Adrian Silvercrest's Arc

Chapter 9 of 23

Two weeks after the village wedding, Adrian woke to the sound of Elara being sick in the basin. He sat up fast. Aldric was already at her side, holding her hair back with one hand and a cup of water in the other. She waved Adrian off, then leaned back on her heels and pressed a hand flat to her stomach. "It is the third morning," Aldric said. He did not soften it. "Same hour. Same way." Elara wiped her mouth. "I know what it is." Adrian knelt beside her. "Say it." "I am pregnant." She looked at the floor, not at either of them. "And I do not know whose." The room went quiet. Adrian felt the words land somewhere under his ribs. He waited for the wrong feeling, jealousy or fear, and it did not come. He looked at Aldric. Aldric looked back. They had the same face. "Ours," Adrian said. "You cannot know that." "I know what I said in the kitchen. I said yes to all of it. That included this." He took her hand. "It does not matter whose blood. It is ours." Aldric set the cup down. "Three parents. One child. The math is simple." Elara laughed once, wet, and then cried. Adrian held her. Aldric put a hand on her back and kept it there. By afternoon Aldric had cleared the corner by the window. He came back from the shed with an armful of pale wood and a small crate of tools. Adrian watched him lay the pieces out on the floor in order. "You built cradles now," Adrian said. "I read the plan twice on the way home. I can build it in four days." "Three," Adrian said. "I am helping." They worked through the week. Aldric shaped the curves. Adrian sanded until his hands were raw. Elara sat in the chair by the window and named the small flowers Aldric carved into the sides, purple, pink, pale green leaves along each post. On the fourth evening they set it upright in the corner. It stood on its curved legs like something out of a story, the wood pale, the petals bright, a small hood arching over where the child's head would go. Elara stood in front of it a long time. Her hand went back to her stomach. "The village will count months," she said. "Let them count," Adrian said. "They will see a farmer and his wife and a friend who lives in the house. They will see a baby in a cradle. That is what they will see." Aldric nodded. "And we will know the rest." Elara touched the edge of the hood. She was not crying now. She looked at Adrian, then at Aldric, and the worry that had been on her face for three mornings was gone. "Alright," she said. "Ours."