“Before dinner, Veria looked a little pale, and I performed a scan on her,” Turqa explained. “I was being truthful when I said you are completely healthy, Veria, but there is something I think you should know. Both of you.”
Veria and Andon exchanged a worried glance. Then they looked back to Turqa.
“Please, Turqa,” Andon said. “Tell us and take this anxiety from us.”
“Well, I am afraid I can't do that,” Turqa said. “What I'm going to tell you will give you quite a bit more anxiety, I fear.”
Veria swallowed hard and Andon grabbed her hands under the table and squeezed them.
Turqa cleared his throat and adopted his physician voice as he delivered the news: “Veria is pregnant.”
-VIII-
“I am such an idiot,” Andon sighed, burying his head in his hands. “Of course this would happen. I knew better. I knew better!” He slammed a fist into the table and Veria and Turqa jumped.
“Andon...” Veria murmured, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“What can be done?” Andon asked, his head shooting up to look Turqa in the eyes.
“What do you mean?” Veria questioned cautiously.
“There are options, but—” Turqa started, but Andon cut him off.
“Painless? Simple?” Andon asked. Veria's head spun—was he really asking what she thought he was asking? she wondered.
“Yes,” Turqa answered with a nod, a tight frown on display in a clean frame of white whiskers.
“Do it, then,” Andon declared.
“Excuse me?” Veria snapped, pulling her hand back and leaning away from him.
“Veria, be reasonable,” Andon said.
“Andon, I won't perform any procedures without the mother's consent,” Turqa said softly. “I think it is best if you two discuss this thoroughly before making any decisions. If you'd like some privacy, I suggest the main bedroom. The doors are quite thick and the children never go in there.”
Turqa went back to his task of clearing the table from dinner and Veria rose sharply and stormed toward her mother and Turqa's bedroom, on the opposite side of the house, hearing the giggles of her children trickling down the stairway from the bathroom upstairs. Andon followed her and, once they were both in the dim bedroom, shut the door.
Veria loved this room. A stark contrast to her mother's lavish, ornate suite at Longberme, it was simple and warm, and exactly how she pictured her and Andon's bedroom would be at the farm they had planned to buy and move to in Esperan. The bed was large but of simple construction, made of a light, ashy wood, covered with a beautiful quilt of spring green and sunshine yellow and the pale indigo that graced the petals of certain strains of ireas.
A wooden chest sat at the foot of their bed, and on the opposite wall from it sat a modest armoire and a long wooden bench with storage underneath, which currently held books and extra blankets. Tanisca had sewn a slew of cushions for the bench, with scraps of muslin and linen she'd found in the attic, in colors that matched the quilt on the bed—except for one stray, flame-red cushion that stood out as strikingly as an actual flame would have. Fire Magers and their red...Veria knew there was no way her mother could have resisted the opportunity, and honestly, it felt like a piece of home, since all of Tanisca's bedding and furniture in her room at Longberme had been varying shades of red.
Andon sighed behind her as she ran her fingers along the quilt on the bed.
“Veria...” he started, his voice soft and laden with sadness.
“Don't say what I think you're about to say, Andon,” she whispered through a tight, hot throat.
“Veria, you cannot carry this child,” Andon said plainly. “It is just too dangerous.”
Veria spun on him. “No,” she growled.
“No?” Andon echoed her. “No what?”
“No, I am not going to consent to getting rid of this baby, Andon,” she replied.
Andon crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Veria, don't be foolish—”
“I'm not being foolish, Andon!” she snapped. “We wanted this—we tried so hard for this and we had it and then lost it! I can't survive going through that again!” she yelled, tears welling up in her eyes.
“You might not survive keeping this child, Veria!” Andon shouted back, throwing his arms up in frustration. “Look at yourself—it is clear your body is in no shape to support you, let alone grow a child! It has only been a few months since the miscarriage—that's not enough time to heal—”
“If I am pregnant, Andon, that means my body is ready—”
“That is not true. And we haven't even discussed the fact that you are married to Browan, Veria!”
