My head bobbed and I jumped in my seat, blinking my eyes blearily. Eikko was sitting across from me at my desk with eyes full of concern. "Are you okay?" he asked, drawing the attention of every single person in the room. General Leger and Brice were staring at me with the same amount of worry as Eikko. Sundays were normally slow days in the palace. They were my opportunity to catch up on random bits of work that don't get finished during the week. General Leger didn't even come in every Sunday even though he tried. Advisers were given the day off and breakfast was at nine-thirty instead of eight-thirty. That didn't prevent me from sleeping in by accident though.

"Fine, just tired," I said, yawning. I stretched my arms and saw that it wasn't even noon yet.

"What are you working on today?" Eikko asked and I remembered right then that I had promised him earlier in the week that we would have the day to ourselves. With all of my worries though, I couldn't face him for a whole day.

"We're getting foreign guests this week and I wanted to read up on our last contracts with them so that I am prepared," I explained smoothly. Neena came in with another cup of coffee and set it in front of me. My stomach turned into a bundle of knots though as I looked at the extremely light roast – highly caffeinated – mug just a few feet from me.

Eikko pursed his lips and walked around my desk to sit closer to me. "It seems like you're avoiding me." The hurt in his voice was palpable and turned my bones to mush.

"I'm not avoiding you," I said quietly, wanting him to know that I did sincerely love him and that I was definitely not avoiding his company. But wasn't I? That's why I came and hid in my study, pleading that there would be enough work for me to do to justify spending the day locked inside. That's why I had been working late every single night to minimize the time I spent with him at night. I just needed time to be in my own head and think about things.

"Then what's going on inside your head? You've been out of it all week. I'm worried that I did something wrong," he admitted.

I shook my head and put the report I had been reading down. "Could you guys please give us the room?" I asked Neena, Lady Brice and General Leger. Once it was just the two of us I reached for Eikko's hand. "I love you."

"Then what is it that's taking you from me?"

"It's nothing…just that my period is eight days late."

Eikko's eyes widened and he opened his mouth several times, trying to think of something to say and trying to mask his surprise. He was smart and had a sister; he knew how the female anatomy worked. And it wasn't something I normally hid from him, not that I could if I tried. He was my husband after all and we'd been sleeping together for months. "A week is a long time, right?" he asked. "I mean, they're not typically that late, right?"

"Not unless they never come."

"But I'm sure it's late or something."

I nodded. "Yeah, it could just be late."

"Of course. I mean, just because it's been more than a week doesn't mean…"

"Not at all," I assured him but neither of us was falling for it. "Even though my period has been regular and on time for the past five years, it could definitely just be late. By more than a week."

He was quiet as he stared at his shoes. "We should go to the hospital," he said quietly.

My body tensed. This was exactly why I didn't want to tell him. Going to the hospital meant getting answers and answers meant that I couldn't sit in my study and hide from what my body was trying to tell me. At the same time, if I was…I would need the right care. This wasn't something that was just my responsibility; it was a matter of state. "I have a lot to do," I lied lamely.

Eikko pried the folder from my fingers and pulled on both of my hands to get me out of my chair. "The reports will be here when you get back," he said gently. "Please, humor me. How do we know this isn't some freak parasite you picked up in Panama?"

I let him drag me downstairs to the hospital wing. As worried as I was about my future though, I did feel infinitely times better with Eikko there at my side. Even if he was just as freaked as me. I reached for the door handle to the hospital wing to open it when I heard my father's voice inside, wishing Dr. Ashlar a good day.

I spun and pointed to the large window near us with curtains hanging to the floor. "Go hide behind that curtain!" I hissed. "My father is right inside. He cannot see us both here together; he'll know what's going on right away." He seemed to be paralyzed with fear, unable to move or back away. "Go, go, go! Hide!" I pushed him back and he finally snapped out of his paralysis.

He barely made it behind the curtain before my dad was stepping into the hallway. I plastered the widest smile I could manage on my face. "Eadlyn, what are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" I repeated, wracking my brain for any excuse. "That's a great question. But you know, it's not all about me here. What about you? What brings you here?"

"I'm getting medicine for your mother," he answered, eyeing me suspiciously. "Everything okay? You're grinning like a sociopath."

I forced out a laugh. "Dad, you are funny. Haven't you ever seen a woman happy and in love? I've just married the man I love, I just got a pool, and reforming the government hasn't turned out to be a disaster. Why wouldn't everything be great?"

"Uh-huh," he said, clearly not convinced. "Why are you here?"

