The Core

‘Ala.’ She pointed to another die, angled diagonally toward the face with irrajesh. ‘Even if we risk she doom the world instead.’

Leesha tried to digest the words, but they were too much. She put them aside. ‘What will your people do, if they learn the child is without gender?’

Amanvah bent closer, studying not just the large symbols at the centre of the dice but dozens of smaller ones around the edges, as well. ‘The news will tear them apart. It is too dangerous to announce the child’s fate now, but without it, many will take this as a sign of Everam’s displeasure with the Hollow Tribe.’

‘Giving them excuse to break the peace Ahmann and I forged,’ Leesha said.

‘The few who still need excuse, after the son of Jeph cast the Deliverer from a cliff.’ Amanvah bent to look closer at the dice.

‘See here,’ she noted, pointing to a symbol facing into the cluster. ‘Ting.’ Female. She slid her finger along the edge of the die, continuing to show how the line intersected irrajesh. ‘There is less convergence if you announce the child as female.’

The child was bathed and changed by the time Leesha and Amanvah finished. Elona dozed in a chair with the sleeping baby in her arms. Wonda stood protectively over her, while Darsy paced the room nervously. Tarisa had stripped the bloodied bed and put down fresh linens, now busying herself readying a bath.

‘She,’ Leesha said loudly, stepping beyond the wards of silence.

Darsy stopped in her tracks. Elona started awake. ‘Ay, whazzat?’

Leesha squinted into her warded spectacles, searching the auras of the women as they gathered before her. ‘So far as anyone outside this room is concerned, I just gave birth to a healthy baby girl.’

‘Ay, mistress,’ Wonda said. ‘But said yurself, babe needs guards day an’ night. Sooner or later, one’ll catch an eyeful while we change the nappy.’ Her aura coloured with worry. ‘Speakin’ of which …’

Leesha laughed. ‘By order of the countess, you’re relieved of nappy duties, Wonda Cutter. Your talents would be wasted wiping bottoms.’

Wonda blew out a breath. ‘Thank the Creator.’

‘I will personally read the aura of every member of the house staff and guard with access to my daughter.’ Leesha looked at Tarisa. ‘Any who cannot be trusted will need to find employment elsewhere.’

Her maid’s aura flashed with fear, and Leesha sighed. She had known this was coming, but it made things no easier.

‘We’ll tell Vika and Jizell as well,’ Leesha said. ‘We’ll all need to watch as she develops in case her condition causes unforeseen health problems.’

‘Course,’ Darsy agreed.

‘You tell Jizell, you’re tellin’ Mum,’ Wonda warned. Jizell was Royal Gatherer to Duke Pether now, reporting directly to Duchess Araine.

Leesha met Tarisa’s eyes. ‘I expect she’ll find out, regardless. Better it come from me.’

‘That go for her, too?’ Darsy jerked a finger at Amanvah.

‘It does.’ Amanvah’s aura stayed cool and even. It was a fair question. ‘I will not lie or withhold information from my mother, but our interests align. The Damajah will have a vested concern for the safety of the child, and will be essential in keeping my brother from trying to claim or kill her.’

Elona opened her mouth, but Leesha cut off the debate. ‘I trust her.’ She looked back at Amanvah. ‘Will you and Sikvah stay here with us?’

Amanvah shook her head. ‘Thank you, mistress, but enough rooms have been finished in my honoured husband’s manse for us to move in. After so long in captivity, I wish to be under my own roof, with my own people …’

‘Of course.’ Leesha put a hand on Amanvah’s belly. Shocked, the woman fell silent. ‘But please understand that we are your people now, too. Thrice bound by blood.’

‘Thrice bound,’ Amanvah agreed, putting her own hand over Leesha’s in an act so intimate it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. It was strange, how sharing pain could sometimes do what good times could not.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Darsy asked when Amanvah left the room.

‘It means Amanvah and Sikvah are carrying Rojer’s children,’ Leesha said. ‘Anyone doesn’t hop when one of them wants something had better have a good corespawned reason.’

Darsy’s eyebrows shot up into her hair, but she nodded. ‘Ay, mistress.’

‘Now if everyone will excuse me,’ Leesha said, ‘I’d like to put my daughter in her crib and have that bath.’

Darsy and Wonda made for the door, but Elona lingered, her aura showing her unwillingness to let go of the baby.

‘Night, Mother,’ Leesha said, ‘you’ve imprinted more on that child in an hour than you did in my entire life.’

‘This one ent got your mouth, yet.’ Elona looked down at the sleeping baby. ‘Lucky little bastard. Could’ve run this town, I’d been born with a pecker.’

‘You’d have made a wonderful man,’ Leesha agreed.

‘Not a man,’ Elona said. ‘Never wanted that. Just wanted a pecker, too. Steave made me a wooden one, once. Polished it to a shine and said it was to do when there was no wood at home.’

‘Creator,’ Leesha said, but Elona ignored her.

‘Meant it for me, but it was your father that liked when I …’

‘Corespawn it, Mother!’ Leesha snapped. ‘You’re doing this on purpose.’

Elona cackled. ‘Course I am, girl. Keeping the stick from your arse requires constant maintenance.’

Leesha put her face in her hand.

Elona finally relented and handed Leesha the child. ‘I’m just sayin’, Paper women are fierce even without peckers.’

Leesha smiled at that. ‘Honest word.’

‘What are you going to call her?’ Elona asked.

‘Olive,’ Leesha said.

‘Always wondered why that was a girl’s name,’ Elona said. ‘Olives got stones.’

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Countess Paper (#ulink_2cecbe73-21df-5766-836e-3ccf6ef2bb4e)

334 AR

Tarisa was waiting when Leesha finally managed to pull her gaze away from Olive, fast asleep in her crib. The older woman’s aura still looked like a rabbit backed into a corner, but she did not show it. ‘My lady must be exhausted. Come sit and I’ll brush out your hair.’

Leesha reached up, realizing her hair was still pinned from her homecoming, half the pins loose or missing. She wore only a sweaty and bloodstained shift with a silk dressing gown pulled over it. Dried tears crusted her cheeks. ‘I must look a horror.’

‘Anything but.’ Tarisa led her to the bedroom vanity, unpinning and brushing Leesha’s hair. It was a ritual they had performed so many times, it gave Leesha a pang of nostalgia. These were Thamos’ chambers, his servants, his keep. She had meant to share it all with him, a storybook tale, but her prince’s part in the story was ended.