“I am giving you another child, Andon!” Veria shouted. “I don't care if it's dangerous—it's always dangerous. And as far as Browan is concerned, I hid his child from him for four months, I can do it again.”
“My child,” Andon corrected in an icy growl. “My child, Veria.”
“You know what I meant, Andon,” she replied.
“This is nowhere near the same, Veria, and you know it!” Andon cried in frustration. “You weren't the Queen last time. You had reason to hide it from him then, but now you are married to him and you have no reason to hide it. When he finds out, which he will, he will know exactly why and he will kill all of us.”
“We will figure it out, Andon—”
“Do you know how you sound right now?” he asked, his voice breaking with emotion. “You sound obsessed, Veria. What lengths are you willing to go to for this child? Is it really for me?”
“Yes, Andon—”
“Because he will kill me first. He will have me hanged, or slit my throat right in front of you—don't doubt that he will. And then he will have Strelzar brought in and do the same to him...and then Turqa, and maybe your mother, and he'll have the children shipped off to the mines in Tal'lea as slaves—”
“Stop, Andon, please.”
“This child is not important enough to me to endanger everything and everyone else in our lives,” Andon said, accentuating his words by pointing sharply at the floor. “And if it is to you, then I am seriously worried about you.”
Veria dropped her head as sobs flooded her throat, her lips trembling as they fought to hold them in. “I can't go through this again,” she whispered. “I felt so empty after...I didn't know how to go on.”
“Veria, you could die, damnit!” Andon roared, and Veria jumped. “If Browan doesn't kill you when he finds out, carrying or trying to deliver that child in anything less than full health might—how do you not see this? This is exactly what happened to Ambra, Veria. She was obsessed and it killed her! I am not losing you this way—”
“How can you accuse me of being selfish?” Veria cried. “You not wanting to lose me is the same as me not wanting to lose this child!”
“It is not just you I don't want to put in danger,” Andon argued, “it's everyone in this family.”
“Well, our entire family will be in danger if I don't provide Browan with an heir,” Veria stated plainly.
Andon wavered and staggered as if the revelation had physically hit him.
“He...he said that?” he muttered in shock.
“In so many words, yes,” Veria replied, her voice raspy and tight.
Andon dropped to a seat at the foot of the bed.
“When did he say this?” he asked, anger building in his throat and dripping into his tone.
“The morning after the wedding,” she answered.
He exhaled sharply, his breath escaping him, sounding as if her answer had caused him pain.
“I cannot believe—the day after?” he scoffed, his voice ice cold and filled with hatred. “A month after you lost a child? I knew he was a disgusting pile of cremerdo, I just didn't realize how large of a pile he was.”
Veria sighed and sat next to him, placing a hand on his knee.
“You know what we have to do,” she murmured, her voice ready to break any moment.
/> “Veria, no,” he shook his head and sounded on the verge of crying himself. “No...”
“I have to offer to give him a child,” she whispered. “We have to convince him this child is his.”
“Veria...” Andon looked deeply in her eyes, his dark ones filled with tears. “I can't live with the thought of you having to...be with that man.”
“There is no other way, Andon,” she said, her throat burning with the task of restraining sobs. “This way at least I will not actually be bearing his child. There is no way I could have lived with that.”
“He is going to think the child is his, which sounds almost as bad,” he groaned.
“Andon,” she turned toward him, tucking her legs up onto the bed, and grabbed his face in her hands, “we will all be together—you and I and all of our children—together. I promise.”
“You don't know that,” he cried. “This is all so dangerous, Veria—not just this, but all of it—there is no guarantee we will all make it through the things that are to come.”
“Don't...” she whispered, sobs cutting off her voice. She pressed her trembling lips against his forehead and he reached out and clutched his hands around her waist. “Don't say that. We can't think that way.”
