“I want it,” Aletheia said. She put her right hand atop the fuller of the Korakos blade. “You don’t like swords.”
Eris tightened her grip on the quillons. “You have a sword already. This blade is mine.”
“You can have mine.”
“No. I will keep this one.”
The women glared at each other. Aletheia did not let go, even as she flinched in pain for putting too much weight on her wounded leg. “He would have wanted me to have it.”
“Astera would have wanted you to continue using hers, not Rook’s.”
“I never even saw Astera use this sword!”
“Then ‘tis yours for custom of use; there is no need to change that now.”
The girl pouted. “Why do you care?”
“He was my companion first,” Eris said. “This artifact is rightfully mine.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“I am telling you it does.”
“You met Astera first—does that mean you get her bow, too?”
“Now you mention it, you should not tempt me to make a repossession.”
“You should try!” Aletheia said. Then she steeled over. “I won’t let you bully me, Eris. I know you loved him, but—he taught me everything. He would have wanted me to have it. Please.”
Eris’ glare did not let up. She would not compromise on this. “No,” she said. The words that followed were hard to say aloud: “He would have wanted our son to have it. Therefore ‘tis mine. I am its custodian.”
Aletheia jumped backward immediately. “You’re keeping him?”
This was not a conversation Eris wanted to have, but extraordinary selfishness called for extraordinary measures. She grimaced as she nodded, and she muttered, “Yes.”
The girl’s hostility dropped in an instant. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. It should be his. You keep it.”
Eris grabbed the sword. It waved through the air, coming close to cutting her, but she managed to get it sheathed. They were preparing to depart: she fastened her belt around her waist from which to hang the sword…
The buckles would not reach. She had not worn it in some time and now, no matter how hard she pulled, she could not fasten it together. She kept her back to Aletheia so the girl could not notice. For a week they had stayed in this inn, resting, healing, and trying to remain inconspicuous. Eris felt mostly better at the end of this period—and her illness of the last months, inexplicably, seemed to have passed—but Aletheia’s injuries remained painful and debilitating. It would be many weeks yet before she healed.
As for Eris…she was fat. She clenched her jaw and cursed Rook once again. Could there be any irony more bitter, than that the man who so adored her beauty would be the one who ruined it?
She threw the belt into her backpack. The sword would be carried.
Then they set off. To another town, where they would spend another week in rest. They kept on the move so as not to arouse suspicion.
“Why are you carrying it?” Aletheia asked.
“Is it a crime, to carry a sword in one’s hand?” Eris spat back.
“Yes. Usually.”
“I will disguise it as a stick when we enter the next village.”
“You can wear it. It has a buckle.”
She bit her lip. “My belt broke.”
The girl said nothing. But after a time she cocked her head, and as they walked she glanced side-eyed at Eris’ abdomen. Contemplating. Not believing the lie. She did not look much like a woman, but Aletheia had a feminine intuition that saw through Eris easily. She was smarter than she looked.
Eris felt deep discomfort being scrutinized in this manner. It would only get worse. But there was nowhere to turn away and no way to cover herself. She had already taken to more conservative dress—for the first time in her life she showed little skin—but even that measure would no longer be enough soon. In all her life she never felt so self-conscious. She used to enjoy eyes across her body, male and female alike. Now she wanted nothing more than to be invisible. How strange and instantaneous that conversion was. She wondered if all women felt this way. She was ashamed.
Not of having had sex. Not of carrying Rook’s child, for better his than any other man’s. Certainly not of being unwed. No, her shame was simply being seen and known to be enslaved. Owned. Domesticated. If not by a man, then by the function of her body. She was ashamed and embarrassed that her freedom had been taken away at little more than the low cost of a single night of ecstasy.
After a night on the road they arrived at another remote village called Athos. This time Eris felt well enough to sustain their disguises, turning their swords into sticks and her staff into a cane. They neared the Chasm of Koilados. Here tall red trees began to grow between fields and on the horizon, looking out from a hill, the sparse forests of the Kathar highlands came into view. Between a stretch in the hazy blue distance they spotted the outline of the black Oldwalls, pointing like an arrow toward the Chasm…
But that was out of sight, for now. Eris had never seen it herself. They said it was a sea, a great lake in the middle of realm that had been drained down to the core of the Earth. Cause to wonder what might be found within the oceans if only man could swim deep enough.
Athos had no inn. They were too far off the highway. Instead they took up residence with an old widow, whose small house had a spare room just large enough for Eris and Aletheia both. Eris did not want to share a room with anyone but Rook—but there was nowhere else to stay except the stables. A bed with Aletheia was better than a bed of hay.
The Widow generously fed them. Desperate to know the stories of two from the city, curious to hear how these sisters had come so far afield.
