Madam Rose composed herself and gently blinked, "Aster, if you keep this child, I will own you till the day you die. I will make it so that you will never be able to pay your debt back to me, and that little piggy of yours will only take your place after."

Aster closed his eyes and looked away as if to ignore her words.

The woman's anger was visible and in her protest she called out to her sons who had been patiently waiting outside the hallway at her beck and call, "Kendel! Berto!"

Madam Rose's two sons stormed into the room and waited for her to speak.

"Take the child away from him," she commanded. 

Berto moved first to grab the baby from his arms while Kendel held him back, and all Aster could do was weakly protest. 

"No! Please." 

He tried to sit up but felt the world tilt; the exhaustion finally taking its toll. Ripped out from his arms, the child awoke and began to cry, "Please! Give him back! Please!"

He reached out his arms as Berto walked away with the crying child, while Kendel held him down. His body was weak from the labor and Kendel felt like an impenetrable force against it. There had been no fight to begin with, any struggle would have been futile. He began to sob. "Please give him back!"

His voice became raw and he began to sob while he watched his child being handed over to Madam Rose. The baby cried and did not stop, and no matter how hard Aster pleaded, Kendel had him planted to the bed unable to move. Madam Rose rocked the baby trying to shush it quiet. There was no empathy in her voice and her eyes stared at it as nothing more than an object to be sold.

Madam Rose began, "Now, now Aster, maybe being separated from the damn thing will give you a level head, and you might give me the response I want. I won't take this child away from you. I am not so willing to break imperial law. However, that doesn't mean I have given up." 

She gestured to Helen to take the child from her arms which Helen obliged. Madam Rose looked down at Aster once more before leaving the room, and Aster could feel the dread from within. He dreaded not knowing. Would he see his child again? Was this the last time he would lay his own eyes upon him? 

It had been fast, too quickly for the world to act against him and his son. Kendel waited for his mother and brother to leave the room before he, too, walked off leaving Aster in the bed. As soon as the doors were shut behind them, Aster fell back, his last energy spent on fighting back. But now even if he wanted to run after them, his body was too weak to move. He tried to lift his arms but they didn't respond no matter how much he willed himself to. 

He felt himself wanting to cry, but he didn't even have the energy to do that, and so he looked within himself and looked for that silver chord that reminded him that he and his son were still together, and that thought calmed him. The silver thread that linked them together remained floating in the ethereal plane. He reached out and twirled it lovingly between his fingers. His body had finally settled and his adrenaline had subsided making him acute to the aches in his body. 

In that moment he thought about his parents, and wondered what they would have done in his situation. He had been so young when he lost them both, but he remembered them. They had been so strong and beautiful. He remembered the way his mother's hair was so long it fell around her like a curtain of silk, and her voice, it was sweet and lovely, like honey. 

And perhaps it was the loss of blood, or simply his delirious state, but he could've sworn he heard her. And he saw himself, his younger self, laying on her lap as her voice sweetly met his ears. She let out a sound of laughter like she always did, and then he could hear her pray as she caressed his hair back like she once used to do.

Her voice was soft and full of so much love. 

Hella, my goddess of the moon,

choose the power that calls to all.

Remember the name that you gave me,

and power all the suns around my landscape.

With your groom, Jor, by your side,

love the earth I stand upon

and bequeath the strength to all the weak

and the weak to all the strong,

so they know what it is

 the means of loss.

Love my children

as I do yours.

Adelaide the strong.

Wolf the loyal fiend.

Hex the lover of the marsh.

Killian protector of the weak.

Gunder believer of all unseen...

And all the other children beneath

your bright and silver wings…..

Aster's heart began to ache, and felt like he was floating. His vision blurred and the ebbing darkness began to close in. There were voices like a cacophony of choruses, that were convoluted and without any form of harmonious rhythm. They were chaotic and he wondered if he was imagining that too. 

The voices sounded close and then far away; the world was glazed and muted. And then a voice different and purer than all the rest spoke through and brought him back. 

"Aster!"