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7
No matter how many Quiets pass and Warmths come, Daein does not speak to me. And there is no news of the marriage yet either—negotiations are at a standstill.
I get my information from Hilda now, who I sneak down into the kitchens to see. I’m certain the butler tells on me to the prince, but since he’s intent on ignoring me for the time being, I’m not punished for it. Besides, the growing swell of my belly seems to be my shield at the moment.
And though he does still expects me to sleep in his bedchambers in the Quiet, Daein pretends my presence is like that of a little slave meant to wash the floors. He snubs me completely, but maybe what he doesn’t realise is, I’m doing the same to him.
So as I sit on the edge of the bed and pull on a fresh dress that’s much too tight now around my belly—and I feel Daein’s eyes travel the growing bump—I avoid his gaze as I push up from the mattress. He takes a step closer to me, as if to help me stand, but I manage fine on my own and make to storm past him. Mind you, it’s difficult tostormreally, since I’m bigger now, it’s more of a waddle of sorts.
I go down to the library where I meet my tutor.
I’ve been seeing her for a half-week now. All she does is show me parchment pieces with art sketches on them and some scribbles at the bottom.
First, I’m to learn the dokkalf written word. Only once I master that can I learn to read the old books from the old world. Apparently that’s a harder language to learn. And in the meantime, I can just appreciate the beauty of their covers and imagine what stories they tell.
I wonder if my story would be worthy of a book…
As the tutor shows me a picture of a forest cat and reminds me to look down at the letters etched onto the bottom of the parchment, my mind drifts away to the marriage. Negotiations have been halted, and I suspect that’s because of what Daein is demanding—me and our child. But now that it’s all come out and thickening the air between us, I realise I do want Daein to marry me.
I’m hungry for that ultimate protection.
As his evate, the iilra and Elden cannot harm me. But they can touch my child—unborn or born. If I became Daein’s wife, the child would be untouchable.
Without this ultimate protection, I’m vulnerable. I’m still a target. And the child will be a bastard in the eyes of the Court and the entirety of the realm. It will be a whore’s offspring.
No one will understand the truth of it all, that Daein loves me and (hopefully) loves our soon-to-come-son. No one understands that I’m more than a sickly human taken from a village, that I have an ancestry that stretches back to the litalf royals.
No, no one understands anything.
They look at me—just as this impatient, snappish tutor does—and they see a pregnant whore.
I have to make the right choice for myself—but for my son, too.
It’s coming soon, I can feel that. Time here is warped, it’s so different that my body aches to catch up with this fast-growing baby. I don’t have much time left. I need to make my decision. And I do.
I decide right now, in this very moment, staring at a parchment sketch of something that twists my insides and prickles my eyes with tears. I don’t even read the words.
“Baby,” I whisper.
The tutor nods and flips the parchment.
I choose the baby. Even if the thought of leaving Daein hurts me more than I could have imagined—like a sharp dagger through the heart, like I’ve been gutted all over and my bones have been frozen to icicles—I need to do this.
I fall asleep in the washtub for a short while. I dream of Daein killing our son as the litalf princess laughs—and she carries her own child in her belly. I dream of his rejection of me and what we have created together as he falls in love withher; the faceless beauty that haunts me.
Isn’t it almost funny that Elden is my only hope now?
If he can get me to the light lands—even though there is also drenched in darkness like the rest of the worlds—I can claim some favour for my abandonment. Maybe I can find my true parents and plead for their help in hiding me, of taking the child before I die from the birth. Or perhaps I’ll be left with the option of leaving the Halfling new-born on the doorstep of a stranger’s home before I fall to death nearby, carrying the hope of a full life for my child with me.
I don’t fool myself.
I know I won’t survive this birth. Not without the white powder to keep me going, not without the sunlight, and certainly not without Daein.
I am doomed. And that’s ok. As long as my son makes it. This way, I leave something behind—a mark of myself in this realm—since I was dying already.
After my bath, I change into a floaty dress that does absolutely nothing for my curvy figure, but better fits the belly, and I head to Daein’s chambers. He’ll be either washing or reading his messages at his table, but this is our routine now. I know I’m expected to meet with him soon, so I go.
I’m not in the bedchamber more than a second when I spot him on the edge of the bed, reading an unfurled roll of parchment. He doesn’t look up.