“There was an attack,” Aletheia said. “We had to get away.”
“Don’t ye ‘av a mather?” these rural people had strange accents and the Widow’s voice creaked. “Nae a father te come with ye?”
“Just our brother. But…we’re meeting him in Telekhasmos.”
Eris took a sip of her soup. Such explanations would not hold for much longer. They would need new lies. She did not know how much she would change, but she suspected it would be too much to conceal with Arcane Semblance. And then to travel with an infant…
She groaned into her hands at the thought. At the moment it all seemed unreal, but she despaired at the future. Every night she played through the same thoughts again, the same frustrations, and each time she arrived back at the same profound loneliness, the emptiness, for she had to face all this uncertainty without his help.
“Ye’ve lost someone, I know,” the Widow now addressed Eris. She had been talking more with Aletheia but the conversation had not been interesting. Now it was unavoidable. “Ye both ‘ave. Such sorrow and pain in the both of ye; breaks the heart to see it, in girls so young.”
Eris closed her eyes. The time of night approached where she again became all tears. At day it was easy to remain composed, but at night she remembered drinking with Rook, teasing him, kissing him, and sleeping at his side; Aletheia did not suffice as a substitute. She found she enjoyed thinking about him, even as it seemed the most prudent thing would be to forget.
The girl went quiet. She had a distant look in her eyes. Eris received the impression that the thought of a child of Rook was the only thing that kept her grounded. Without it, she would descend into existential despair on the meaninglessness of existence, robbed of her big brother. She kept some humor with her, wry but present all the same, yet she was certainly sorrowful.
As for Eris…
“My husband,” she said. “He…was killed, when the demon entered the city. Trying to stop it, of course, but there was nothing he could do.”
The old Widow put a hand to her heart. Her wrinkled features contorted with pity. She reached out to grab Eris’ wrist. Eris did not like the elderly, but she allowed the gesture just this once.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “When my husband died, ‘twas thirty years after we was married, and yet I still miss him every day. Can ye tell me what he was like?”
So Eris did. She indulged the Widow. She described Rook in vague enough detail he might be unrecognizable, gossiping like Diana’s ghastly gentleladies, talking giddily to the other women, until soon she found herself smiling in reminiscence. Aletheia smiled, too. The Widow offered advice—unwanted, but easily ignored—and for that brief time she forgot about the discomfort night brought. She enjoyed talking and remembering until dinner was over and everyone was laughing in the candlelight.
Then she felt it. Something in her stomach. A shifting beneath her skin, like the digestion of dinner while awake. She ignored it and continued on in the revelry. But then it came again. This time it felt more akin to a spasm; a pulling of the tendons, a shuddering of the muscles across her belly. Again she ignored it. But the final time there was a distinctive fluttering, like nervousness given physical form, and it lasted for a long while—like nothing she had ever felt before in her life. It concluded with a lurch and left her with the sensation of being punched in the gut.
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Her mirth was robbed as reality set in once again.
“He taught me everything,” Aletheia said. “We would—sneak out and ride horses after dark. I wasn’t supposed to, but—”
Eris stood suddenly, hitting her knee on the table in the process. Both of the women looked at her in surprise. She glared back at them with what must have been pure horror; then, without excusing herself, she fled back to her room and onto the bed.
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She lit a candle with a spell of green fire. In the flickering light she pulled apart the wrappings around her abdomen and placed her hands on her bare belly, and she stared.
There was a world of distinction between knowing a fact and understanding it. She knew that when she concentrated she felt life within her. She knew she was growing fat, yet only around the waist. She knew her symptoms reflected one unfortunate reality, and she knew that a woman who had regular sex with a very virile man should conceive his child. Already, intellectually, she had accepted what had happened to her, and what would continue to happen, and was resigned to let it take its course.
But until that moment she did not truly understand the situation she was in. She did not understand what it meant to be pregnant. She did not understand that Rook’s son truly was alive within her womb. Now, as she realized she felt that child swimming inside her, it was undeniable. It was there—she could feel it—and it was alive.
Another wave of fluttering. It was a deeply discomforting sensation, like something had invaded her body and taken up residence in her gut—for that was what had happened.
When Aletheia returned some time later, she clearly realized what had happened, for she said nothing but took a seat on the floor. She looked up at Eris looking down at herself.
“…can you feel him?” she asked.
Eris didn’t respond.
“I don’t know…what it’s like…but we can talk about it.”
A sigh.
“Diana told me about her baby. I know a little bit—”
“Stop,” Eris hissed. “There will be no discussion.”
Aletheia hung her head. “I don’t want to fight you all the time.”
“Then stay silent and there will be no need to fight.”
