Eris gave birth to a boy. With Robur’s help she labored for eighteen hours in her small, uncomfortable, dungeon of a room while she pushed a creature of gigantic proportions slowly, unbelievably slowly, from between her hips. It was a hellish twilight of blinding pain as brightness outside became dark became bright again; the progress was so slow that she thought she made no progress at all. But after so long on the road Eris had known many worse days. She hardly even screamed.
Then it was over. Darkness overcame her vision. She felt weak and exsanguinated. She was left dizzy in the bed with a sense of nothing but distant emptiness.
She had expected screaming. Crying. Wailing. A smell. But there was no sound and no smell but iron. She heard only the whispering of her companions’ voices.
At first she didn’t listen. She let the prickly straw of the bed consume her and felt her mind dissolve into darkness. But a splitting pain in her forehead pulled her back awake, and then she was forced to listen. Even whispers seemed like echoes:
“Is he okay?” said Aletheia.
“Yes,” said Robur, somewhat strained. “Help me—take him.”
“Oh—I’m sorry, I didn’t—he’s so heavy!”
“Yes, he is very large. I have never seen a newborn so big. He must be ten pounds at least—”
This was when there came a snort—and then a cry. Quiet at first, but there followed an awful wail like the slaughtering of a stable. It was the most horrific noise Eris had ever heard in her life. Even despite her exhaustion she shot upright, and she would have done something—she didn’t know what—had she not collapsed back into the bed at once, gasping, her head spinning.
“What do I do?” Aletheia said. “What do I do?”
“He will need to eat,” Robur’s voice could hardly penetrate the infant’s awful cries, “place him on Eris’ chest.”
The girl hesitated at this instruction, but apparently desperate to quell the noise she did as she was told.
That was how Eris found herself with a giant mass of flesh atop her. It nestled against her at once, reaching for her covered breasts, and she was compelled to embrace it. And then it quieted.
She blinked to feel its weight. To feel its warmth in the cold. She brought a blanket on the bed around its side and pulled it more tightly near her. Holding it as it heaved silently against the filling of her lungs. For some reason she could not stand to let it go.
Then she stared down at it. This was the thing inside her. The thing kicking, punching, flipping, making her run to urinate—this was it. Rook’s parasite. Nuzzling against her breasts. Cradled in her arms.
She ran a hand through its thin hair. Its hair was dark brown, almost black, like hers. But as her fingers brushed the back of its skull, its eyes opened, and it gazed at her.
Its eyes were flawless crystalline blue.
Instinct compelled her. She exposed herself, and with very little encouragement the infant in her arms latched itself against her breast. It drank like a starved man.
The sensation was disquieting. Like nothing else Eris had ever experienced. But the relief was welcome, and she stared down at the thing attached to her in awe. She knew, distantly, that she was not supposed to want it. That she was supposed to feed it only because she had to, because they had no wetnurse, because it could not eat raw meat on its own yet. But she did this for a different reason. She clutched this parasite to her now because she could not stand the thought of letting it go.
Until that moment Eris had lived a life without fear. She had been afraid, at times, that death might come for Rook. She had rarely been afraid for her own safety. She had never been afraid of anything else. She took life as it came. But then, holding that hideous, fat, enormous creature in her arms, she realized she was paralyzed by fright. Utterly possessed by it. She knew true fear—because she was terribly afraid for the fate of this baby. The thought that any harm might befall it shook her like the notion that something might destroy Rook’s sword.
No. It was even worse than that. A sword was just a thing, however valuable. But this was Rook’s only progeny. It was irreplaceable. It was her only child. Their only child. And seeing it made her very, very afraid.
She covered its head and looked up toward the ceiling. Her mind a tired, blood-starved mess of pain, frustration, and confused emotion. She knew Aletheia and Robur were staring at her but she did not care. She cradled the infant in her arms anyway and kept it close. And slowly, as an hour passed and then the child atop her curled up and fell asleep, she came to realize.
It was not a parasite. It was not a creature, or a goblin, or a beast, or an animal. It was a boy. It was he. He was her son. And he was Corvo.
