She left her things in her own room. Then she visited Aletheia, holding Rook’s sword and carrying Aletheia’s bow.

The girl stirred as she entered. Her eyes widened with excitement. “You’re back!” she whispered. “Are you—what happened?”

Eris was wrapped in linens around her waist where she had been stabbed by the small knife. Now, still poorly clothed, her stomach was exposed again, and Aletheia could see the blood-soaked bandages. But she responded simply, “I am fine.”

She flinched as she took a seat at the base of Aletheia’s bed. The girl stirred upright, but she flinched, too, gasping in pain and sobbing quietly as her shirt rubbed against her burned chest. But she righted herself anyway.

“Did you find everything?” she asked with a strained voice.

Eris presented the bow. The girl squealed in delight. She grabbed it and held it like a toy animal. “It was—not easy to retrieve. But I did find it.”

Aletheia reached out to hug Eris around the neck. “Thank you,” she was crying again, “thank you, I just—thank you.”

“Do not get too far ahead of yourself,” Eris cautioned. She sighed. “Lukon’s sword. Astera’s sword. That I did not find.”

The hug loosened. Aletheia snorted. “Oh.”

“Nor the sword of this other Seeker, this woman. I am sorry.”

Aletheia said nothing. She retreated back onto her bed. But she whispered, “It’s okay.”

“No,” Eris said, “it is not. But it will be, because…I have decided ‘tis time.” She lifted Rook’s sword up in its scabbard and handed it to Aletheia. The weapon was heavy and the girl confused; she let it fall into the bed’s covered straw, staring at it like something alien at her ankles.

“What?” she said.

“You are the fencer, not I. And you were his student. Rook would want you to have it.”

“But you said—it was for your son.”

“You are the one who will look after him. So the sword is yours.” The words hurt hideously to speak aloud, but they were sincere.

Silence. Then Aletheia cried, and once again she wrapped herself around Eris’ neck. This time she said it only once, very simply, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Eris said. “And there is one more thing.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out the Seeker’s suit of mail. “I did not find her sword, but I did find her armor. It is enchanted. Very light. Very strong. And immune to magic. And, perhaps best above all, cut for a slender woman, and not a man. I thought you might want this as well.”

Aletheia watched as it unfurled, clinking to the floor. She stared at it. Then shook her head. “You should keep it.”

“I am too fat to wear it.”

“For after. When you’re—normal again. You need armor.”

“I am not certain this armor will fit me even then,” she said. It was the one downside of her body type—she was too feminine to wear men’s clothes, but much too large for anything cut for other women. “But it will fit you.”

Quiet descended as the girl snorted and wiped away her last tears. “We don’t have to decide now. We can wait.”

Eris sighed. “Very well. We can wait.” She stood then, wobbling on her feet as blood rushed through her vision. Her ankles were so swollen and achy that she might have toppled over without the disorientation, but Aletheia jumped up to help steady her. She caught Eris in her arms—then collapsed backed down into the bed with a pained yelp.

The girl groaned, but more in frustration this time than discomfort. “I’m sick of being stuck here.”

“At least you have both arms,” Eris said. It was a sarcastic remark, but of course Aletheia took it literally. She was more upset over Robur’s dismemberment than he was. So she nodded. “You should rest. I will—fetch Juno and ask how long she expects you to require treatment yet. For now, goodnight.”

She made it to the door before Aletheia called out, “Wait!” Eris stopped but did not turn. The girl continued, “…where did you find it?”

“Our things?”

“Yes. How did you get them back?”

Eris tapped her fingers on the door’s dusty frame. “You do not wish to know.”

“Please tell me.”

“Aletheia. You do not wish to know. Trust me when I say this, and do not ask again.”

The girl deflated, but after a moment she said, “Okay. Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“Where is Juno?” Eris asked Minerva. She found her with three of the cubs in the snow; they practiced hunting together.

Minerva picked up a fallen cub by the scruff of the neck and righted him. “Go,” she whispered, and he ran off into a bank to play. Then she turned to Eris. “She departed last night.”

“Departed.”

“Yes.”

“I was not finished with her.”

“She was finished with us. She will return, someday. She has visited us before and will again.”

Eris bit her lip. “Did she say where she went? Or why she left now? What of my companions? They are not well.”

“Our sciuri will tend to their wounds. Julia knows much medicine and will carry it out as readily as you would with your own hands.”

This news was not welcome. Eris had need of Juno, or Hebat, or whatever her true name was; she was incensed that this enigmatic woman could vanish so readily. But she exhaled her frustration like excess mana in her veins, letting it escape from her lungs, and slowed her heart.

“Then we remain welcome?” she asked.