She stayed silent for a time, but then came and set by Eris’ side. “I died and I’m still less of a bitch than you. You don’t get to act this way because you’re having a baby.”
The words again forced confrontation with reality. She tried to deflect. “I was always a bitch. My behavior is nothing new.”
“Yes it is. You’re being weird. You’re staring at yourself and running away and—I know you’re sad. I…I still don’t know how I’m going to survive without Rook. But can’t we be friends?”
“I doubt it,” Eris said. She covered herself again, but the girl’s eyes lingered to that place on her abdomen.
“I want to try anyway. Because we’re stuck together. So just—tell me what it’s like.”
It was a strange reminder that the ‘girl’ was not so much younger than Eris herself. Fifteen by the calendar. Fourteen, so far as her body and soul were concerned. She seemed so juvenile for so long. When they met the gulf between them was insurmountable. But really five years was almost nothing. When Eris was old, Aletheia would be old; while one was young, so still was the other. The closest thing Eris ever had to a confidant her age, aside from Rook, who was also a magician—was Robur.
She liked Robur more than Aletheia. He was much more obedient. But Aletheia was better company.
“What it’s like?” Eris asked with narrowing eyes.
“Yes. Tell me what it’s like.”
“Is this what girls must discuss whenever men are not around? Could we not muse on magic instead? I have read several interesting treatises while convalescing this week.”
“You don’t need my help understanding magic.”
“That is certainly true,” Eris sighed.
“But I want to know. And you need someone to talk to about it.”
An irritating, irrational twelve-year-old was much easier to get angry at. Aletheia was proving far too cordial. Eris pulled herself into a ball on the bed, and it was only because she was so confused that she muttered, “Very well.”
So an interrogation began. All the questions one might expect. And it was very strange. Speaking in private with Aletheia was nothing at all like speaking to Rook. In the early days of their association there was usually fighting, then strained leering; later on they could say little without removing each other’s clothes. But here she just talked. And talked. And talked. It was a non-sexual intimacy that Eris had never experienced before. She liked it more than she expected she might, but it still left her longing for some way to be alone.
At some point Aletheia handed her the enchanted locket again. Eris opened it and glanced between the two mirrors.
“What do you see now?” she asked.
For the first time she was absent from one reflection. Instead, in both, she saw a boy, with blue eyes and brown hair. On the left he held hands with a handsome but boyish young woman with blonde hair, wearing armor, a sword at her hip; and on the right, he held hands with Eris.
“A decision,” she said. “Whether you will raise him…or will I.” She handed the locket back to Aletheia.
“Do you know the answer?”
Eris took a sharp breath. “You ask many questions.”
“Someone has to.”
If she knew the answer then the mirror would not have shown her branching paths. She knew she intended to spare the child, so now it no longer showed her an existence without it—she could not, therefore, answer Aletheia’s question. But she replied with what she thought in that moment:
“I choose the left image. You may have him.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You wanted him alive, he can be yours to raise.”
Aletheia looked discomforted. “But he’s yours.”
“I feel no more warmly toward ‘him’ than the fungus between my feet. It is also ‘mine,’ but I would not hesitate to give it away.”
“He’s Rook’s.”
Eris hesitated. “That is why he is spared at all. For if he were anyone else’s, I would not sacrifice anything to let him live.”
Aletheia nodded. “Okay. If you don’t want him, I’ll…” Then, “What’s his name?”
Eris groaned. “You may choose one.”
“You have to choose. He’s your son.”
“I did not even know I was having a son until two weeks past! I have not thought about such asinine questions!”
“Now you can choose.”
“I do not care! It does not matter to me! You choose a name.”
“Fine. I will.” She hesitated. “Korax.”
“However did you come up with that?”
“Isn’t that the custom, for all the sons?”
Eris remembered years back to conversations with Rook. Yes, it was custom, for thirty-one generations. “Then we are bound by tradition. He is Korax. Rook the Lesser, though hopefully longer-lived. Are you happy now?”
Aletheia smiled. “Yes. Now we can go to bed.”
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Her nausea and general malaise was banished thereafter. But for the next five days in that microscopic room, every night she laid down to sleep, after dinner, the movement began. Her intestines churning. A creature within trying to break free. A constant reminder that Korax the Lesser was there to stay.
But she felt much better after her conversation with Aletheia. Her freedom was, perhaps, not robbed after all. She had to endure four or five more months of this purgatory, with the worst still yet to come: then she would be unchained. She would never need to see or think about her child again. Aletheia could have her purpose in life and a son of her own. Eris could have her life again. Everyone would be happy.
