Kael Frost's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Dr. Whitmore came back on the tenth day, as promised. She listened to Elara's pulse, pressed her belly, and asked about food and sleep. Then she drew Kael into the corridor and closed the door behind them. "The pregnancy is fragile at this stage," she said. "Any hard shock could end it. No long rides. No cold rooms. No arguments she can't walk away from. Keep her fed, keep her warm, keep her calm. Ten weeks from now she'll be past the worst of it." Kael nodded once. He walked her to the servants' stair himself. He canceled the morning council. He canceled the afternoon audience. He told the steward that any message not stamped with a border seal could wait until dark. Then he went to their chamber and started building the room the healer had described. He had the fire in the carved hearth stoked until the ice around it wept. He had thick furs laid over the bed. He set candles on the low table by the window, tall ones shaped like small spires, and lit them himself so no page would clatter in and wake her. On a tray between the candles he put a dish of dark chocolate strawberries, because she had eaten two of them last week and then quietly eaten a third. Elara came in from her bath in a loose robe. She stopped in the doorway and looked at the tray, then at him. "You canceled the council." "Yes." "For this." "For you." She crossed to the bed and sat. She picked up a strawberry, bit it, and set the stem on the edge of the dish. "Whitmore told you something." "She said the next ten weeks are the dangerous ones." "And you decided to hover." "I decided to be here." Elara looked at the fire, then at her own hands. "I don't know how to sit still," she said. "I never have." "You don't have to sit still. You have to stay warm and stay fed and let me carry the rest." She was quiet a long moment. Then she reached for his hand and put it flat on her stomach, under the robe. Her skin was cool. Nothing moved under his palm yet. He kept his hand there anyway. "Ten weeks," she said. "Ten weeks." He stayed. He read to her from a book of northern maps because she liked the names of the passes. He fed her the rest of the strawberries one at a time. When she slept, he sat by the fire and watched the door. At the third hour after midnight, a page knocked. A rider had come in from the south road. The seal on the letter was not the border captain's. It was the Southern queen's. Kael took the letter into the corridor so the light would not wake her. He broke the seal there.