"Migraine," I answered and touched a finger to my temple. "Really need some pain medicine."

Dad nodded and walked past me, still looking suspicious of me. Just when I thought that I was clear, he turned and asked, "You know there's migraine medicine in your desk?"

I cringed, knowing he'd caught me in my lie. All I could hope was that he wouldn't keep asking me what I was really doing there. "Would you believe me if I said that I wanted it to be fresh?"

"You're lucky your mom really needs this medicine," Dad said, holding up the bottle of pills for me to see. "I expect an explanation later." He disappeared around the corner and my shoulders sagged in defeat.

Eikko extricated himself from the curtain and I looked at him hopelessly. "Was that as bad as it sounded to me?"

"Worse, I think," he said, pity on his face.

"Let's just go get this over with." Dr. Ashlar was inside the hospital wing with one of his many attendings, talking him through a medical chart.

"Queen Eadlyn, I was just talking to your father," he said, looking surprised to see me. "Prince Erik, pleasure to see you. Hopefully everything is okay." His eyes dashed between the two of us, trying to decipher what had brought both us here at noon on a Sunday.

I glanced awkwardly at his attending surgeon, not sure if I really trusted a kid close to my age to keep this a secret. Not when Dr. Ashlar – who had become head doctor at the palace shortly before Dad's Selection – was there and willing to help. "Could we speak somewhere private?" I asked tentatively.

Dr. Ashlar put his clipboard down and gestured to a room to our left and I practically ran inside, naturally taking a place on the exam table. Eikko sat down next to me, still holding my hand.

"So I'm assuming you're the patient?" Dr. Ashlar asked. He always had a special place in his heart for my mom and was therefore all the more willing to help me with anything. He was like my cool uncle that would always give me everything I asked. I guess that's what I got from the man who delivered me and all of my siblings, plus Kile and Josie and countless other babies in the palace.

"Um, so…" I stammered, not knowing where to begin. "My period is late."

Dr. Ashlar pursed his lips, trying to hide his smile. "I see. Seeing that you both are here, I'm assuming you both have already done the math?"

"We're really hoping that we're bad at math," I said quietly, ducking my head. Eikko frowned in confusion but squeezed my hand anyway, telling me that he was there no matter what.

"Have you had any other symptoms? Nausea, fatigue, moodiness?"

I was about to deny all of them when Eikko chimed in with, "She's slept late almost every day this past week and she's still exhausted, as you can probably tell."

"You're on the pill, correct?"

I pushed my hair back from my face nervously. "I forgot to take it. I've been a bit busy lately."

Dr. Ashlar nodded, finally locating my file on his computer. "Your mom did that a lot too. There were many mornings where your father drug her here to get a pregnancy screening only to have it be negative."

"So there's hope?" I asked, probably too cheerfully.

"There's definitely hope. But she would only miss it one day. How many days did you forget?"

I hesitated. I hadn't told Eikko about me forgetting. I didn't even realize that I had forgotten until Eloise asked me if I'd need a new prescription soon. "Five days."

"Hmm. Well, I'll take some blood and run it through. We have a lab here where I can screen it and get the answers back within minutes." He picked up a vial and a needle, instructing me to hold out my arm. Despite being a royal kid – a royal kid whose maternal side of the family has a hereditary heart disease – and having to get countless physicals and blood tests a year, I never did get used to needles. I turned my head to Eikko as he stuck a vein on the inside of my elbow and quickly drew the blood to process it. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Eikko let out a long breath and wiped his hands on the tops of his legs. "You forgot, huh?" he asked. But he wasn't angry. His expression was guarded and closed off, making it difficult for me to discern what he was feeling about all of this.

"I'm sorry," I said guiltily.

"You know, it isn't such a bad thing," he said slowly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You're not the one trying to reform a governmental system that has been in place for almost a century. It's not like I have the time for a baby right now. The advisers already treat me differently because I'm a girl. Having a baby isn't going to solve that." Before I knew it, tears were slowly streaming down my face and I wiped them away furiously, angry at myself and my own forgetfulness and my duties as queen making me forget to take my pill.

"Hey, hey," Eikko stood and perched on the edge of the table next to me, putting his arm around my shoulders. "Let's look on the bright side of things."

"Which is what?"

He smiled wryly. "The advisers won't have to hound us about giving them an heir. And this is all hypothetical anyway because we don't know if you're pregnant."

I sighed and looked down at my lap. Now that he'd said the actual word, I couldn't deny it anymore. "Eikko, I'm pregnant. We both know that."

