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I sat up against the headboard. "Me too." I waved him on. "You go first."
"I realized something tonight." He sat beside me. "There are no wonders I wish to see without you by my side. Yet I feel like I'm losing you. I can't . . . I cannot lose you."
"This future has been forced on me. But I can let go of my resentment"--where are my wings?--"once Paul is gone. And once there are no longer any trust issues between us."
He nodded, as if he'd expected me to say exactly that. "I spoke to him today, even reviewed your patient file."
My lips thinned. "That so? Was it a good read?"
"His notes are meticulously detailed and thorough, his explanation of events logical. In short, Paul's account makes sense to me." Aric took my hand in his. "But I don't care. He will leave this mountain tomorrow, no matter the weather. I'll carry him away if I have to."
My heart sped up. "What's brought about this change?" Then I frowned. "Because you realize you're losing me?"
Nod. "I will trust you blindly, even against my better sense. If you say these things happened, then I will believe they did. Sieva, I'll follow where you lead."
In a perfect world, he would have said that he trusted me because I was trustworthy. Or because Paul wasn't. Aric had all but said he was choking down my version--so as not to risk a breakup.
Still, I'd take what I could get.
Holding my gaze, he murmured, "I look into your eyes and wonder why I haven't already done this."
At last! All my tension was poised to melt away--as soon as Paul left. Only then would I confide to Aric my hopes about Jack's survival.
He cupped my face. "Can we start anew? Will you come back to me?"
Could I? Yes. "I will." With a wry smile, I said, "And I've even brought company with me."
"So you have." He reached for my still-flat belly. This time, I took his hand and placed it. His palm was warm through my nightgown.
Pinpoints of light glowed in his starry eyes as he said, "You asked me what I wanted most. My dreams are all of you--spending a lifetime with you. I want this child because it will come from you." His hand shook. "I can never forget that I was your second choice." Before I could protest, he said, "But we could share a bond neither of us has ever shared. That is what I want most. Will you accept it?"
Back at Fort Arcana, I'd chosen Jack over him. Since then, I'd made a commitment to Aric. Looking at his noble face, I knew I would honor it--even if Jack lived. "Do you truly think this kid will be okay? Bagger funk and all?"
"I'm telling you that our child will be amazing. And I've never lied to you."
As with Gabriel and his involuntary leap into the unknown, I was already falling. Maybe I should laugh all the way down? If I could get up and walk with ten swords in my back--the vision Matthew had shown me--I could survive a pregnancy.
"Do you accept this bond?" Aric was holding his breath.
The night felt momentous, that hope tendril sprouting into a white rose. "Hold on a sec." When I pulled away and climbed out of the bed, he gave a disheartened sigh.
I headed to my armoire and retrieved the ring I'd crafted for him. The red ribbon beside it brought on a pang of longing, but I'd made my decision. I returned to take Aric's hand and place the jet-black band on his palm. "I'll take the leap."
"You made this for me?" His expression was adoring.
I nodded. "From lignum vitae."
He rasped, "Wood of life." He slipped on the ring, his eyes gone starry once more. He murmured something in Latvian. The quiet intensity and urgency of those words affected me, even if I didn't grasp their meaning.
"What did you say?" I turned the syllables over in my mind, wishing I could understand his first language.
"By all the gods, I love you as my life. I've trusted you with my survival, and I've trusted you with my heart--which, for me, is far more vulnerable. I asked you to have a care with it." He kissed me reverently, then leaned down to press his lips to my belly. "And you have."
7
Death
I eased away from my wife's sleeping embrace, my heart pounding with anticipation.
She had accepted this unshakable bond between us. My thumb spun the new band on my ring finger. She'd taken such care to fashion it. I beheld the craftmanship with immense pride.
Soon we would have a child together. Over these weeks, I hadn't allowed myself to accept this fully--not until I'd sensed that she had.
All it had taken was my blind trust.
The thought of her feeling trapped was unbearable to me. I knew all too well what that was like. I'd been trapped in this deadly body for two millennia. Confined in my isolating armor.
But with her, I could be free.
At the window, I surveyed the wintry landscape. This mountain that had once been so lonely, so steeped in death, was budding with life.
Had the Fool foreseen this pregnancy?
He'd once given me a prediction--one part heaven, one part hell--that I'd never shared with my wife. The heaven part had already come true. I'd wanted to warn her about what might follow, but she needed no more worries.
The Empress is as fragile as she is strong.
I cast my mind back to the last few weeks I'd had with my parents, when my mother was with child. My father had treated her as if she were made of gossamer, shielding her from any harshness. I would endeavor to do the same with my wife.
Besides, no fate is fixed. I refused to believe what the Fool had told me.
I made my way into the bathroom to splash water on my face. After drying my skin, I gazed at myself in the mirror.
Stubble. Hair too long. Eyes brimming with satisfaction.
I murmured in disbelief, "I'm going to be a father."
She'd once told me I treated my books like my children. I'd replied, "The closest I'll ever come to having them." No longer.
Me, a father.
How would I protect my family? How would I feed them for a lifetime? It falls to me. In my wildest dreams, I'd never considered the possibility of a child when sourcing for the future.
Paul had prepared a list of items critical for this pregnancy and a newborn. Only one place would have them all--the Sick House, a settlement of sorts to the east. I would set out once the storm broke.
Guilt over my servant's fate aro
se, but I shoved it away.
After drying my hands, I stared at them. Death's touch. My touch. What if I can't hold my own child?
My wedding ring glinted, drawing my focus. Calm suffused me. With her by my side, we could weather anything.
"Aric?" she sleepily called from the bed. Her softly amorous voice made my muscles tense and my pulse race. I could see it so clearly: she had reached for me in need and found only my pillow.
"Coming, love," I called back. I would be a good father to our child, but first and foremost, I would always be her devoted husband.
Tomorrow we would have myriad cares and worries--an exile and the fallout from that. Tonight I would count my blessings: a loving wife and a baby on the way.
I took one last look at the mirror to gaze upon the most fortunate man I'd ever known.
8
The Empress
Day 529 A.F.
"You might as well put a bullet in his skull," Lark sniped at me when we'd all gathered in the courtyard to jettison Paul.
The blizzard had ended on this very day. The winds had died down to silence, and the snow no longer fell. But the black sky and thick cloud deck glowed intermittently from unseen lightning bolts. The river, a gleaming expanse of solid ice, reflected them.
Finn patted Lark's gloved hand, muttering, "'S cool, babe. Everything's chill."
I received no such gesture of support from Aric. He stood stiffly beside me, dressed in armor, as if Paul deserved a uniformed send-off.
The medic lingered at the perimeter gate with his shoulders hunched. He wore snow gear and a backpack--kindnesses from Aric.
I hugged my own ski jacket around me. "No one's killing anybody," I told Lark, though Aric's words filtered through my mind: Exile equals execution.
When she and I had prepared breakfast earlier, her bearing had been frostier than the landscape. The meal had been just as strained. None of us had eaten much except for Finn, who'd merrily chomped down everything, including the frozen ham I'd burned.
He must've made himself sick. His color was off, and sweat beaded on his forehead, even in the frigid air.
When he loosened his scarf, I said, "You okay?"
"Let's get this show on the road, huh." His impatience surprised me. His only hope for walking without a crutch was about to walk away.