“Of course,” Minerva said. “Ere she left, she told me what you did for us. It was of great risk to yourself and your child, yet you repaid our kindness ten-fold.”

Eris froze. She knew better than to act in confusion, for she might give away that she was a serpent of a woman who rarely did anything except in selfishness. She made a guess. “You mean my—adventure in Coedwig?”

“Our hunters beheld the fire from afar. The destruction of their keep caused immense confusion, and allowed Ursus and his hunters to slay many of their men shortly after you departed.”

“You—killed the townspeople? I thought you did not—”

“We do not eat them,” Minerva said. “But we do to them what they would do to us. But you knew this, did you not?”

Eris gave a long look. It was a dazed look that would have betrayed her thoughts to any human. Luckily these lions were as poor at reading her expressions as she was at reading theirs. “I had not meant for you to know,” she managed. “Juno told you this, then?”

“Yes,” Minerva said. “Of course. Your humility does you disservice, Young Mother. Even with the sciuri our people are incapable of wielding fire in battle. You have dealt a crippling blow to our ancient adversaries.”

Well. If that was how things were to be, then so be it. “As was my intention. It seemed the least I could do, to repay your hospitality.” They walked together toward the keep, up the stairs. “Your people are capable warriors.”

“Yet we shall never have magic, as you do.”

Eris was not so convinced that was true. A lion could be manaseared. Why not? So long as he had the intelligence to wield magic…but she didn’t argue. “Then we have something to offer to each other after all. There may be more I can assist you with, before I am forced to depart.”

“Despite what we call ourselves,” Minerva said, “we are not so proud to deny any assistance you are to offer.”

Eris smiled. So she settled in to life among the lions.

Robur was walking by the end of the next week. It turned out there was a great deal two magicians could do to make life for any tribe, or pride, easier; they melted snow and purified water for drinking, provided fires by which the lions could sleep at night, and by her third week in Minerva’s company, Eris successfully persuaded the elders to allow small portions of food to be cooked.

Apparently lions did not chew their meals, but even they greatly appreciated the improved texture. For her part, Eris was glad to eat anything that was not rare and half-frozen.

Most of her days were spent with Minerva. This was what was socially acceptable, for a woman carrying a child in their pride. But it was also what she found most interesting. The elderly lioness told the stories of her people. Stories of ancient wars with savage barbarians, of a time where Leaena walked the Earth, and by the end of her first month in the company of the White Lions, Eris had not only learned much of their mythology, but she had also come to speak their language passably well.

All the while she did not stop growing. Every day she felt as though she would die if the creature in her womb swelled her body outward another inch, but every day she found herself more and more impossibly enormous. By her estimation she was in her eighth month. She looked less a woman now and more an inflated ball. The discomfort mounted into immensity, even as she moved less and less; even walking became a challenge. Every part of her body ached. She leaked from the most distressing places, but that, she expected, would only get worse.

She wanted this child out. She was ready for him to be removed. She was done with pregnancy.

Yet all the same, with each passing day she felt closer to the living thing within her. She felt—increasingly warm toward him, even as he made her life miserable. That was not right, was it? Why didn’t she hate him? Why didn’t she hate Rook for impregnating her with such a gigantic parasite?

But her most cynical thoughts came only rarely now. Now she accepted what little contentedness she could find. Fighting it was too hard, and not worth the effort. Whatever happened over the coming months she would always regard this time fondly, for it was something unique, and something special. It was only through knowing it would not last much longer that she learned to savor those last two months in the Voreios cold.

And while she wanted the child out for comfort’s sake, that shard of Rook within her—that final piece of him—that trace of his soul that could never leave her, that she hadn’t been without since his death—she never wanted that to be gone. She dreaded the day she felt its absence. That, secretly, made her wish time would stop and her pregnancy might never end.

She and Robur did not speak for quite some time. She was still awash with guilt, and Aletheia was easier to befriend anew. It wasn’t for nearly a month, when he was completely well, that she dared approach him. Perhaps she had been waiting for him to approach her first. Well, he won, for she gave in first.

He checked a cub’s teeth and spoke with its mother. “The broken canine is infected,” he said. “I will be able to extract the rot with a spell. One moment.”

He hesitated for a long while as he failed to perform a rehearsed motion with only one arm. His left sleeve was tied off at the shoulder. But after a moment he sprang back to action; he inserted a tool into the lion cub’s mouth, and Eris felt a small shuddering of mana pass through his hand, into the tool, then into the cub’s tooth.

The cub yelped in pain and closed his jaw. Robur pulled his fingers back just in time to prevent them all from being snapped off, but the lioness at the cub’s side grabbed her son by the neck, pinning him first with her jaw and then her paw. She looked to Robur expectantly.

