She knew all the signs.
She had seen her own mother swell fat like an inflated bladder, had heard the muffled retching in the slanted outhouse. Even now, with a little effort, she could slip into her old dresses, and he jokingly attributed the new roundness of her hips to the extra food he brought; but she knew. Sometimes she even thought she felt another self stirring within her, a second rhythm of life beating in counterpoint to her own. The golden mornings streaming through the skylight often found her hunched heaving over a bucket, yet a part of her still resisted the indisputable fact.
It would render her useless to the cause, that much she knew: a pregnant woman would be too conspicuous, too unwieldy. And shameless as she was in adultery, some deeper loyalty to her sex repelled her from carrying the child of a married man. Besides, the news might remind him of his own wife and children, faraway and forgotten. He was only a passing diversion (and often a tiresome one at that), but nevertheless she felt a pang at the thought of losing him. No, a child would ruin everything.
She could resort to her familiar excuse. Two weeks would be enough for the procedure as well as the ensuing recuperation. There would always be a faceless figure with the requisite instruments in some dark alleyway, willing to sell his silence and the service of his glinting tools for a few coins. And Fiyero would never need to know…
Though she had turned discreetly away, shrouding herself in her shadowy uniform of a dress whilst half-mumbling the barefaced lie, she could still hear the hurt in his voice as he reluctantly agreed. He did not question her; she still had some power in this early stage of their liaisons, and that was the tacit agreement between them. But after all, what choice did he have? What choice did she have?
An awkward farewell at the dusky foot of the stairs, then she clung impulsively to him, trying somehow to convey what could not be spoken with harsh, desperate kisses. But he pulled away, terrified by her sharp intensity and suddenly doubtful of her motives when she refused to look him in the eye.
Locking the door after him, she staggered up the stairs and called for Malky. She sat a long while absently stroking the snow-white fur, but not even the cat's warm solid weight in her lap could soothe the thunder pounding within her. Imagination was one of the things she had left on the carriage with Glinda all those years ago, but she could almost conceive it was the heartbeat of her unborn child, soon to be forever silenced.
There was an odd shadow near the groin—for a sleepy moment he wondered if some of his blue diamonds had, in the heat of sex, been steamed onto her own skin—or was it a scar?
A/N: Just to clear things up...the baby is not Liir. I wrote this story on the assumption that Liir may not have been the only child they conceived, which is why it's set so early in City of Emeralds.