midwife's hands were cold.
That was the first thing Elyra noticed. Cold fingers pressing against the swell of her belly through the thin linen shift, probing, measuring, pausing in places that made Elyra's breath catch and her spine go rigid against the birthing chair.
Helda had been the royal midwife of Veyranne for thirty-seven years. She'd delivered every noble child born within the fortress walls since before Elyra's mother had married her father. She had hands like leather and eyes like a hawk and the bedside manner of a woman who'd seen too many births go wrong to bother with gentleness.
She was frowning.
That's not good. When the woman who's delivered three hundred babies frowns at your stomach, that is definitively, categorically not good.
"Breathe," Helda said.
"I am breathing."
"You're holding. There's a difference. Breathe out. Slowly. Through your mouth."