But she knew it was true. And she knew, if it came down to it, both of them would sacrifice themselves to stop Browan's plan—to keep their family, and the rest of the world, safe from him.
“I can't believe I'm going to miss this again,” he wept, caressing her abdomen. “I'm going to miss getting to take care of you, again. I'm going to miss watching you grow with our child, again. I just wanted to do this normally, just once in my life.”
Veria cried with him, brushing her thumb across his cheek with every tear that tumbled down it.
“Veria, I might not see you at all through any of this—he could lock you in a room and demand you stay in bed until this child is born. And there is obviously no chance I will be there for the birth.”
Her heart sank and her stomach churned. “I'm so sorry, Andon,” she whispered.
“This is not your fault,” he replied. “And this is how it has to be, I just...I wish it weren't, for my own selfish reasons. I know how hard this is going to be for you, too.”
“I will figure out at way for us to see each other throughout this, I promise,” she said.
“Don't—that's not necessary,” he said, shaking his head. “Don't do anything to endanger yourself. I beg you.”
“I won't,” she murmured.
“He still may be suspicious, Veria,” Andon said. “Even if he has every reason to believe the child is his...you should be prepared.”
“For what?” Veria asked.
“For the chance that you will have to lie to him,” Andon said. “In front of a verifier.”
“I can't do that!” she protested. “I don't know how—”
“Yes! Yes, you do!” Andon urged, grabbing her left hand in both of his rough ones and pulling it up between them. He brushed the diamond ring with his thumb and grinned. “You know exactly how. And with your mother's energy in here, there is nothing that can stop you.”
“I—I've never trained that skill, Andon,” she muttered. “I have never even tried it! I—”
“And I have slept in the Fire of the Earth,” Andon recited mystically, caressing her face with one of his hands.
The Fire of the Earth...the passage from the story of Tarddiad made her think of the training chamber at Plazic Peak.
Plazic Peak was the peak that was mentioned at the end of the story, she thought. The book featured tales from Morenet, so the story of Tarddiad was to explain how the people of Morenet had found their home.
Everything settled into place in her mind—the path of clues, the story, and what she would need to do next. Andon had said when she first arrived for dinner that she couldn't know what they knew...not yet. Because if she knew, Browan could ask, and with a verifier always present when he interrogated her, they would be discovered. Their cause, their efforts, lost.
“This is what he wanted,” she said. “Strelzar. This is what he wanted all along.”
“It's part of it, yes,” Andon nodded. “There is more, but...until you can lie and deceive convincingly, you cannot be a part of what we are doing. Personally, given this new development, I'd prefer you not be a part of it anyway. But, between the two of you, I know I am wasting my breath uttering those words.” He sighed facetiously.
Veria laughed softly. “Probably,” she murmured.
“He's going to be very upset with me,” Andon groaned.
“Why?” Veria asked, cocking her head. “For helping me solve his damn riddles?”
“No, no, no,” Andon shook his head. “For giving into desire in the kitchen that day, and putting you in what I'm sure he will consider a condition of reduced ability.”
“Oh, like he can be upset with anyone about desire,” Veria scoffed.
“Veria, you don't understand, he's...he's not the same,” Andon explained cautiously. “He's not the same without you. Everything is somber and serious and live-or-die. He is a general and we are his troops. No sarcastic jokes, no bragging about how wonderful he is, no conversation of any other topics—just defeating Browan and stopping this war. He's obsessed. I never thought I'd miss the old Strelzar, but that was before I knew the alternative. He will be very angry I did this to you.”
“You didn't do anything to me, Andon,” Veria argued. “We did this together. And I'm extremely glad we did. If he doesn't like that, he can take it up with me.”
Andon sighed and his body slumped forward. “When do you have to be back?”
“He didn't say,” Veria replied. “I would assume I am allowed to stay until the children are in bed.”
