05-10-2008, 03:40 AM
73. I. Can't.
Cato lay upon her bed in the lonely birthing chamber. She felt empty and completely and utterly alone.
A stray hand stroked her now empty belly as she remembered that breathless cries of the child, her child/ And Astin's. She turned her head onto her pillow as a fresh onslaught of tears fell. Her illegitamate, unrecognized child was gone now, taken away by her brother before she could even put her arms around him. He was taken to a lonely home where Nimbus had assured her they would never know the babe's origin.
All that was left was to lie.
She shook her head, wiping the hot tears from her face as she imagined Leo, her doting husband, coming in to greet her with a smile and then watching it slip away as she let loose the concocted tale she had rotated for weeks in her head. "He was born dead" She heard herself say, and the words felt like a curse on her lips, cool and simple. He would see right through it.
But what else could she do. The moment the babe was born he was doomed. The moment they had seen the golden Lupine eyes Astin carried, then they knew it had to be done. Knowledge of the young dauphine's treachrous adultery would send the country into turmoil. Cato was willing to bear her own pain to keep her country surviving.
"But I cannot lie to him," she groaned in frustration. No, not to that sweet face that looked at her with such love and compassion and trust that is made her want to die for shame of it all. But you've been lying to him all along. A voice said within herself. It was true. She had known about it the very second it had happened. She had pushed Astin away when she knew that it was no use. She had grown closer to Leo then she had ever hoped to so soon, all in the blind hope that maybe the babe would like theirs and Leo could convince himself that it was his own.
A soft knock lit the door, and a somber, soft voice asked of entrance.
"I. Can't."" Cato thought wildly as her mouth moved with out permission, allowing Leo passage, "But I must."
|