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She did not let Corvo leave her side. She slept with him. She carried him wherever she went. She guarded him jealously, and at all hours she kept him against her breast like something everyone who saw her would be desperate to steal away.
She rebounded very quickly from childbirth. Robur used a healing spell on her and she drank a single potion and within a day she felt as she had before her pregnancy, with the exception of a small remaining bump. But that would fade in time. Her breasts remained swollen to absurd sizes—far too large, by her estimation, if such a thing were possible—but that was the price of maternity.
She delighted in feeding him. In holding him. When she put him down for a moment she was overcome with anxiety. When she heard him cry she was compelled to run and ensure he was alive, and when he was asleep she checked again and again and again that he had not stopped breathing.
And when he slept in her arms, she brought him against her head and embraced him. He was, to her, like a child’s favorite doll. But her love was sincere. She…
Did not understand what had happened to her. But she did know one thing. She was kept up at night in horror when she remembered her fury toward Rook, and when she remembered she almost killed him in her womb long before he was born. She had almost killed her own son. She had nearly robbed herself of him. She had wanted to do it, and it was only guilt for Rook’s death that stopped her.
She would never recover from that. The shame would never go away. In those moments, the only thing that could make her feel better was holding Corvo even closer.
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Aletheia watched her with Corvo at night. They said nothing as the girl stared. She smiled to see Eris clutch her newborn so tightly, and after many minutes she asked, “Can I hold him now?”
Eris glared at her. “No.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
Eris turned herself away, concealing Corvo away in her arms. “He is my son.”
“I just want to hold him. He’s so cute.”
“He is not cute. He is…” Eris regarded her child’s face. His eyes were open. He smiled up at her silently, with an absurd expression that compelled laughter—even from Eris. What was the word, if not ‘cute?’ “Mine. He is mine. And he will stay that way.”
“…I’m still going to raise him, right?”
Eris’ face went white. “Of course,” she said quietly. “But you cannot feed him. Only I can.”
Aletheia did not believe her. But she smiled anyway. “Okay.” She waved. “Bye, Corvo. Night-night.”
“Do not speak to him that childish way,” Eris said. “He deserves better.”
Aletheia frowned. “He’s two days old.”
“I will not talk to my child like he is an imbecile.”
“He doesn’t understand what we’re saying.”
“Yes he does.”
“Okay,” Aletheia sighed. “He does. Goodnight.”
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Eris cleaned him with purified water. She made sure he was well-fed. She checked for any injures. There was nothing wrong with him. But still he would not stop crying. Hour after hour after hour, a piercing scream that drove her mad. Never in her life had she heard such an awful song. It shook her to her very core. And no matter how many times she commanded him to, “Stop crying!” or, “Please, be silent!” he did not listen.
She was exhausted. She had been up for days. She just needed sleep. She just needed him to be silent. And he refused.
She found his soul with her Essence. He smelled just like Rook and her together, precisely the same and yet somehow his own person, too; that was also how he looked, only fat and ugly and tiny, when she spent hour after hour staring at him in her arms, doing nothing but watching him eat or sleep, basking in proximity.
But now she could not take it. The screams maddened her. She needed them to stop. She looked at him and did not know what to do. She felt tension in her muscles and anger in her heart. Why must he be so loud?
She had a solution.
When she found his soul, she sensed his consciousness. With each shrieking cry she saw the flickering of his tiny mind, and all she had to do was reach out and tug at a single thread…
She used Sleep. With just a gasp of mana the crying stopped, and she found the room engulfed by a sweet silence.
Eris closed her eyes. Finally peace. Her son snored against her. She let sank into the bed…
And she screamed in horror. She grabbed Corvo and pulled him against her—at first he remained asleep, but she reached out and severed the tie in her mind, ending the trance, and after a second the cries began again.
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She brought him to her breast and embraced him tightly. What had she been thinking? What was she doing? How could she ever consider using—torrents of guilt washed over her. Her heart raced. She hated herself. She smothered herself against Corvo’s head and begged for forgiveness, and it was only after another ten minutes he finally fell asleep on his own accord.
