Queen of Summer's Ice (Book 2)

Chapter 38

     A few nights later Ray and I laid in bed with just the blankets to cover our skin. His right hand that caressed me from my chest down to my stomach was lulling me to sleep. I could feel the weight in my body sink into the mattress and my thoughts about the upcoming war finally stopping for the night. For the past two nights I let my mind keep me awake, but not this time, Ray made sure of it.  

     His rough yet warm hands kept tracing outlines of shapes around my stomach until he laid his palm flat on my belly. And that's when I felt him stiffen a bit, which made me wonder why, but not to much to wake me up.

     He ended up bringing both of his hands to my stomach as he sat up, causing my chest to be exposed to the empty room. 

     "Evie, Evie wake up," my husband said urgently. But I felt around the room, even out to winter and there was no reason as to why his tone should be worried. We were safe.

     "Mm," I grunted my response.

     "My love, wake up."

     "Why? No, sleep."

      Ray grew impatient apparently and brought his left hand to the back of my neck. "My love, my gorgeous wife... when was the last time you bled?"

     That question and his right hand still warm and pressed against my belly shot me right up. So much so that our heads almost clanked together like the day we first met on that summer beach. 

     "I... I don't remember. It had to be, umm." I played back my memories and calculated events in my head and finally remembered. "The last time I bled was before I left to summer."

     We looked at each other, silently speaking with too many and no enough words. "You don't think..."

     But Ray didn't have to think it, or even say it. I had been so busy and distracted with everything that I hadn't even paid attention to what was happening to my own body. With a shaking hand I finally held Rays under the covers to feel what he felt. It was there, subtle little bump that could be mistaken by the typical eye, but it was there. 

     "We're pregnant," my husband said with a gentle smile on his face. His warm brown eyes threatened to tear up but I knew he didn't care, I knew he was over the moon ecstatic with the expansion of our family. 

     But I couldn't put a smile on my face like him. I couldn't feel what he was feeling in his happy heart, because what I was feeling in mine- was fear. I was going to go into a war...pregnant. How could I have been this careless? 

                                *********

     I was out by the river early in the morning, when Ray mumbled where I was going I told him to just go back to sleep, and feeling at peace, he did. Peace and safety were no where in my mind, instead that was being filled with anxiety and dread. I had lots of thinking to do, that's why I went to the river. It's gentle flow was steadier than my heart. Thinking about how careless Ray and I had been won't solve the issue of my pregnancy. And not that I regret my own child, I just feel as if it wouldn't be safe for me, or the newborn in this time. But there was no going back. 

     There was the option of taking a tonic since it was still early, but I would never do that. I wasn't my mother who took those to casually after I was born. She said it was because she wanted to give me her whole attention, but really I knew the truth once I grew up.

     So I sat by the river on a smooth cool rock in my loose pants that were rolled up to the knees so I could dip my toes in the clear waters. Back and forth my legs moved creating ripples that spread and soon became one with the river. And that's what all of my choices were as the Queen of Winter, and Princess of Summer. My choices effected everyone. Not just my family, my friends, a season or two. My choices will either bring all the seasons together once and for all, or the seasons will fall.