Page 63 of His Bride

“Oh, that is from a food place that Arthur likes,” I explain. “We get deliveries every week or so. They make the best burgers, fries, and milkshakes.”

“Burgers?” Mother says the word in the same way Arthur used to say the word Soma. I say used to, because he now snarls it with intense loathing. My husband was always a warrior, but now he is perpetually ready to go to war for me. Protective is an understatement.

“I’m going to inherit the family home,” Maraline tells me. “The entire estate is going to be mine, now that you are married and going to have a baby.”

Some of her intense disappointment at not being chosen to be Arthur’s bride has faded, though I know I saw jealousy on her face when she met him. He is a very handsome man, and the air of tragedy that hangs about him since the rebels attacked has only served to give him a sort of maudlin appeal.

“Oh, Arthur!” My mother melts as he walks into the room. Arthur is only a few years older than her, I realize. “How are you? You look like you’ve been terribly busy. I am so sorry my daughter makes you fold your own socks.”

Arthur looks at her, perplexed, then glances at me with a questioning look. I shrug.

“Mila needs to rest,” he says. “Her due date is approaching, and the doctor says she needs rest.”

“I certainly never rested when I was pregnant,” my mother says smugly. “Of course it is all different now. They coddle mothers.I hope you don’t think you’re going to get to lie around like this once you have the baby, Maraline. Sorry, Mila.”

“Mila will have all the rest she needs, whenever she needs it,” Arthur interjects. “And she needs it now. If you’d excuse us, ladies.”

He gently, but firmly ushers my mother and sister out of our bedroom. They go, smiling and swooning, apparently unaware of their general unpleasantness.

“Do you want me to send them home?” He lies down next to me and wraps me up in his arms.

“No,” I laugh, though in some regards I want to say yes. It is good to see them because they are my family and I love them. It is also good to see them because they have no idea what happened here. The mess with the rebels was kept very quiet. Nobody wanted it becoming public knowledge that several members of the upper echelon of New Boston society were so corrupted they staged an attack on the Archon-General and his family.

I am sure there are rumors, but my mother and Maraline do not know about those, and do not care to know about them. They regard the city with intense mistrust as it is.

“How are you feeling?” He nuzzles me gently.

“Pregnant,” I reply.

“Not for much longer,” he reminds me.

One week later, I have the baby. It is a generally unpleasant experience that does not really bear dwelling on, besides the factthat the birth results in my daughter, who I instantly love so completely I can barely stand it.

Arthur is absolutely besotted as well. In his eyes, and mine, she is absolute perfection.

“Her little toes,” he murmurs. “They’re perfect. How can anything be so small, and so perfect?”

I know precisely how he feels.

The three of us are lying in bed together, bonding as a family, and sharing a kind of love that I am almost certain I have never experienced before. After all we have been through, this feels closer and more wholesome.

“Do you have a name for her?” He asks the question.

“Do I get to name her?”

“After seeing what you went through to have her, you can make any decision you like,” he says, his tone genuinely admiring. “You were a warrior.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Warriors rarely do,” he says. There is a hint of tone in his voice, something like regret, but more than that. Melancholy, perhaps.

“I’d like to call her Lydia,” I tell him. “I know it’s not a traditionally noble name, but…”

“It’s perfect,” he says. “Lydia.”

“And one day we will tell her about who she is named after,” I smile. “We’ll tell her how strong she was. And how brave. And how she gave herself fully and entirely.”

“I think that is beautiful,” he says. “Though I suspect your mother is expecting you to name the baby after her.”

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