Eris was a bad woman. She was a monster. An adventurer. A killer. She was not fit to raise this innocent thing. It was too good for her and she did not deserve its affection. But she loved it. She loved it more deeply than she knew was possible. She loved it like she loved Rook, but a million times moreover, for this love was utter and uncompromising.
She could drive Robur away. She could ruin her friendship with Aletheia, or alienate the White Lions. But this infant would always be hers. They were truly bound together by a bond Eris did not, until then, know existed: they were family. He was her son. The only family she had ever had. A family she had created, accidentally, with the help of a man whom she had loathed for daring to suggest ‘family’ to her at all.
Eris did not have parents. She had no siblings. But now she had a child, and she would be his mother. She would never leave him. Her only fear was that she would be incapable of doing anything but traumatizing him, for she was Eris and she was not equipped for such a role. She truly believed he deserved better than her, as she had all throughout her pregnancy.
But now she no longer cared. Now she was too selfish. And selfishness demanded she looked after him forever. She could not stand to have it any other way.
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“His name was Korax,” she told him, “but we knew him as Rook. He was the most appallingly handsome man to have ever lived. He, like I, was born in Katharos, and those are your people as well as they were ours. You were conceived there, in a hotel where we spent the night—” She stopped herself. Should she spare some details? She did not know. She had never spoken to a child before. She sighed. “And he was everything a foolish hero should be in ancient stories. Virile and heroic and of high birth, and so are you. And he is gone. And ‘tis just us.”
If Corvo was listening, it was not very closely. Eris sighed again. She had a great deal to learn. Perhaps Aletheia had been right. But this child would be raised knowing of his father, and he would be well aware that he was the rightful duke in Korakos.
To say he brought her happiness these last few days was not quite right. Indeed he brought her endless anxiety and constant fear. Yet, clearly, something dormant within her awakened. Rook had made a mother of her after all. She did not understand it. She did not see how this could be her. She did not feel otherwise different—all her life she thought giving birth made a woman somehow less human, somehow beneath contempt, yet she seemed the same. She would still kill men in cold blood to get what she desired. She still possessed all her ambitions. She still yearned for power.
Yet now she was different, because never in the past could she have looked on something so ugly as Corvo and felt so much warmth.
Thus even Eris, the great magician, the thunderous sorceress, the powerful and dominant, was made servile to biology. Rook enserfed her from the grave. And worst of all, she jumped into slavery willingly. Giving the child away would be the easiest thing to do, yet it was the one thing she could not ever imagine doing now.
That night she dreamed of Rook. She dreamed he held his own son in his arms, and on his face was a look of utter happiness, for there Eris was beside him, and he had the family he always said he wanted. Why, she wondered, did he want it with her? Why not some other woman? Why Eris? Simply because she was beautiful? Did he not understand that she would be the worst mother in all history? Why did he do this to her—and then die, the idiot, leaving her alone—
When she woke up she felt hatred for him anew, but as she scooped Corvo back into her arms, hatred melted away into regret. The dream flickered through her memory. She saw clearly how she could have had them both. Then she truly would have had a family of her own, and Corvo would have had a father to count on, and maybe then he would have had a chance.
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She let Aletheia hold him. It was a nerve-torturing, heart-skewering exercise, handing him off like that. But he was asleep and it had been a week and Eris needed to go sleep, on her own. She had to take a break. She could not do this by herself any longer.
The moment she put him in the girl’s arms, he woke up and began to scream.
“What is it?” she asked. “What did I do? What’s wrong?”
“Try rocking him,” Robur, who had no actual experience with children themselves, suggested.
“Give him back to me,” Eris demanded. The noise of the cries once again sent her heart racing. “Give him to me!”
Aletheia turned slightly. “No. I have him. It’s okay, Corvo. Shh. It’s okay—”
The crying did not stop. “Give him to me!” Eris shouted.
