Part 2 — The Mother the Fire Chose

By sunset, I was no longer permitted to carry Celeste's lamps.

King Edmund restored my courtesy title and placed me under royal protection. More importantly, he transferred the charters of the Ten Marches into a sealed trust for the unborn heir.

I asked that the decree be read twice before the Privy Council.

The first version allowed the child's legal guardian to control the revenues. Cassian would have named Celeste guardian before the ink dried. I refused to kneel until the clerk replaced that clause with one requiring the consent of the king, the queen, and three members of the Council for any transfer made before the child's birth.

Several lords stared at me as if servants were not supposed to understand contracts.

My father had taught me that a prophecy might begin a war, but badly chosen words decided who won it.

Celeste stared at the ironbound chest containing the deeds.

"Those lands were promised to me."

"They were promised to the woman who secured the succession," Edmund said. "You destroyed the succession. Elara restored it."

"I refused to let this court own my body."

"That was your right. Forcing my son to destroy his fertility through a lie was not. Nor does your freedom entitle you to another woman's reward."

Her cheeks burned, but she said nothing more while the king remained.

Cassian waited until his father had left before approaching the throne dais.

"The child can remain," he said, as though granting mercy. "But it must be entered in the Book of Succession as Celeste's lawful issue. Elara is the daughter of a convicted traitor. She cannot be allowed to shape a future king."

The small warmth inside me flared.

"He drank poison, not stupidity," my child complained. "How did both stop working?"

A laugh nearly escaped me. I disguised it as a cough.

Celeste came to stand before me. Her fury had vanished beneath a gracious court smile.

"You have done Valedorn a service," she said. "After the birth, I will provide you with a comfortable house far from the capital. The child will know me as his mother."

"How generous."

"I knew you would understand."

She reached for my abdomen. I caught her wrist before she could touch me.

The court inhaled as one.

"If Your Highness wishes to claim the rights of motherhood," I said, "perhaps the Chapel can bind you to its burdens as well. Half the Crownfire. Half the sickness. Half the danger of birth."

Celeste jerked her hand away.

"The child is in your body. The suffering belongs to you."

Queen Lenora descended from the dais.

"The suffering belongs to Elara, but the lands, title, and child belong to you?"

Celeste's smile cracked.

"That is not what I meant."

"It is precisely what you meant."

Lenora ordered chambers prepared for me in the Queen's House and assigned twenty members of her household guard to the doors. For the first time in three years, Celeste had to ask permission before entering a room where I slept.

That protection did not save me from the fire.

It began after midnight.

Heat speared through my spine and spread beneath my ribs. My skin remained cool, but inside, every organ seemed wrapped in flame. I fell beside the bed, unable even to scream.

The guards summoned the physicians. They covered me in wet linen, forced bitter drops between my teeth, and argued in frightened whispers.

Nothing touched the pain.

"The Crownmarked child is feeding upon her strength," the chief physician told the queen. "At four weeks, the fire should be no more than warmth. If it grows at this rate, she may not survive the pregnancy."

Lenora knelt beside me, heedless of the water soaking her velvet gown.

"There must be a way to divide the burden."

"The old records say only the blood mother can carry Crownfire."

Celeste arrived while the physicians were changing the linens.

She dismissed everyone except me with the serene authority of a Crown Princess. The guards looked to Queen Lenora, but the queen had gone to confront the king, and protocol won.

Celeste shut the door.

"You made a memorable speech today," she said.

Another wave of fire bent me double.

She watched from the foot of the bed.

"I meant what I said on my wedding night. No crown is worth this. In my world, women learned that motherhood was a choice."

"Then choose no," I managed.

Her eyes narrowed.

"I did. But this world promised me the Regent's Seal, the Marches, and a place in history. I will not surrender them because you were willing to suffer."

"You cannot refuse the price and still own what it purchases."

"Of course I can. I am the heroine. You are the expendable woman who dies to move my story forward."

She leaned close enough that I smelled roses in her hair.

"When the fire kills you, Cassian will place the baby in my arms. The court will praise me for raising a motherless child, and every acre promised to you will become mine."

Fear moved through the bond in my blood.

The child had heard her.

I curled around my abdomen, shielding what no hand could yet reach.

"Do not listen," I whispered. "I chose you. I will not abandon you because loving you hurts."

"Who are you talking to?" Celeste demanded.

The fire surged until darkness crowded my vision.

Then something changed.

A pulse of warmth, gentle rather than violent, pressed outward from my womb. The agony loosened. Breath returned to my lungs.

"You shared your strength with me," the child said. His voice was smaller now, but steady. "I can share mine with you."

Golden light threaded beneath my skin.

Celeste stumbled back.

Outside, bells began ringing across the Queen's House.

I forced myself to the window. Servants and guards poured into the moonlit garden, dropping to their knees in the snow.

At its center stood the ancient dragonthorn planted by the first Ashbourne king. It had been dead for twenty years, its branches gray and hollow.

Now every branch blazed with golden flowers.

Queen Lenora entered behind Celeste and stared at the impossible tree.

The chief physician knelt, tears shining on his face.

"The child has returned Crownfire to his bearer," he said. "The bond is complete."

Celeste gripped the windowsill until her knuckles whitened.

"What does that mean?"

Lenora looked at me, not her.

"It means the Crownmarked Heir has chosen his mother."

Celeste turned from the window. For one unguarded second, hatred stripped every trace of courtly softness from her face.

"A tree cannot decide who raises a king."

"No," I said. "But it can tell the court which woman you will have to kill before you can pretend the child is yours."

The queen's guards shifted closer to me.

Celeste saw them and smiled again, but too late. Queen Lenora had seen the hatred. So had I.