"You know I will be there through it all, right? I'm never going to leave you. When you get back from a long day of meetings and disagreements over trade contracts, I'll be there to give you a hand massage or shoulder rub. When you complain to me about getting fat – because I know you will complain – I'll be there to remind you of just how beautiful you are and always will be to me. And when you're trying to care for the country and a newborn simultaneously, I'll be there at night to feed the baby so that you can rest. Because you deserve all of that and infinitely more."

"But my parents…Are you really ready to face their reactions? Because they're going to have to know soon. My mom had four kids for Pete's sake; she knows what it looks like to be pregnant."

He pushed my hair away from my face. "You're worrying a lot about other people, you know that right?" He shook his head with a small smile, as if he found me funny. "The first night we slept together, remember what you said? You wanted it to be our own night. You wanted it to be something that belonged to only us and no one else. Well, now we have a baby that belongs to us because we made the decision ourselves. Not because advisers told us to do it or because the people wanted an heir but because we made this conscious decision on our own. Maybe not to have a baby together but to at least take that step in our relationship."

I melted into his side, putting my head on his shoulder. "You always have the right thing to say," I told him. Truly, I felt better than I ever imagined I could feel about this, thanks to him. I was infinitely grateful for the fact that I had been able to choose him, for Daddy telling me I could choose him.

Dr. Ashlar came in then, clipboard held close to his chest. He raised his eyebrows at me and said, "Well, you're only five weeks along. May I be the first to offer you a congratulations."

Eikko kissed my cheek and I gulped in quick breaths, feeling like my lungs were caving in on themselves. I nodded and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay," I said softly.

Dr. Ashlar handed Eikko a bottle of pills. "Every day, twice a day." He focused his eyes on me again. "While we're here I'd like to get your vitals. I have your benchmark vitals to measure against. With your mother's family having a history of heart conditions, I also need to keep a close eye on you. Pregnancy puts great stress on the body and on your heart. You'll need to come for an appointment every two weeks; this is the heir so we can't take any chances."

I swallowed again, my mouth bone dry. "Thank you," I stammered. "I'm going to be a mom?" I asked, looking at Eikko.

"You're going to be the best mom," he answered. "We'll do this together, okay? I'm right here. Anything you need."

It turned out to be much easier than I thought to keep our little one a secret. With only being a few weeks along, I wasn't showing any major symptoms. I wasn't puking up my guts every five minutes and I didn't have any strange food aversions or cravings. My breasts weren't any larger or more sensitive. It almost felt like a dream, easily forgotten during the day as I focused on my duties as queen. It would only become real again at night when I got back to my room where Eikko was always waiting with my vitamins and a glass of water.

Imagine my surprise then when Mom called me down to the Women's Room just a week after we had it confirmed and asked me flat-out, "Are you pregnant?"

I forgot how to breathe for a moment and I thought my heart actually stopped. "Mom, I…how?" I asked, knowing that I couldn't lie to her.

"I'm your mother Eadlyn," she said simply.

"Yeah, but I'm only six weeks. I can't even tell I'm pregnant."

She kept her face unreadable as she said, "But I can. You're glowing, Eady. And all of those little glances you exchange with Eikko now? Not to mention how he watches you like a hawk." She folded her hands in her lap and played with her engagement ring. "Your father also mentioned that he saw you going to the hospital wing last week, which is when this all started."

"Does Dad know?" I asked. If Dad knew, I could never face him. I was his little girl. How was he going to handle me becoming a mother so soon?

"Do you think your father knows?" she asked me, a small smile playing on her lips. She was right, of course. Eikko would have been questioned by Dad by now if he knew. "You're not in trouble, Eadlyn."

"Why am I so scared though?" I took another deep breath, not knowing how to explain my whirlwind of emotions to her.

She was definitely smiling now. She patted the seat next to her, which I gladly took. "Alright, lesson number one of motherhood: you never feel ready. I was just a little older than you were and had been married for two years already but when I found out I was having twins? It was the most terrified I had been in years."

"But you're exactly right; you had been married for two years. I've been married for a month. I got married four weeks ago but my baby was conceived six weeks ago."

She patted my knee comfortingly. "Honey, you never need to worry about upsetting your father and I. You could do far worse things in life in than get pregnant sooner than you expect."

"Worse things? Like what?"

She sighed and thought about it for a moment. "You could implement the castes again. You could take away women's rights. Start another war with New Asia. Fire General Leger. Kick us out. Any of those things would make us disappointed. But we could never be angry with you."

