I walked. A lot. When the first cramps came with such a strength, I walked through Tal Aesiri, leaning on a walking stick Zarah had honed from a branch. I had heard once that walking would speed childbirth. At the least, it kept me from going mad from the pain. When it was time, I retreated to the cave that Aerik and Firien had taken shelter in. Nearly a full day after I felt the first labor pangs, I held a little girl in my arms.
I cleaned her up and wrapped her in fur, and put her down only to clean myself up. Dhreo guarded her fiercely, even from the rest of the foulings; the only ones he could not keep from the cave were Adhanel and my mother.
“You did well, pet,” my mother said to me after I had gotten myself clean and dry, and sat down to nurse my daughter. My breasts ached with milk, and my new daughter latched on greedily. “Like her mother before her, I see.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Did you children look like this?” I asked Adhanel. My girl had come out rather…patchy. Half of her was my skin tone, tan and human, and the other half was Dalandaras—pale, almost translucent, with a silver sheen that caught the fire light. It wasn’t evenly distributed either—a great swatch of silver crossed her face, and a few others her body.
“My only,” Adhanel replied. “Yes, she did.”
I held my daughter close and touched her skin, feeling her cheeks and the little fluff of hair that was too pale for any color to be determined. Her eyelids were heavy and closed. I had a feeling I would never know their color. A babe’s eye color changed, I knew. I just didn’t know when. Whenever it was, I would not be there.
I had cut Dalandaras off from me so completely, I could no longer reach him. The Lady was too dominant.
“Find him,” I told Dhreo, and felt the orders flow out into Tal Aesiri, and to the other foulings. They would search out Dalandaras, and bring him to where I could part the wall.
When I was rested enough, I bundled my babe in as many furs as I could tie around her, and took her out of Tal Aesiri to meet her father.
The wall of ice parted easily when we came to the edge of Tal Aesiri, but an invisible thread held me back from going farther than the clearing. The ley lines that I had created now contained me. I may have still held onto Eva, but the Lady could go no further.
My daughter stirred, and I fed her once more as the summer sun rose overhead, the sky cloudless and bright blue. When she was done and sleeping, I stared at her, memorizing every plane of her skin, every eyelash, the angle of her eyebrows. I wanted to be selfish, so very selfish, and keep her here with me. I could raise her at Tal Aesiri; with foulings and colossi and the undead, she would not lack for playmates or for guards. But there was always the chance that the Dagnar Queen would come again, despite her promise, or that the humans would send another like Ellsmid, or that Zarah would find a way to turn on me again. There was always the chance that I would lose the person that was Eva, and that the Lady had no use for children. No, my daughter would be safer with her father and grandfather.
I walked as far as I could past the ley lines of Tal Aesiri towards the northern wall of Tal Anor, until my legs struggled and I thought my heart would burst. Before I lost the will to do so, I placed the bundle that was my daughter on a snowless rock. Then I unfastened Dauntless from my waist. She would need the sword much more than I would. I retreated behind the safety of the lines.
Dhreo circled her, his ears perked for any danger. Then he howled, long and slow, and the call was answered.
Dalandaras came as fast as he could up the river pass, his snowshoes and poles digging heavily into the snow. Not far behind was my father, and Aerik and Firien.
“Eva!” Dalandaras called in a panic. I didn’t want to be seen, and the ley lines hid me.
“Eva!” he called again, and father joined in. They both spotted Dhreo and the bundle of fur. Dalandaras slipped from his snowshoes and dropped his poles, and rushed to the bundle. His eyes widened. Carefully, more carefully than I had ever seen him do anything, he picked up the bundle, and cradled it in his arms.
“Is that…?” my father asked as Dhreo danced around them both.
“Where’s Eva?” Dalandaras demanded of Dhreo, but the fouling only whined.
“Did she tell you…?” Father asked.
Dalandaras shook his head slowly. “I did not know.” He glanced up, his eyes narrowing and sweeping the wall. “Eva! I know you’re there! Dhreo, where is she?”
Our daughter started to squirm, and I could bare it no more. “You will wake her,” I said quietly, and revealed myself to them.
Dalandaras spotted me, and hurried as fast as he could toward me. But the ley lines slowed him to a halt mere feet from me. He reached for me, but I could not reach back.
He dropped his hand. “When did you know?” he asked huskily. Already he rocked our daughter back and forth in his arms, lulling her into slumber.
I wanted to touch him, to reach out across the barrier that I had imposed between us. But I could not. “Since we rescued Father.”
“You were ill.”
I nodded. “What we humans call morning sickness. Captain Ehledrath realized it before I did.”
“And you’ve chosen to abandon her?” he demanded.
His words hurt. “Don’t strike me Dalandaras, I cannot bear it right now.” The tears were threatening to spill over, but I held their sting back.
Father’s tears had spilled, and were running down his cheeks. “You once accused me of abandoning you,” he said, his voice thick. “Would you do the same to her?”
“I had hoped to free the ghosts trapped here,” I said quietly. “But I failed. For now, I must protect them from those who would use them. It is not the life I wanted. It is even less the life I would want for my child.”
Dalandaras cradled the bundle gently against his chest. I could feel her stir, her movements tearing at my heart. “What have you called her?”
“I have not named her,” I replied. “What was your mother’s name?”
“Alidmarador,” he replied, and I saw tears in his eyes. “She was a good woman.”
I forced a smile, lest I cried too. “Mine was Evamara. Name her both, and call her Mara. Honor both of our mothers.”
He nodded, and then the tears finally fell down his cheeks.
“Take her from here, Dalandaras. Do not let her be a pawn to the Dagnar and the Empire alike. If they have control over her…they will have control over me.”
“I will take her to Port Darad,” he said quietly. “I will take her to your home. She will know you.”
That would have to be enough. I would have to let it be enough. “Don’t let her come back here.”
“But—”
“Don’t,” this time it was the Lady as much as I that commanded him.
“You’d make a mistake to promise that,” my father said. His eyes were rimmed red, his cheeks specked with ice that had been tears that had frozen. He approached Dalandaras, and reached a tentative hand out to touch baby Mara’s cheek. “Take it from a man who has learned that lesson, Prince—don’t ever forbid your daughter to do something; she will likely do it anyway.”
“This is different,” I replied, the Lady gone, the child in me back once more. “Promise me, Dalandaras.”
Dalandaras met my eyes, and nodded slowly. “For as long as I can, I will keep her from here.”
I nodded in return.
Aerik came up behind them, his face one of regret.
“Remember your promise,” I told him.
“On my life,” Aerik replied.
Neither Dalandaras nor Father questioned what we meant; I was glad of that much, at least.
The wind changed, and I felt the stir of the foulings and dreadwolves. “A storm is coming,” I said. “You must leave, if you wish to make it back to Tal Anor before the snowfall.”
“I love you,” Dalandaras said.
I could only nod. If I spoke, all the tears would come.
“Oh pet,” Mother’s voice whispered in my head.
I re
ached for Mara before I could control myself. Only the resistance of the ley lines stopped me. I pulled my hand back and turned, heading back to the wall and Tal Aesiri.
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Winter's Sword Page 21