"But stopping now..." She trails off, and I feel through our bond the protective instinct that would make her choose death over abortion. The fierce maternal love that's kept her fighting when logic says she should have surrendered months ago.
"Would stabilize your condition," I finish. "But we both know you'd rather die than sacrifice the baby."
"Wouldn't you?" she asks, turning in my arms to face me. "If saving me meant losing our child?"
It's the impossible choice that haunts my every waking moment. The woman I love or the child she carries—both precious beyond measure, both requiring her survival to exist. I study her face in the early morning light, cataloging changes that speak of time running out: the ethereal glow that's too bright, the way her skin has become translucent enough to show veins of power beneath.
"I would choose you," I say finally. "Every time, I would choose you. But that choice isn't mine to make."
Her smile is radiant and heartbreaking. "Good answer."
We spend the morning in comfortable domesticity—Maya continuing her botanical research while I handle court business that feels increasingly meaningless. What does trade policy matter when my mate might not live to see autumn? How can I focus on territorial disputes when every day with her is borrowed time?
But Maya insists on normalcy, on acting as if our future stretches beyond the next few months. She's thrown herself into learning court politics with the same scientific rigor she once applied to plant fertility, determined to be the queen my people deserve for whatever time remains.
"The agricultural reports from the outer settlements show unprecedented yields," she informs me over lunch, her appetite barely a shadow of what it should be for someone carrying a Fae child. "Fertility magic from our bond is radiating further than expected."
"Twenty miles in every direction," I confirm. "Crops that should take a season to mature are ready for harvest in weeks. It's the most dramatic improvement our lands have seen since the Sundering."
"But it's burning through my reserves faster than anticipated." She speaks with the detached tone she uses when discussing her own mortality, as if we're analyzing someone else's tragic case study. "The power has to come from somewhere."
I watch her push food around her plate without eating, her enhanced metabolism demanding fuel she can't stomach. Every meal is a negotiation between her body's needs and its increasing inability to process normal sustenance.
"There are options," I say carefully. "Temporary measures that could slow the drain."
Her dark eyes meet mine with sharp intelligence. "Tell me."
"Reduction rituals. We could dial back the enhancement, limit your divine abilities to preserve your human biology." The words taste like surrender. "You'd still be enhanced beyond normal omega levels, but not goddess-tier power."
"And the cost?"
"Our court's agricultural revolution ends. The widespread fertility improvements disappear. We return to slow decline while you live long enough to raise our child."
Maya considers this with the same analytical approach she brings to everything, weighing variables like a scientist rather than a woman facing her own death. It's one of the things I love most about her—the refusal to let emotion override logic, even when the logic is devastating.
"How long would that buy us?"
"Decades, perhaps. Long enough for a normal life, a full marriage, watching our child grow to adulthood."
"And the seven women who died—could reduction have saved them?"
The question cuts to the heart of my guilt. "Yes. If we'd known reduction was possible, if we'd been willing to accept partial success over absolute power... they might have lived."
She's quiet for a long time, her hand resting on her swollen belly where our child kicks with increasing vigor. Through our bond, I feel her wrestling with concepts of sacrifice and responsibility, weighing personal survival against the greater good.
"What would you choose?" she asks finally.
"I told you—I'd choose you every time."
"That's not what I mean." Her voice grows firm with the authority she's developed over these months of learning to be my queen. "As king of this court, responsible for thousands of lives that depend on the fertility magic we're providing—what would you choose?"
The question I've been dreading, phrased with typical Maya directness. She wants me to think like a ruler rather than a desperate mate, to weigh her life against the prosperity our bond provides to countless others.
"The reduction," I admit, though the words feel like betrayal. "I'd choose your survival over magical power, your presence over agricultural miracles. Let the court decline slowly rather than lose you quickly."
Her smile is proud and sad. "And if I disagree? If I think the greater good matters more than one woman's life?"
"Then we'll argue about it." I reach across the table to take her hand, marveling at how delicate she feels despite the power humming beneath her skin. "We'll fight and debate and find compromise the way partners do. No more unilateral decisions, no more manipulation disguised as protection."
