“You are not going to prod me with those,” Annoura said, eyeing several of the torturous-looking devices.
“Unless your symptoms are any different from those of the twenty other ladies I’ve seen in the last two days, there will be no need, Your Majesty,” Lord Hewen replied. He placed a hand on the side of her neck to feel the temperature of her skin, then placed a metal cone shaped like a hollowed cow’s horn on her heart and put his ear to the small, pointed end.
“Why? What have they got? It’s not poison, is it?” Another thought occurred to her. “Or some new variation of the Great Plague?”
“Shh. No talking, please, until I’ve had a good listen.” He moved the horn to her belly and listened again.
Her lips pressed tight but her eyes flashed with irritation. She let him command her in this one instance because he had been her physician since Dori’s birth and was frankly better at healing than anyone except a Feyshei’dalin. But she didn’t like it.
The moment the horn lifted from her belly, she asked, “Well?”
“Your heartbeat is fine and strong.”
“I have always found it works best that way,” she snapped. “Now, answer my question. What’s wrong with the other ladies? What’s wrong with me?”
“Calm yourself, Your Majesty. The other ladies have neither been poisoned nor Plagued, I assure you. In fact, nothing’s wrong with them that a little rest, pampering, and time won’t cure. As I was saying, your heartbeat is fine and strong, as is the child’s.”
“The child’s…” Her voice trailed off. Her brows drew together, then flew upward. “You’re not suggesting…”
A shocked gasp from behind Lord Hewen made both Annoura and the physician turn. Jiarine stood there, clutching her belly, a look of horror on her face. “You mean she’s…” A shaking finger pointed at Annoura. “And they’re…” The arm attached to the finger swung in a tremulous arc to point its accusatory digit at the door behind them, then slowly dragged back around until her finger was pressed against her own well-endowed chest. “And I’m…?”
“Pregnant.” King Dorian leaned against the closed door of the private room located at the rear of the council chamber and regarded the royal physician, Lord Hewen, with dazed eyes. “But…the queen cannot be pregnant. You yourself claimed her past that age two years ago.”
“Yes…well…” Lord Hewen scratched his head. “I would say I must have been mistaken, except that the Lady of every noble House—at least, all the ones I’ve seen here in the city—appears to be in the same condition…including grandmothers much advanced into their elder years.” The physician held out his palms in a bewildered gesture. “It’s the oddest case I’ve ever seen, Sire. Inexplicable, really. As if the gods themselves decided to waive the laws of mortal reproduction so that the head of every noble House in Celieria could have a child.”
Dorian groped for the back of the chair behind him to steady his wobbling legs. “How far along is she—are they?”
“Well, that’s rather odd, as well, Sire. I can’t really be completely certain, of course, with ladies who have passed beyond their…er…female times…but as far as I can ascertain, they are all about as far along as the younger ladies who discovered their own good news last month.”
“I see.” Last month, every noble lady of childbearing years who had attended a certain infamous dinner at the royal palace had been discovered pregnant. Glowingly so, in fact. Though considering the seven bells of weave-driven mating that had followed that dinner, the resulting pregnancies had come as no surprise.
These, however, did.
“Thank you, Lord Hewen.” Dorian managed to speak with some semblance of normalcy. “I appreciate your taking the time to deliver these welcome tidings in person.”
“It is my greatest pleasure, Sire.” The doctor bowed. “This is nothing short of a miracle, Sire. A miracle straight from the hands of the gods.”
“Straight from the hands of someone, that’s certain,” Dorian muttered beneath his breath.
The physician frowned. “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty?”
“Nothing, Lord Hewen. Would you please instruct Davris to tell the queen I will see her soon? Thank you.” Not waiting for the physician to depart, Dorian slipped back into the adjoining room where Rain Tairen Soul was just informing the gathered lords about the Mage’s Army of Darkness and the planned targets of their main attacks.
“The army that reshaped the world?” one of the lords repeated in a disbelieving tone. “But Celieria’s greatest historians and military experts have long dismissed those accounts as myth.”
“Then Celieria’s greatest historians and military experts were wrong,” Rain replied bluntly. “Too many ancient Fey scrolls speak of the Hand of Shadow who created the Army of Darkness and nearly destroyed the world. Many of the details have been lost over the millennia, but we know his defeat ushered in the First Age. Apparently, this new High Mage intends to bring those ancient legends back to life.”
“The Army of Darkness was said to be hundreds of thousands strong.”
“Millions.”
Lord Barrial’s expression went grim and hard as stone. “Even if we put a sword in the hand of every Celierian from boy to elder, the entire kingdom doesn’t hold enough men to face such numbers.”
“No one kingdom does, nor ever has,” Rain agreed. “Not even the Fading Lands. Which means we need allies—including as many of the magical races as we can convince to join us. That is why the Feyreisa and I will be traveling to Danael and Elvia once we’re done here. Hawksheart rebuffed our last request for aid, but we’ll do everything in our power to change his mind.”
Dorian stepped farther into the room and cleared his throat. “I dispatched ambassadors to the mortal kings weeks ago. They are already in negotiations with twelve potential allies.”
“Time is of the essence,” Rain said. “According to the information we obtained, the Eld strike Celieria on the first day of Seledos—by land at Kreppes and by sea here in Celieria City.”
