My eyes filled, but I blinked and wiped them away. I didn’t want to cry anymore tonight. I just sighed into Skalla’s embrace, and let him hold me in the room’s quiet.

“Oh. Speaking of your past,” I said after a moment, suddenly remembering, “I learned your father’s name. He was called Faerwyrth.”

Skalla’s chest muscles leapt with the tension of shocked recognition.

“Faerwyrth,” he said slowly. “Faerwyrth... Yes. Yes. That was him.” He stroked a tender knuckle across my cheekbone. “Thank you, Suvi.”

“You’re welcome.” I was glad I’d remembered to tell him. But then I felt uneasy. Like there was supposed to be something else...

A sudden churn of queasiness reminded me exactly what it was.

My heart buzzed with nervous energy as I thought about telling him. I wondered if I should wait, if I should try to plan some kind of surprise for him. It wasn’t exactly like I could leave a positive pregnancy test out somewhere for him to find. But still, maybe I could try to make it a little more special than this.

But as I looked at my Skalla – bloodied, battle-weary, and holding my injured body in an embrace as possessive and protective as it was gentle – I knew there was no better time than this. This was real. This was us. Tattered at the edges by violence, but holding onto something pure at the very centre.

Messy. Flawed. And utterly perfect.

“That’s not the only thing you’re going to learn about fathers tonight,” I said, my voice shaking slightly. I rearranged myself so that I was on my knees, facing him head-on. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I didn’t bother trying to stop them this time because I knew it was pointless. But I smiled through them so hard it hurt. “Skallagrim of the stone sky and Bohnebregg, you are going to be a father. I’m pregnant.”

Skalla didn’t answer for a long moment. He just stared and stared, watching me with devoted awe, like I was the first sunrise he’d ever witnessed. Then, he smiled, a slow, poignant pull, and now I was the one watching the sunrise, because seeing Skalla smile at me like that was a thing of fucking beauty.

He brushed away my tears, being very careful on the swollen side, then pressed his snout to my temple.

“I cannot think of how to be worthy of all you have given me.”

“You already are,” I said sincerely, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Just keep loving me. Stay with me. Build a home and a life with me. That’s all I ask.”

“I will,” he vowed savagely.

A tremulous laugh bubbled out of my throat.

“And maybe try not to kill or injure anybody else if you can help it. At least for a little while.”

“I will not promise that,” he said, and then he added with a tone so bitter and begrudging that it made me laugh all over again, “But for you, I will at least promise to try.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Suvi

After that night in the temple, we spent the next two weeks back at the apartment attached to Zev and Jolakaia’s. We both needed time to recover from our injuries, not to mention a home base to ride out the worst of the early pregnancy fatigue and nausea. We didn’t see much of Jolakaia – she was incredibly busy in her new role at the temple, and Zev was often gone helping her – but that was alright with us. We needed that time alone together.

Though it wasn’t exactly a calm, quiet time with just the two of us. Skalla, it turned out, was a rather frantic father-to-be. Every time I complained of a headache, or ran to the bathroom to throw up, or became overcome with exhaustion, he’d exhibit an odd, antsy energy I hadn’t seen since I’d been recovering from my infection back at the temple.

“Water!” he’d say, pressing cups into my clammy hands. “Eat!” he’d command me, shoving food under my sensitive nose. “Lie down!” he’d bark anxiously, pacing back and forth with a distinctly dragonish impatience until I listened. He fussed over me constantly, glaring pissily out the window at the thunder clouds when I complained of heat or humidity, and wrapping his body gingerly around me whenever I was cold.

But even with Skalla and his incessant care-taking, I couldn’t be comfortable in that apartment for much longer. Pregnancy seemed to make my dreams much more vivid than before, and when I dreamed of claws reaching for me, I literally felt their cold touch, digging into my now-healed shoulder and re-opening the wounds. Often, I’d wake with a start and think that I saw Koltar, or Joleb, or sometimes even a human soldier, standing in the doorway. Worst of all, though, were the dreams where our baby was here, swaddled and safe in my arms, only to be ripped away by someone I couldn’t see. I woke from those dreams crying so hard I threw up.

Skalla was also impatient to leave, not just this apartment but the city itself. With Jolakaia in charge, it probably would have been safe to stay in the city, but even so, Skalla brooded on the possibility that there might be someone out there who would follow in Koltar’s footsteps and try to harm him through me.

So it was decided, once we were both healed and ready, that we would go. The question was where. Skalla didn’t think it was a good idea to take me through a sky door while pregnant, and I agreed, because who the hell knew what kind of radiation or whatever that kind of event would douse me in? It would have to be on Bohnebregg. Even if we weren’t going to live in Callabarra, I wanted to be nearby so that we could visit Zev and Jolakaia, plus Skalla wanted the Mother’s Hands close enough that they could assist with the birth.

“I could build you a house,” Skalla told me. “A new house on the river.”

“That will take a long time, though, won’t it? Especially if you’re doing it on your own.” I didn’t feel right about asking people from Callabarra to leave their usual duties to come help us build a new house, especially during the rainy season when storms roared through the skies, drenching the land and whoever was unlucky enough to work upon it. I also didn’t want to wait weeks sitting by myself while Skalla toiled away in the rain, because I already knew he wouldn’t hear of me helping him in my current state.

“There is always...” He stopped, leaning against the wall of windows in the apartment, crossing his arms and snapping his snout shut.

“What is it? There’s always what?”

He hesitated, then said, “There is always my old family home.”

“You mean... You mean Joleb’s house.”

“I grew up there with my parents and lived there long after their deaths, so I do not think of it that way, but yes.”

I chewed on that. My first instinct was to say hell fucking no. That was where I’d been kidnapped to. I’d watched multiple people die there. I didn’t think anything could erase the trauma of those memories.

But it was also Skalla’s childhood home. And my bad experiences in that house were mostly limited to the hoard room and the hall. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to see the rest of the building.

And then I thought about our son (because apparently stone sky gods only produced boys) being born the same place Skalla had been. I thought about him swimming in the same spots Skalla had as a little boy, sleeping in the same room Skalla had once put his own bed, and suddenly my feelings on the matter didn’t seem so black and white.

“Let me see it first,” I said tentatively. “In the daylight.”

Sunshine broke through the clouds the next morning, and after so many storms it felt like a good omen. I didn’t want to go to the house by boat – I wasn’t sure I could handle any rocking without barfing, plus that just made me think of Koltar – so Skalla borrowed a two-wheel from Zev and we went over land. The world looked extra green, vibrant and lush, after all the rain. I knew this wet season wasn’t over yet, wouldn’t be for weeks, but this little slice of sunshine illuminating the living landscape was enough for now.