“I’m fine. A bit tired, that’s all.” She set her hands to the small of her back and pressed on her spine. Her back ached abominably, as it had all day. The pull of the weight in her belly could no longer be eased, not by sitting or standing. Yesterday at the negotiation table with the Tattooed diggers had been a day of torment. She’d come back to their rented room hoping to sleep.

A wasted hope. Reclining was the most uncomfortable position of all. She’d let Reyn have the bed and slept propped up with cushions. Now she gave a small grunt of pain as she pressed on her back, and a frown of concern rippled Reyn’s brow. She pushed a smile onto her face and looked up at him in her mirror. “I’m fine,” she repeated and then took a moment to gaze at her husband. His changes were as marked as her own. His eyes gleamed a warm copper. His skin beneath the bronze highlights of his scaling was blue, as blue as the dragon Tintaglia. He smiled at her with sapphire lips. His dark curling hair had taken on steel-blue glints. Her husband. The man who had risked so much to find and claim her. “You are so beautiful,” she said, the compliment escaping her lips easily.

Reyn’s deep eyes danced. “What prompts such wild flattery?” He cocked his head at her, his expression becoming mischievous. “Now what trinket does my lady desire? A necklace of sapphires? Or is it yet another food craving? Do you desire a platter of steamed hummingbird tongues?”

“Ew!” Malta turned, laughing, to put an arm around her husband’s narrow hips and drew him close to her. Reyn bent to kiss lightly her scarlet crown. She shivered at the touch and tilted her head to look up at him. “Can’t I simply say something nice to you without you reminding me of what a spoiled child I was when we first met?”

“Of course not. I’ll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.”

“You!” she rebuked him fondly and turned back to her mirror. She set a hand on the marked swell of her belly. “And now that you’ve made me fat as a pig with your baby, I suppose I’m not as ‘gloriously beautiful’ to you.”

“And now she fishes for compliments! And comes up with a net full. My darling, it only makes you the more lovely to me. You glow, you gleam, you scintillate with your pregnancy.”

She could not control the smile that wreathed her face. “Oh, and you accuse me of flattery! Here I waddle about like a fat old duck and you try to tell me I’m lovely.”

“I am not the only one who says so. My mother, my sisters, even my cousins stare at you!”

“That’s the envy that every Rain Wild woman has for a pregnant woman. It doesn’t mean they think I’m beautiful.” She put her hands on the vanity table and pushed herself to her feet. As always, the sight of her belly in a mirror startled her. She set her narrow, long-fingered hands on the bulge and stared. Becoming an Elderling had elongated so many of her body parts; her hands, her fingers, the long bones of her arms and legs—now this round bump in the middle of her frame seemed startling. “I look as if I swallowed a melon,” she said to herself.

Reyn looked over her shoulder into the mirror. “No. You look as if you carry our child within you.” He slid his hands down to just beneath the curve of their child and cradled it. The nails of his hands were a midnight blue, contrasting sharply with the soft white tunic she wore. He kissed the side of her face. “There are times when I still cannot believe in my good fortune. All we went through, all the times we nearly lost each other, and now, soon, we will have—”

“Hush!” she cautioned him. “Don’t speak it aloud. Not yet. We have been disappointed too many times.”

“But this time, I’m sure, all will be well. Never before have you managed to carry a child this long. You’ve felt him move, I’ve seen him move! He’s alive. And soon he will be where we can see him.”

“And if ‘he’ is a girl?”

“I promise you, I will be just as content.”

They felt the branch that supported the small house give to someone’s tread. There came a tap at the door. They moved apart reluctantly, Malta resuming her seat before her mirror and Reyn moving swiftly to the door. “Yes?”

“Please, sir, I’ve news!” a breathless and boyish voice responded.

“News of what?” Reyn opened the door wider. The lad on the doorstep was no runner. His clothes were ragged and he was thin. He looked up at Reyn hopefully. Tattoos marred both his cheeks.