Skydark Spawn. James Axler

Things had been born, but they bore no resemblance to children. The baron could ill afford to let it be known that such monsters were born into his family. His bloodline was pure, and his heirs needed to be full norms. If his wife bore him a mutie, the fewer who knew about it the better.

      Baron Reichel sat on a bench out in the hall just on the other side of the door to the healer’s room. He had been in the room for the longest time, but his constant concern over his wife’s agonized shrieks had prompted the healer to ask him to leave, allowing the healer to do his work without the interference and misguided concerns of an impassioned observer.

      “You must push,” the healer said. “Push harder!”

      “I can’t,” the woman gasped, nearing the point of exhaustion.

      The healer believed her. In all his years he had never seen such a lengthy and painful birth. Everything about the delivery of this child was slow and complicated when in truth there were absolutely no signs warranting complications, or even pain for that matter. But here was the baron’s wife, in labor half the day and still hours to go before the child was born.

      “You must try,” the healer urged, his voice showing far more compassion than normal. Usually he was very hard on women during birth, forcing them to work harder in order to end their ordeal more quickly. But Gayle Reichel had already suffered too much, for too long.