“Not so early as that,” he murmured. “Now, I am going to carry you, my lady. I pray you will bear with me.”
The contractions were coming closer together now, and she remembered this part, with sudden vividness, with the med tech hovering, concerned for her pain, and she thought—she remembered that she thought, But every step of the getting here has been pain, what else should there be at the end?
The med tech, that was it, and her husband, sitting where she could see him, whenever she opened her eyes. Just that, the med tech and her husband, and the air stitched with pain. The med tech had called for a Healer, she remembered that, too.
But the Healer never came.
The pain struck again, like a wave—isn't that what they had said it was like? A wave? Arcing high and higher, milky green, with lace frothing at the fore, she remembered that, too, from when they had—and then it vanished, like snow, not like a wave at all, and someone was talking, very softly, so that they wouldn't wake her, but she wasn't asleep, she could hear them perfectly well. They were talking about sending him away, just into the next room, so that she would not be endangered—and he was going—
“Daav!” She tried to sit up, reaching—he caught her hand; she felt the power of their bond, buoying her like a leaf atop the next wave.
“Your lordship, you must leave,” the Healer's voice was urgent. “I cannot give her what she requires from behind a shield.”
“No.” She gripped his fingers. “Daav stays. The Healer may—the Healer may be excused.”
“Aelliana,” he murmured, taking her other hand.
She opened her eyes, and he was there, kneeling beside the birth-bed. She looked up into his face—he was worried, exalted, wary, adoring—she saw it all; felt it all. “The Healer is here to make the birth easier for you, beloved,” he said. “You do not wish to begin your relationship with our child in pain.”
“Our child,” she panted, meaning to say that they had both made him and ought both to welcome him, but there came the next wave—a towering monstrosity that reared its back halfway to OutEight, and she a leaf, floating atop. “Stay, van'chela. You do us well . . . ”
“She does seem to take solace from your presence,” the Healer murmured. “You do as well as I could.” There was a rustle, soft footsteps. “I will be in the antechamber, if the lady calls.”
Another wave, another and another, coming hard and close now, a rippling mountain range of waves, over which she glided, exultant, on dragon wings, borne up by starwind. She looked aside, and there he was, flying wingtip to wingtip: her love, her mate, her second self. She laughed, seeing the pattern of the winds across the foaming mountaintops, understanding their meaning and utility.
She tipped a wing and spiraled upward, daring him to follow her, up, and further yet, into the starweb, their wings stretching wide and wider, their bond forging into adamantine, until she was he, and he, her, and the both of them as ineluctable as—
“Aelliana . . . ” Her voice. No. His voice. The wind fell; she set her wings and glided down the mountainside, feeling him nestled in her soul even as she swept into her body, and knew exhaustion, felt the birthing bed enclosing her, and her hands lying folded together beneath her breast.
“Aelliana,” Daav said again.
She smiled to hear his voice, stirred a little, and opened her eyes.
He was kneeling at her side, his face filled with tenderness and amazement, a green blanket cradled in his arms.
“Aelliana,” he murmured, “behold our son.”
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Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Thirty-Six
Each person shall provide their clan of origin with a child of their blood, who will be raised by the clan and belong to the clan, despite whatever may later occur to place the parent beyond the clan's authority. And this shall be Law for every person of every clan.
—From the Charter of the Council of Clans
Made in the Sixth Year After Planetfall,
City of Solcintra, Liad
The children were outside on the balcony, where they had gone, so Luken phrased it, in his gentle way, to enjoy the beauties of the day. Aelliana thought that they had rather gone to remove themselves from beneath Kareen's eye, which took a dim view of such things as coloring, reading, and the launching of toy spaceships.
Aelliana had remained in the birthing parlor until she felt the need to escape Kareen's eye, and stepped out onto the balcony, with a murmured excuse about wanting some air.
She doubted that Kareen, who was speaking at, rather than to Luken, heard her. Daav, who had stepped over to talk with Mr. pak'Ora, surely did.
The balcony overlooked a formal lawn and a far lacery of lesser trees. A flowering vine grew along the railing, trailing tendrils down onto the stone seat where the children—those being Pat Rin and Shan—were playing with— Aelliana squinted, trying to see—ah. Playing with dice.
Pat Rin shook the dice.