He smiled. “It should be better now. Give it several days. If the pain has not stopped, return to me.”

“Thank you, Master Robur,” the lioness said. With that she stood, and she carried her cub off in her mouth.

“You are making yourself useful, I see,” Eris said.

“Yes—well—there are sick people everywhere.” He stood up and faced her. “Do you need something?”

“Must I? Need something? To come speak with you?”

He frowned. “Well—yes. Usually.”

She sighed. Her normal nervous gesture was to either fold her arms or twiddle her thumbs, but both were impossible now with her size, so she was practically forced to rest her arms on her stomach. She stared at his empty sleeve. She didn’t know how to ask what was on her mind. “How—do you fare?”

Robur looked down at his empty sleeve, too. “It remains very painful. But I have become used to it, overall. I do not regret its loss.”

“Truly?” Eris’s face scrunched into a shape reminiscent of a lion cub.

“Such is the price of joining battle. I kept you safe. That is what is important.”

Eris was inclined to agree, in the abstract, but she felt guilty regardless. “Yes. Then. Thank you, again. I know…we may not be friends any longer, but…” She shook her head. Then she did the unthinkable. She stepped toward him, opened her arms, and tried to initiate a hug.

He recoiled at first, but reciprocated after several seconds, giving in to her loose embrace. When she felt only one arm on her back her guilt was not alleviated but amplified; she nearly started to cry against him, but she managed to hold her tears back, and, sniffling, she withdrew herself. Head hanging.

“You know me already. You know what I am like. Please do not hold it against me,” she whispered. “Or my son.”

He said nothing, but he nodded. And then he left. Just like that. Abandoning her. She was left alone. She retreated to bed feeling strangely morose, and the moment she sat down in bed, the discomfort started. A tightening in her stomach. Tension in her belly. She touched her gut and it was not soft, as usual, but hard as stone: the tension built and built for several seconds, overcoming her, until she gasped in pain—but then it faded.

She was left with only the sensation of relaxing muscles then.

She was terrified. She knew what this meant. She was certain. How could it be anything else? This was, surely, the beginning of labor? Coming early? When she stood up, another wave overcame her—again her whole belly tightened into a knot.

She gasped. Then she waddled through the keep, calling after Robur once more.

She found him in his room. Sitting on his bed. Staring at the wall. He heard her. “What is it?” he said, concerned.

“The child!” she gasped. “I am—‘tis here! I am giving birth!”

The pain was mostly gone by then, but she was working herself into hysteria. Robur frowned, looking unconcerned, and took her by the hand to his bed. He laid her on her back and rolled up her furs and felt her stomach—still firm.

She closed her eyes. Refusing to watch. She could feel the child within her constantly—it was enormous. The size of a goblin. How could she survive it tearing its way out of her? She would die, no matter how wide her hips were. This was—

“Do you feel anything?” he asked.

She looked at him. “What?”

“Are you in pain?”

She looked up at the ceiling. Then to him. Then to her belly, which again relaxed. “No.”

“I believe you are having false contractions. They are very common leading up to childbirth.”

“‘Leading up to?’ By how many hours?”

“Weeks, or months for some women. They will become more common as your due date approaches.”

Eris groaned. For a moment she had thought it might all end today. But she was also relieved to put that horrible day off, and she relaxed in an instant. “I see,” she said.

“If they become more frequent, you might try taking a warm bath,” he suggested.

“We are living among lions,” Eris said. “I have not bathed in months. How do you suggest I ‘take a warm bath?’”

He shrugged. “Return to me if you have any further symptoms. But I would like to go to sleep now.”

Eris felt bad suddenly for disturbing him, and she departed at once. Birth became an ever-approaching reality. A distant object on the horizon which sharpened with each passing day. She wandered the premises that night, freezing, when more ‘false contractions’ assailed her. They were uncomfortable, alarming, but not exactly painful—in the way that being stabbed was painful, at least. She did not appreciate them anyway.

Then she retired to bed. But however much birth terrified her, she still slept soundly knowing she had longer with her son yet.

Within a week she was having false contractions every day, and regularly. She grew as used to them as she did the movement of the child, but somehow they were made no less disquieting for regularity.

A particularly painful bout came while she sat with Minerva practicing the language of the White Lions. She fell to her back, gasping.

“Is something wrong?” Minerva asked.

“It is the child!” Eris said. “He—is making preparations, with little regard for my comfort.” She pressed her palms to her eyes and waited for it to pass. Growling softly. Then relaxation came. “I refuse to believe there are women who do this willingly,” she said as she lifted herself back up again.

Minerva rested on her side, as usual. She stared at Eris. “Why do you refer to him as ‘the child?’”