Andon grabbed her by the hips and slid her toward him. “I am sure we would be pressing our luck if we did anything besides talk,” he murmured.
“I think we already accomplished the one thing we should have been worried about, Andon,” she said.
He laughed. “You're right, we did,” he said. Then his eyes filled with tears again and his face lit up, his lips splitting into a wide, overjoyed smile. “We made a baby,” he whispered, shifting his hands up to stroke her abdomen.
Veria smiled and nodded, her eyes brimmed with happy tears, as well. “We did.”
His hands clutched into her waist and slid her even closer. Their lips touched, but they did not kiss. Their breath broke and his expression changed from one of joy and emotion to one of intense desire. “We made a baby,” he repeated, his voice rich with arousal, and Veria's chest filled with fire.
She nodded again, and echoed herself, this time in a throaty, broken exhale. “We did.”
Andon growled and took her lips with his, kissing her with voracious appetite as he pressed her backward to lie on the bed and laid himself on top of her. “Veria...” he uttered, a calling of her name somewhere between a roar and a moan, robust with a need so strong he sounded possessed by it.
“Andon,” she moaned in response, which only added to his frenzy.
He wasted no time in claiming her, joining their bodies and taking them both to the peak of pleasure, the one place where it was truly just the two of them, alone, celebrating their love and the life they had created.
-IX-
Sunshine woke her the next morning, warming her face and gently coaxing her eyes open. As soon as she was fully awake, she smiled and slid her hands down to her abdomen, enjoying a moment of overwhelming affection for both the tiny new life and its father. Then, with a sickening drain, she remembered what she must do to keep them safe.
Rolling languidly to her side and pushing herself up to sit, she tried to ignore the mounting dread that filled her at the thought of her next actions. She ate breakfast that morning, as she knew she must every morning from now on as her body needed the nourishment, and so did the baby. Her nervousness about speaking with Browan threatened to put off her appetite, but after a few bites of delicious
scrambled eggs and fresh bread, she found it again and devoured her entire breakfast tray. She reminded herself she didn't see Browan until dinner, and she should keep a normal schedule until then so as not to arouse any suspicion.
She also should start practicing the skill that would help her in all of this, she thought.
After eating and dressing, she went for a walk through the garden, replaying the previous night over and over again in her head until she ached for an encore. When they had finished, they had held each other and wept softly, staring into each other's eyes until the sky went dark, each tear that was shed an unspoken 'I love you'.
She could still feel his arms around her, still see his eyes staring back at her, still hear the soft rustle of his broken breaths. She longed to go back to the days where they spent every day together, and every night, and the nights seemed endless—like time stopped and the world stood still when they were together in the quiet darkness, holding each other and whispering to one another, or making love with the same passion and affection as their first time.
In her daydreaming, she didn't realize that she had picked a handful of flowers, one of each type of flower she had passed so far in her walk. She wandered around for quite a bit longer, filling out the bouquet to distract her from her longing, since she knew there was nothing she could do about it yet. Soon, the bouquet was gigantic, the size of an impressive centerpiece, so she walked it back to the kitchen.
“Your Majesty,” the staff greeted her warmly.
“Beautiful flowers!” exclaimed Merrimiss from her spot surveying the pot she usually used for her delectable cream sauce.
“They are for you,” Veria said. “For the dining table. Or in here, if you prefer.”
“Oh, they's certainly pretty enough for the dining hall, Your Majesty,” she said. “I'd feel a right thief if I kept such a pretty thing for meself.”
She gestured for one of the maids sitting at a small table, finishing their late breakfast, to take the flowers away.
“Today's centerpiece, courtesy of the Queen,” she said and waved the young girl away once she'd taken the arrangement from Veria with a curtsey. “That all that brings ye to the kitchen, Majesty?” Merrimiss asked with a tilt of her head and knowing eyes. “Thought maybe ye'd be lookin' for second helpins of breakfast?”
Queen of the Earth: Book V in the Elementals Series Page 7