"I guess now would be a bad time to say that I don't want you guys around?" I asked sarcastically, already feeling much lighter. "I don't understand how you couldn't be angry with me about this."

Mom laughed. "You will soon." She hesitated, thinking over her next words carefully. "Dad told you about his father, correct?" I nodded, a chill running up my spine just thinking about it. "He's spent his entire life as a father terrified of making even the slightest mistake and ruining his relationship with you all. I daresay that his role as a father scared him more than being a king or husband ever did. He loves you kids all the more because of it. He understands that you all make your own decisions and that he can't strong arm any of you into being absolutely obedient. Not without jeopardizing his relationship with you. He's a good man, your dad. And once the shock of being a grandfather before he turns forty wears off, he'll be over the moon for you."

"Sorry about that," I said, blushing.

"Forgetting to take your pill is normal," she said conspiratorially.

I raised my eyebrows at her. "Dr. Ashlar did mention that you had a habit of doing that. Tell me Mom, which one of us happened because of a busy week as queen?"

She blushed under my scrutiny and smiled wickedly. "You and Ahren," she admitted.

"Mom! That's a big oops!" I laughed, picturing the surprise she must have gotten by being pregnant and being pregnant with twins.

"It's not like we weren't discussing it already. We just hadn't decided that we were definitely trying. Osten was an accident too. Explains why he has such a special place in my heart. He was purely an 'oops' baby but all the more precious to us." She shook her head. "

"So let me get this straight," I said slowly. "Kaden was the only one you planned?"

She shrugged like it was no big deal. "Probably why he's the angel of the family. From the beginning he was doing everything right."

"Who knew that you two could run such a tight ship while ruling a whole country but that when it came to family planning, you were hopeless," I teased.

"It was one or the other. Besides, we wanted a big family." She put her arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. "I'll take care of your father. He takes these things better when it comes from me. He doesn't scare me."

I stood up and stretched, ready to go back to work for the afternoon. "Thanks Mom."

"Expect for him to look for you after I tell him though."

"Can't you tell him when I'm in France for New Year's?"

"That's three months from now!"

I pouted. "Mom, please…"

She considered, frowning. "I'm telling him this week."

"If you must," I sighed, letting her pull me close and kiss my forehead. I kicked my feet up onto the table in front of us and then noticed the newspapers sitting there. Mom, unlike Dad, avoided newspapers like the plague. She didn't want to know what the people were saying about her. She knew that while Dad had articles written about his excellence in diplomacy, articles written about her focused on her fashion and beauty. Now I could see the bold title of the front page announcing how her early resignation from the throne was due to her being unhealthy. "Mom, why are you reading this?"

"I like to be up-to-date on what my people are saying," she said, pursing her lips. "I was reading the paper while your father was gone and now I just can't seem to have stopped. He likes to keep this stuff hidden from me but it's hard to hide when there's some sort of public relations crisis going on."

"I don't know how you handle the scrutiny."

She pushed my hair over my shoulder in a comforting touch. "Honey, you've been dealing with it your whole life. You know how these things go. You just ignore it and tell yourself that you don't do anything in life for their approval but for yourself and for the love of people."

"But you didn't grow up with it."

"That's true, and I did prefer being in the background. It took some adjusting to but your father smoothed the transition. Quite frankly, we didn't have the time to worry about tabloids until after we had been married for a while and at that point we were confident enough in ourselves that we didn't care. Your little one will have no problem." She chuckled to herself. "Any child of yours will have no problem being in the spotlight, I'm sure. I daresay the only man on this earth in more danger of spoiling his children to death than your father is your husband."

I smiled and nodded in agreement. "Thanks Mom, for always being here."

"That's my job," she said, smiling. "Except for right now. Your father was begging for a date night with me during breakfast this morning."

"You barely spoke to each other during breakfast," I said. She and Dad were sitting at opposite ends of the table and Osten was being particularly hyperactive, demanding all of Dad's attention.

"We have our means of communicating." She smiled mischievously and rose to her feet. "Don't worry about coming to see me before the operation tomorrow morning. Get your rest and I'll see you in the evening when I'm awake." She kissed my forehead and then left me.

That night, I was crawling into bed where Eikko was already fast asleep. I yanked my dress off and left my silk slip on, not wanting to summon Eloise just to get me ready for bed. I curled up around Eikko and tucked my chin into his shoulder, breathing in the lingering scent of his cologne. "You 'kay?" he mumbled sleepily.

"I will be," I whispered softly before throwing my leg over his and falling right to sleep.