A Kiss of Fire

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Go on. It’ll settle your nerves.”

  He took the glass and downed the hussa in two large swallows. He handed the glass back to Lindo.

  “More?” he asked, offering him his glass as well.

  Sin took it and it followed the same path down his throat.

  “More?”

  “No. I’ll not be,” —he belched— “drunk when I meet my child.”

  “Two glasses of hussa in under a minute, you might not have a choice,” Lindo said with a chuckle.

  “It takes more than that to put me under the table,” Sin said dryly. But then he said, “but I do feel better. Thank you. You are a good and loyal friend Lindo.”

  “So are you,” Lindo said, reaching to clasp Sin’s shoulder with his hand. “And you’re a good man. A great leader. I would follow you anywhere.”

  “For that I am infinitely grateful. Without you we would never have gotten a foothold in our negotiations with the Sarens. They would have known our precarious position from the very beginning and negotiated us down to just a few acres of land. Your strength of mind as a Jadoc kept their Aspano majji from reading us. I will never forget that. I will never let our people forget it. In fact, I have been meaning to tell you…I would like to make a gift of land to you. Large enough that if worked right, if filled with tenant farmers, could make you a wealthy man for the rest of your days and on down into your line.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lindo said quietly.

  “I know I don’t but I want to. And you deserve it. And I want to make you rojo.”

  “Sin—“ he began to protest.

  “Ariana would be raji-mother if I were to die before my heir was of age, but she would need a rojo…a protector. I trust no one else in the role.”

  “You honor me,” Lindo said, looking honestly humbled. “But in a sense I am already rojo…for you. I am already the protector of my leader.”

  “But you have never been given the official title. It is high time you had it.”

  “I accept.”

  “We will have the ceremony after we have the naming ceremony for my child.” He frowned. “If that child ever plans to make an appearance.”

  “I’ve known these things to take days,” Lindo said.

  Sin sent him a withering look. “Don’t even joke about such a thing. She’s been at this for,” –he glanced at the clock on the mantle— “thirteen hours. Any longer and one of us will need a gallon of hussa to keep calm.”

  Then Sin went still, suddenly realizing it had grown quiet on the other side of the door. He anxiously walked up to it and pressed his ear to it. No sooner had he done this then the door opened, startling the raja. He hastened to compose himself and looked down into the smiling face of the midwife. She was flushed and her sleeves were rolled up onto her forearms. She wore an apron over her dress and Sin saw blood smeared across its beige expanse. He swallowed hard and in a croaking voice demanded, “Is she well? Has Ariana…is she well?”

  “She is well! Come and meet your new child.”

  She swung the door wide and stepped back, allowing him to enter the room. He hastened to the bedside, at first ignoring the doctor who held a quiet infant in his arms. He went to Ariana who was already tidied up in a fresh nightgown and bed linens. She looked exhausted, her eyes drooping as if ready for sleep.

  “Are you well, love?” he asked her anxiously, sitting on the bed beside her, facing her. He touched cool fingers to her warm face and she smiled at him wearily.

  “I am well. But your son took the long way home it seemed.”

  “My…my son?” he echoed dumbly.

  Ariana held out her hands and the doctor placed the infant into her arms. She situated him so his father could see his wrinkled face in amongst the finery of the ceremonial swaddling.

  “Your son. Raj Alexsander. As we agreed, yes?”

  “Yes,” Sin said, suddenly feeling the effects of the hussa…or something like it. He could barely focus on the infant his heart was racing so madly. Then he reached out and touched his baby’s soft cheek. He immediately began to cry and Sin snatched his hand back as if he had been burned.

  “Did I hurt him?” he asked, panicked.

  “No. Of course not. Here. Hold him and he will stop.”

  She handed him the child before he could protest and he awkwardly tried to settle the infant without hurting him. Ariana chuckled at him then rested calming hands on him. She settled her son in his arms and, as she had said, he stopped crying.

  Sin was tense from head to toe, afraid he would somehow hurt his son or drop him accidentally. But as time passed and he grew used to holding him, he relaxed. He turned up a beaming smile to his wife.

  “Is he as perfect as he seems?” he asked.

  “Yes. All ten fingers and all eleven toes.”

  He drew in a breath for a second, and then realized she was teasing him. He grinned at her in answer to her amused smile.

  “So now all that is left is that we have his naming ceremony, then he will be recognized as my heir. The future raja.”