“He is a child, is he not?”

“Do you not know his name?”

Eris sighed. “His name is after his father. But ‘tis too confusing to call him that, especially when he is not yet even here.”

“And what is his father’s name?”

“Korax—‘crow’ in the language of my people. But we knew him as Rook. Korax hardly feels like the name of an infant, but I do not wish to call him Rook. It is—too familiar. ‘Tis the name of his father, not him.”

Aether, Eris now sounded just like one of Diana’s dreadful friends. She contemplated suicide as she realized this. Life would not be worth living as a domestic.

A moment. Then Minerva said, “Corvus.”

“What?” Eris glanced to her.

“In the language of Leaena. That is the word for crow.”

“Corvus.”

“He is a child, and it is a nickname; you could call him Corvo.”

Eris considered this. Corvo. The word was clearly related to ‘Korax,’ yet it had a softer edge. It was unique, for few in Esenia spoke this language. She did like the sound. It carried all the appropriate symbolic meaning. And above all…

She pursed her lips. “Your people have—done much for me. And for my son,” she said. “We would not be alive were it not for your generosity. And I hope once we depart you will consider me a friend to your pride, for I will consider your pride my friends for the rest of my life.”

Minerva stared at her as she spoke. Not saying anything.

Eris sighed. She concluded, “What I mean to say is…I would be honored to call my son…by a word of your people. So we might never forget what you have done for us.”

“Then it is settled,” Minerva said. “Corvo.”

“Corvo,” Eris repeated. “So it is settled.”

Aletheia was up and walking again. She covered her body and arms to hide her new scars. She would never dress provocatively, as Eris did, without horrifying men—but she would survive. She found Eris’ size to be infinitely delightful and demanded to spend as much time wrapped about her belly as possible, which Eris acquiesced to out of exhaustion.

The two spent the next month together. Aletheia took one trip to Coedwig to buy some much-needed clothing for the both of them, and supplies that would be needed for—Corvo—and the two spent the rest of their time idle.

“Teach me the rest of your spells,” Aletheia said early on.

For some reason Eris remained apprehensive. “We have traded spells already, have we not?”

“I want to know Disintegrate. And Polymorph. And Blink. It doesn’t make sense to keep them from me. How will I keep Corvo save without them?”

It was very strange to hear another use that name, as though it was his name. Eris wasn’t sure it was the right name yet. She needed time to change her mind. But, of course, she wouldn’t, and it was, she just was indecisive.

“You are hardly fifteen,” Eris said. “You are capable, but you risk learning too much, too quickly. I did not know half so many spells as you do already when I was your age.”

“I can handle them,” she said.

Eris sighed. She was mostly being capricious, but there was a reason why magic was taught to students slowly. The risk of miscasting was immense. But after some time more spent badgering, she agreed. Thus she and Aletheia spent the rest of their spare time on that cold winter in the ruins of the castle, surrounded by strange white lions, practicing magic day after day after day.

All her life Eris was led to believe a pregnancy lasted nine months. From conception to birth, nine months. Three trimesters. Nine months. Nothing more.

She counted back to the earliest date she could have conceived. Every day she counted again, and every day she came up with the same number.

Ten months. Ten months had passed since that night with Rook in the hotel in Katharos. She was ten months pregnant. Her twentieth birthday had just passed. Winter was almost over. Spring had nearly come. And she was still pregnant.

Ten months.

By then she had been so enormous for so long that she was no longer afraid or excited or eager to be done. She no longer expected to give birth to some dreadful, screaming creature. The word ‘birth’ meant nothing at all. She was resigned to the apparent reality that this child would never leave her. She would carry it for the rest of her life. She would always be pregnant, forever, until it was so huge it killed her, and then she would be free.

She stopped worrying about her size. She stopped worrying about discomfort. She was used to all of that, and the false contractions, and more. She went about her business within the pride without any regard whatsoever for the child. It no longer concerned her. Nor was she happy to know Rook’s soul would now never leave her, for now it seemed simply another part of her—another appendage, inseparable, as much Eris as her own arm.

So she hardly reacted when she felt it start. A dull ache in her back that swept down through her stomach, followed by a tightening in her belly that did not go away. The pain grew worse and worse and worse, coming lower, down to her hips and public bone, and then it became unbearable.

And when it didn’t pass, when she was forced to swallow her fist to silence her own groans of pain, she realized. Ten months, a seeming lifetime, and now the day had come. This leg of her journey was at its end. The ultimate pain Rook was to inflict on her. The last moment she would spend with her son. The final chapter of what she could possibly describe as her youthful years, for hereafter she would be a mother, truly a woman, and never a girl again.

Labor was beginning.