Truly, nine months of pregnancy was not so high a price to pay, to preserve Rook’s lineage with her body. The more she thought it over, the more she decided it was one she could accept—as she became more and more accustomed to the movements in her belly, more and more acculturated to the reality she was, in fact, a woman, and women did bear children, and although this was the strangest thing she had experienced in her life, far stranger than demonic possession or spellsickness, it was also among the most mundane. Giving birth would not make her a mother; being stuck with a child would.
Yes, pregnancy was terrible. But she could endure it. And after a week she was almost happy, when late at night she would expect to feel a movement, and then it would come. Never in her life had she been so close to a living creature. So connected with another soul—not even Rook. It was comforting, in its way. Reassuring. Especially when she remember it was the child of the man she loved. There was something special about that. Something that no longer embarrassed her or brought her shame. Something she would savor, even after the child was born.
She cursed Rook again for his death. She realized she could have given him this child, his heir, without sacrificing all she thought she had to. She could have given him the son he wanted and then left, as she said she would—and then they could have kept their love burning whenever she returned to visit. She could have had him. She saw that now. She did not want a child, she was not interested in raising it or visiting it, but she could have paid a price—the price she was paying now—in exchange for so much.
But now she never would.
In any case, despite feeling some measure of fondness for it, despite no longer being so utterly convinced it was only through rape that it had been implanted in her, she still would not raise it herself. Of that she was certain. She still wanted nothing to do with Korax the Lesser, even if she was secretly glad he had been conceived and that Rook would live on. Because to Eris, freedom meant much more than love. Especially to a child, but even to Rook.
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The door to their room swung open at dawn. Aletheia had crawled covertly beside Eris at night like a disobedient dog, cuddling against her for warmth—it was a most disturbing habit, but one born of night terrors and tears. At first she scolded the girl, but when the alternative was being kept awake by sobbing, a pet in the bed did not seem so egregious.
“Wake up, girls!” gasped the Widow. “They’s a man what’s here to see ye!”
They both shot to alertness. They were light sleepers, a habit of years on the road.
“A man?” Eris said.
“A magician! Says ‘e’s lookin’ for two young ladies like yourselves called Eris and Aletheia, I think it was, and when I told him the girls with me was Cleo and Atalanta ‘e refused to take it for an answer!”
Aletheia grabbed Eris’ shoulder in a gesture of panic. She closed her eyes. Suddenly pretenses were no longer concerning to her.
“He is alone?” she asked.
“Very alone,” the Widow said. “No one else is up at this hour, I’d say.”
“It must be another Seeker,” Aletheia whispered.
Eris saw no other option. “If he is alone, then we confront him.”
“What if he manaburns you?”
The mere suggestion caused Eris physical pain. Of all the maladies she had endured in life, the Lukon’s manaburn had been the worst. “Then we strike quickly, before he has a chance.”
“But if he does—you could die. You…” She trailed off. Hesitant to say what she was really thinking.
Eris understood. This concern was primarily motivated by the creature in her womb. Still, Aletheia did have a point. Even a lone Seeker was best to be avoided, for he could do immense damage to them.
“We can’t fight him,” Aletheia added.
“Are we to run forever?” Eris said.
“They’ll just send another one after us!”
She was right. Eris swore. “Then we are wasting time. We leave out the window and hope he does not follow. Come.”
They gathered their things as the bewildered Widow watched, then climbed out the room’s single open, glassless window, exiting on the far side of the small house. The forest stretched beyond—they were near the village’s edge. Aletheia hissed in pain as she was forced to move her wounded bicep as she made it to the other side, but then they were through. Eris glanced to make sure the way was clear. Then they sprinted quietly off toward the trees—
But their plan was no masterwork of stealth. The Seeker anticipated them and he came around the side of the house. He wore plain clothes and wore a large hat. His skin was richly suntanned where it was exposed. Eris sensed his Essence right away; she did not need to see his eyes to know he was a magician.
Aletheia tried to pick up the pace of her flight, but she stumbled on her bad leg and fell to the grass. Eris presented her staff and raised her Spellward gauntlet. They would not be able to flee now.
“Stand back,” she commanded. “You will come no closer.”
The man stopped his approach. Aletheia fumbled with herself on the ground. She tried to retrieve her bow, and eventually nocked an arrow, preparing to let it slip in his direction.
He cocked his head. Looked over his shoulder. Frowned beneath the shade of his hat’s brim. Then he took the hat off, and he said sincerely, “Is something wrong?”
Eris lowered her arms at once. She put her foot on Aletheia’s wrist, making her release the tension on the bow’s string. This was no Seeker. She knew this man. He had changed much—he was taller, older, more tanned, and even had the beginnings of facial hair about his face, but she recognized his voice at once, and the utter naivete that clung to every word.
“Robur,” she said.