  “That is not all that is left,” she admonished him. There will be many years of raising him between now and the day he becomes raja. But let’s not speak of it. For…for one to happen then my heart must be devastated by something else. I do not like to speak of your death.

  “Then we will not speak of it,” he said softly before leaning forward and kissing her lips softly. “As you said, there will be many years between now and then. We will raise our son and his siblings happily and safely.”

  “Siblings! You are already planning your next? I cannot think of it after what I’ve just gone through!”

  He frowned. “This business of childbirth is highly unfair,” he said.

  “In what way?” she asked curiously.

  “Well, first that you get to hold the child beneath your heart for months before I even get to feel or see my son…and then that you must suffer so much pain alone and I have no way of taking it from you.”

  “Oh, well I suppose being able to hold my child under my heart for all those months is my reward for the pain I must endure.”

  He thought on that a moment. “I had not thought of it like that. Was it worth it?”

  “Every moment of it,” she breathed. “The pain is nothing compared to how it feels to feel my child moving inside of me.”

  “I envy you,” he said softly.

  “Don’t. Now you can hold our child close to your heart too.”

  He turned Alexsander in his arms and held him up against his heart, drifting a kiss over his downy soft head of black hair.

  “You have given me everything I could ever dream or hope for,” he said to his wife. Then he leaned forward and kissed her lips with lingering soft sweetness. “I knew it the moment I first laid eyes on you that you would make me the happiest of men.”

  “Well, it took a little longer than that for me to realize you would make me the happiest of women. But you have,” she said lovingly. “I love you more than my life, Sin.”

  “Can I stay with you? With you and our child?” he asked, concern edging over him as he scanned her for signs of discomfort.

  “Of course you can.” She drew back the corner of the covers and patted the bed. He handed her their child and worked off his boots. He climbed into the bed and put his arm around his wife. She snuggled against him and together they looked down on their son.

  “I will never take for granted how lucky I am,” he said softly as he pressed a kiss to her temple.

  “I know that you won’t. You have always been very methodical in your appreciation for the fortunes in your life…and you have fought for them at every turn. That makes me very lucky as well…because I know you will always fight to take care of our son and me. Even that night of the fire, when Vich had me in his power, even then I believe with all my heart that you would never fail me.”

  “Do not speak of it. I almost did fail you. You fought for yourself that night. I had little to d
o with it.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have fought so hard had I not had you to live for. Had I not been terrified he would hurt you through me.”

  “Let’s not speak of it again. It is over with. My brother is in the afterlife where he will never bother us again.”

  “No. We will not speak of it again. And if our son has a brother we will raise both to appreciate what they have and to always put the love of a brother before everything else.”

  “Yes. We will. And our second-born child will become heir to your fortunes in Saren, so they will have that.”

  “Again we are speaking of heirs and more children. Let us enjoy what we have right now. Let us revel in our son. Let us spoil him as though he were the only one we will ever have…for he may very well be.”

  “Do you think he is too young for a pony?” Sin asked, a teasing gleam in his eye.

  “A tad bit too young,” she said on a laugh.

  “Very well then…a hound. A loyal one to look after him.”

  “That is a fine idea.”

  Sin looked down on his wife and son and a feeling of pure contentment stole over him. Who would have thought that less than a year ago they had been nigh unto strangers to one another. Now he could never live without her. He couldn’t remember what life was like before her; only that it felt very lonely when he looked back on it.

  Now his future was filled with love from many places. His son. His wife. Loyal men like Lindo. His mother.

  He couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  “I am a very lucky and very happy man,” he told his wife. “I never want you to doubt the joy you give me.”

  “I won’t. And if I do doubt it, I will only remind myself of this moment when there is nothing but love and joy in our lives.”

  “And then you will come to me and I will prove how content you make me,” he said on a suggestive growl.

  She laughed and blushed.

  “Perhaps I will claim there is doubt even when there is none…only to have you prove it to me,” she said wickedly.

  He laughed at that. A full, ringing laugh that startled their son out of his dozing sleep. He began to fuss. This time when his father took him it was with confidence. He jounced him gently in his arms.

  “There now. There now,” he soothed.

  And, as he watched his son fall back to sleep, he knew a level of contentment that should have been unachievable. But it wasn't. He was happy and at peace.

  And would be for the rest of his life.