Robur tried to step in the way, but Eris pushed him aside, looming over Aletheia with fury. The girl was confused and afraid and showed meekness in her eyes and relented, handing Corvo back to his mother—and the moment he was in her arms, he settled back to sleep.
Relief sizzled through her. Eris sighed. She clutched him tightly.
Aletheia laughed. Robur shifted on his feet.
“It seems he may have a maternal fixation,” he observed.
Eris glared at him. Aletheia said, “That’s good, right? That means Eris is doing a good job?”
Robur shrugged. Eris shook her head.
“We are returning to bed,” she muttered. “Wake me when they bring forth dinner.”
“It’s morning,” Aletheia said.
“Then wake me come night.”
“Okay. We’ll be here for you if you need help.”
Eris departed then. And while she rarely slept long with Corvo curled up against her on the bed, she did sleep soundly, and it was with a calm heart that she would never have if she left him with someone else.
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As the frost thawed and the new year came, the lions broke their camp. They wintered most years at these ruins, or others, but then they returned to their nomadic way of life. The time had come for them to move again.
And the time had come for the party to go its own way. Eris was well enough to travel. They could be idle no longer.
A trail of White Lions walked out through the broken-down gate of the outer walls. There, by a bank of melting snow, Eris and Aletheia and Rook and now Corvo faced down Minerva and Ursus, and they said their goodbyes.
“We will not soon forget what you have done for us,” Eris said. “Had it not been for your hospitality…” She looked to Corvo in her arms. “The winter may have been much harder.”
“The White Lions of Voreios make friends with all who seek it,” Minerva said, “and we will forever remember your names, and the name of your son, in our histories.”
“Now that winter is over—won’t they start hunting you again?” Aletheia asked.
“The people of Coedwig have always hunted us for our hides, and for fear of our intelligence. Nothing has changed. We will do well, as we always have. But we thank you for your concern.”
“It is strange to say,” Eris said, “that I feel more kinship with you than my own kind. But truly—thank you.”
The lioness nodded. Ursus departed, silently as ever, sulking toward the parade into the forest. Then Minerva said, “May I ask where you will travel to next?”
Eris smiled. “Our considerations have changed much over recent weeks. I wish to return to Esenia but ‘tis too dangerous now. We…intend to part companies, but I must remain with Corvo for some months yet. Thus I believe we intend to visit Skane, where the mother of my late partner was born and raised. We may find allies there.”
“That is far indeed,” Minerva said.
“Then we’re going to Ganrajya,” Aletheia said. “To find Pyraz.”
“That is much farther.”
“Farther to travel with my hands full especially,” Eris said. “But we will find our way.”
“I trust you will. And may the luck of Leaena by with you, Young Mother.”
“Go with the luck of Leaena,” Eris whispered back. Saying those words made her feel disgusting indeed, but she was certain the lioness heard.
Thus they were left just the four of them, together in the cold early springtime woods of Voreios. She wrapped Corvo more tightly in her furs and brought him closer to her chest. Eris’ arms tired already. Aletheia was carrying her things. This would prove an interesting next chapter.
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The fire illuminated their camp. Corvo slept in her lap while Eris ate on her bedroll. Without the concerns of the pride’s social customs they cooked an enormous meal, flavored with a few spices from Coedwig, with bread and vegetables and mutton and beef, and Eris ate like a lioness. Barely chewing. She was starved.
No one said anything. Until…
“I am curious,” Robur said.
She looked up at him. “What?” she whispered.
“Over the previous weeks you have made no inclination. Corvo. Do you intend to manasear him?”
The piece of bread in her hands fell down to the earth beside her. Her eyes widened as her expression went blank. “What.”
“Do you intend—”
Eris shook. Her voice came staccato; every word was its own sentence, shot out like a fireball. “What do you take me for?”
He shrugged. “You are very proud of your magic—”
She stood suddenly. Corvo awoke at the jolting movement and began to cry, but her voice easily overcame his. “Do you think I am a monster?”
“I—”
“Do you think I would subject my own son to that—torture?”
“Eris—” Aletheia started, but Eris turned to her.
