A/N – This is my first fanfic and English is not my mother tongue so any comments regarding both content and grammar/vocabulary are very welcomed (and if someone wants to be my beta send me a pm =) ). My first idea was to write an alternative ending of the TBM but there is a lot of them and I don't have any new idea, so I started to thing a new story in the TBM world. I warn you that there will be no Sonea but this will be an alternative story that take place pretty much the same time. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer – TBM world belongs to Trudi Canavan. I just try to do something enjoyable with it.

PROLOGUE

The Healers have already told them that they don't have any cure for this disease. Many people around Imardin was slowly dying, even some magicians if the rumours were true. Elia felt weaker every day and she knew that she was not going to live much longer, but she needed to be strong, to fight against this hated illness. Not for herself but for the child that was growing inside of her belly.

The day when she realized that she was pregnant she persuaded Victor, her husband, to go to see the Healers to make sure that everything was going fine. It was quite a victory because Victor didn't like magicians although he never told her any reason for such antipathy. That day changed everything. The nice young woman who attended her quickly said that the child was perfectly fine and growing fast, but then she frowned slightly and when she excused herself to go to look for another Healer they were full of anxiety. After a few minutes, an older woman wearing the same green robes appeared and presented herself as Lady Vinara, she took Elia's hand and close her eyes for a few seconds. When Lady Vinara opened her eyes flashes of resignation and sadness crossed her face before placing again her reassuring healer mask.

"I'm very sorry Lady Elia… there is no easy way to say this… you are infected with the Sleeping Death". Elia was in shock, she didn't even realize that Victor was shouting to the women that they must heal her, that he was sure that there was something they can do with their damn magic. She knew perfectly well that there was any hope, the Queen herself was slowly dying of the Sleeping Death. People started to give it this name because there is no warning sign nor a symptom to let you know if you are infected, just a progressive fatigue and one day you no longer awake. So she made Victor close his mouth with an authoritarian hand movement and asked for the baby, the Healers said that they don't have any pregnant patient but that she probably will die before the baby was ready to be born.

But Elia could not accept that, she could not let her child die without even the possibility to live. So she fought, she had been fighting every day for the last twenty weeks against the exhaustion and the sleepiness. Fearing every night that would be the last, but every morning waking up with all her will to give her child a chance to live. But it was hard, very hard, and Victor attitude didn't help at all; during every day of the first cycle of the Eye he was constantly muttering that the child was taking her strength and that she must abort. She tried to pretend to not listen when he said those things but one day she felt that it was just too much. "I'm going to die Victor. I'm going to die and the sooner you accept it the better for everyone. The last thing that I want to do in this world is to hold my baby in my arms. So I don't want to listen your stupid murmurs anymore." And she certainly didn't since he stopped to talk to her. She knew that he was in denial and that he was angry with her because she had accepted her fate, but knowing his reasons didn't make it easier to forgive his childish attitude and his lack of support.

When Elia woke up she barely had the strength to open her eyes, she knew that her end was close, too close, too soon. She could listen Victor's deep breath next to her, warming her right ear. She used it to relax herself while she was trying to count the weeks. It is too soon, it is just the thirty second week, I have to continue fighting. But she knew that she couldn't push her life any longer. "Victor, it's time". It was only a whisper, whispers were all she could do at that point, but it was full of authority and serenity and it was all that was needed to wake Victor suddenly up. "Elia, what is going on? You are all right, aren't you?" the fear slid between words as thick smoke while his face was a portrait of anguish. "Call the Healers, Victor".

No one expected that Elia was going to survive the birth, but when the Healers let Victor enter to the chamber there she was, holding a very little, crumpled, almost red thing between her skeletal arms. She was looking to the baby with eyes full of pride and joy and when she heard Victor asking how was she, she looked up with a warm happy smile. "She is strong, she is going to live. Don't hate her Victor, it is not her fault." She answer although she knew that he wasn't asking for the baby and her gaze changed to that one she wear every time she explain him how wrong was he about something. "I'll take care of her Elia, I promise. But don't abandon me, not so soon, I'm not ready yet…" He was begging with all the fear and love of his soul while filling his eyes with tears. "You would never be." She knew him too well, he was always afraid of the things he didn't understand or could not predict. And with a tired smile but with love in her eyes she looked to her baby one more time and whispered Lyria before closing her eyes one last time. He stayed there crying in her shoulder while murmuring words in her ear, words that no one heard. A Healer took the little baby that seemed to be in a sleep as deep as that of her mother so at least she could live.