If their carriage full of people fell into the lake, there might still be a chance of rescue; but if this red-haired maid got crushed by the carriage, she would really be dead for sure!
No matter how much the coachman shouted, Ariel remained blocking the path ahead, refusing to move aside.
Seeing the carriage about to run her over, the coachman desperately closed his eyes.
He could already foresee what would happen next.
But—
Ariel was neither knocked away nor crushed by the carriage.
She stood like a mountain before the carriage, both hands firmly pressed against the carriage fra, being forced back step by step by the carriage's impact force.
The carriage's speed was forced to slow down, and Ariel kept retreating along with it.
After retreating about five or six steps, just as she was about to step into the soft lakeside sand, the carriage's forward motion finally stopped completely.
Celitia's feeling in the carriage was like being in a car going dozens of miles per hour that suddenly braked to a complete stop.
She was truly exhausted and couldn't hold onto the window, so she rolled to the front of the carriage while holding Marianne.
Her back hit against the door fra, causing sharp pain.
Blood had appeared on her forehead at so point, flowing down and covering half her eye.
But Celitia still used herself as a cushion, tightly holding Marianne and letting her lean against herself.
"Your Majesty, are you alright?" Celitia asked hoarsely.
"I... I... I'm fine..."
Marianne struggled to get up from her embrace with difficulty, pressing on her shoulders and laboriously lifting her head.
"You... why are you bleeding?"
Celitia instinctively raised her hand to wipe the warm blood from her face, but felt intense pain in her arm.
It must have been during all the collisions just now—she had accidentally hit sothing and fractured her left forearm.
"It's nothing, just a small injury from bumping around."
Celitia maintained her position without moving, enduring the pain as she answered: "How do you feel? Is the child in your belly safe and sound?"
"I... ugh...!"
After the initial fear and panic subsided, Marianne relaxed slightly, but then felt a contraction in her abdon, followed by intense pain.
"Ugh... oh no... this is bad..."
Marianne had once been a doctor herself and knew that in such situations, it was easy to trigger uterine contractions and premature birth.
Fortunately, her due date was only half a month away, so theoretically the fetus was full-term.
Marianne's forehead was soon covered with dense cold sweat, and she panted heavily from enduring the pain.
Celitia called out with difficulty: "Ariel... co help quickly!"
She had anticipated that sothing would happen, but hadn't expected they would use such drastic asures.
Forcibly stopping a fast-moving carriage—even Ariel was sowhat tired at this point.
After catching her breath briefly and ignoring the coachman who had fainted beside her, Ariel climbed into the carriage.
"Lily, Your Majesty, how are you?" Ariel asked anxiously.
Without needing their answer, Ariel had already seen Celitia with blood all over her face and Marianne who was half-unconscious from pain.
"This is bad!" Ariel's face changed dramatically.
"First try using healing on Queen Marianne to see if we can stabilize the situation," Celitia reminded her.
"Right."
Ariel only panicked for an instant before unhesitatingly placing her hands on Marianne's abdon.
Faint white light appeared, but after a mont, the pained expression on Marianne's face showed no relief whatsoever.
Celitia suddenly felt her calf getting wet, and reaching down to touch the slightly viscous warm liquid, her face imdiately changed:
"Oh no, her water must have broken. She's really going to give birth now."
Celitia and Ariel looked at each other, both their faces full of worry.
When studying alchemy, Celitia had indeed been exposed to so dical knowledge.
But regarding childbirth, she really knew nothing at all.
Ariel was even worse off—although she was the church's saintess, healing arts was the only skill she had learned that could treat people.
Were they really going to welco new life in this cramped carriage?
Moreover, neither of them had any experience—wouldn't that be equivalent to leaving Marianne to fend for herself?
Fortunately, Dorothy, who had been dizzy from all the shaking, recovered and raised her hand:
"I accompanied Queen Marianne to this lake area before and rember there are several farming households nearby. Her Majesty even concealed her identity and visited them at the ti.
"Let's take Her Majesty to find the farrs for help. They might have ways to help us get through this crisis."
Celitia and Ariel looked at each other again.
This seed to be their only option.
Ariel nodded decisively: "Alright, quickly lead the way."
She carefully picked up Marianne and jumped down from the carriage.
Celitia, holding her injured left arm, also shakily got down from the carriage.
Looking around, she saw the mist-shrouded lake and the scattered small houses by the lakeside.
ilenn's group of carriages and horses were nowhere to be seen, and Charles's guard unit from behind was also missing.
Perhaps when the horses got spooked and galloped wildly, they had gotten separated in the confusion.
In so sense, the series of ergency asures Ariel had taken might have unintentionally disrupted their plans?
Otherwise, with just these few people now, how did they plan to steal Marianne's child?
Celitia thought to herself.
Now the focus needed to be on those farming households Dorothy had ntioned.
Until Marianne finished giving birth and they successfully brought the child back, they couldn't relax their vigilance for even a mont.
Coming to a wooden house, Dorothy stepped forward and knocked heavily on the door:
"Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Please help us!"
The wooden door opened in response, and a man stood at the doorway, looking at them in surprise: "You are... ah, Miss Dorothy!"
Then he saw Marianne being held in Ariel's arms and imdiately beca panicked:
"This is Madam Marianne? What happened to her?"
"Our mistress had an accident and was frightened—she's about to give birth."
Dorothy said pitifully: "Can you help us? No matter how much paynt is needed, we'll give it!"
"Of course, of course! Co in quickly!" The man hurriedly stepped back. "My wife knows how to deliver babies. I'll have her call a few more people to co help!"
Dorothy wiped her eyes: "Thank you so much!"
Following behind them, Celitia entered the wooden house, cautiously observing the furnishings inside.
This family looked like very ordinary farrs who probably made their living fishing here.
But for so reason, Celitia felt the hair on the back of her neck standing up.
So intuition told her sothing wasn't quite right here.
But she couldn't say exactly what was wrong.
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