“Be quiet!” Then back to Robur. “I may be—a terrible woman. I may be a bad mother. But do not lay so bare what you truly think of me. How dare you suggest that I would even consider doing this to him?”
There were tears in her eyes now. She looked at Corvo and pulled him in more closely. She shook her head, ready to yell, but was so incensed that she could say nothing more. She fled out into the forest. Away from the others. Into darkness, until she found a fallen log. There she sat. Embracing her son. Shivering to think that this was what Robur thought of her.
And there, once Corvo was back asleep, she cried. Not only because Robur had asked, but because she knew he was right to. She knew she was a monster. She did not deserve this child. It was horrible that she adored him so much, because the best thing for the both of them would be to give him away, before she was tempted to do something as hideous and insane as what Robur suggested.
But Eris shook her head. Perhaps, months ago, she would have indulged that idea. She had defended the Searing before Rook and Aletheia in Telmos. She did not regret the pain it brought her, as a price for her powers. She did not mind other children being killed en masse to make magicians.
But now she would die before anyone performed any such ritual on Corvo. He would never suffer that pain. Ever. And if anyone tried, she would inflict that pain tenfold on them first.
Aletheia found her perhaps twenty minutes later. She conjured a small light in her hand.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Eris shook her head. “Leave me. I am too tired for this.”
But Aletheia didn’t leave. She sat down on the log beside her. “I think you’ll be a good mother.” A long silence. “You don’t want to torture him, so you’re better than mine already. Right?”
Eris sighed. “I am not dead, so I suppose I am also already better than mine.”
“See?”
“Rook would be endlessly amused to see me now. He would find this infinitely gratifying, to watch me weak, confused, and carrying his infant like a pauper wife on our travels.”
“You could always let me carry him.”
She opened her eyes to glare. “No.”
After a few moments Aletheia scooted over. She came directly to Eris’ side and wrapped her arms around her, looking down at Corvo. Eris didn’t protest, although she wasn’t eager for the intimacy.
“You aren’t leaving him with me, are you?” Aletheia asked distantly. It wasn’t a question, but a re-iteration of what they had both come to know, no matter how hard Eris pretended otherwise.
Eris stared at him. “…I would that I could,” she said at length. “I wish that I did not—like him so much. He is useless, loud, irritating, pointless, burdensome, and yet I…”
“Love him?”
“Yes. I love him.” She closed her eyes again. Her future was totally opaque. She saw nothing before her now. She no longer knew her path. But it was very different from the one she set out on four years earlier, that was certain.
When she glanced next at Aletheia, she noticed the chain around the girl’s neck, and had an idea. She reached for it. “May I?”
Aletheia acquiesced at once, and soon Eris held the enchanted locket in her hands. She flipped it open.
Two futures before her.
Both showed a tall, slender, stunning woman. She was very old, perhaps thirty-five, but still beautiful. Perfect in proportions. Hair long and dark and straight. Eyes bright golden, within straight, serious, and dignified features. She held a staff in her hand.
Both showed a tall, broad, and handsome boy. He seemed very young to her somehow, no older than Aletheia, but well on his way to manhood. He stood at the woman’s side and was shorter than her, but not by much; he would be taller soon. He had bluest eyes she had seen since Rook, like the reflection on still lake waters on a calm day, and his hair was long and flowing and dark brown. He looked exactly like the woman beside her. And he looked exactly like Rook, too. He was both of them together, so precisely that she nearly cried to see it.
In his hands was a sword with a crow for a pommel.
Two paths. Two images of herself and her son. In the background they stood in different vistas—one, a jungle; another, a coastline, but Eris hardly noticed. What she did notice was the message, and the message was well received.
She snapped the mirror shut. And the mirror was right. It knew her soul before her soul knew itself. There no longer was any future for her without Corvo. Until he was old enough to leave her, sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen years hence, she would stay. That was her life now. And wherever it took her, she found herself happy that things had worked out the way they had.
She only wished Rook was there with her.
“No,” she said at last. “I am not leaving him.”