A/N: I haven't wanted to venture past the current timeline, but re-reading Iron Flame to pull me back into this world after finishing all of ACOTAR (whew), this idea won't go away and it requires a couple of things: to be in the future past the current state of the books, and that both of our main characters survive the five book arc. So we're in pretend land! I mean…more so than usual.
…
"The moment I held you in my arms, knowing you would be my last child because of my own negligence, I wept. Not at the knowledge that there would be none after you, but at the knowledge that I got to keep you despite my mistakes. Twenty-one years later, I know that I was a fool to weep in atonement and should have instead wept in joy."
- RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE FROM GENERAL LILITH SORRENGAIL TO VIOLET SORRENGAIL
…
"I thought this phase was supposed to be over already."
My voice is a raspy tired grumble and the thin rug doesn't do much to ease the discomfort of the cold stone biting into my knees. As if I'd known I was going to throw it up a matter of hours later, the toast and tea I'd consumed for dinner hadn't been heavy on my stomach, though it hadn't kept me from rushing to the washroom. Only Xaden's strong thighs on either side of my body and the flat of his hand against the tensing muscles of my stomach keep me upright.
The queasy bout seems to ebb and I go a bit limp. He tilts us back bearing the weight on the tops of his feet as his other hand stretches across his favorite spot: the swell of my abdomen. No one was happier than Xaden when we announced the pregnancy to those closest to us as now he was free to touch the bump whenever he wished, in either a protective or loving gesture.
Rising mostly with his help, his hands firm until I was no longer wobbly, he leaves my side only long enough to fill the usual glass with water while I brush and rinse the taste of bile from my mouth. The bedroom is warm and comfortable despite the lingering tendrils of winter clinging outside the window, and the last vestiges of day bathe the remaining snow drifts and tufts of newly greening grasses in orange fire.
Skipping the project on the writing desk with a clear preference for the windowsill nook, pillows and a comforter waiting, I climb in as the runed teapot across the room whistles filling the room with the essence of peppermint. Xaden's eyes catch on the stacks of folded papers on my desk, a new leather-bound blank journal primed for transcribing sitting in the middle of what looked to be a cataclysm of parchment. He passes it by, bringing the tea to my chilled hands before perching on the opposite side of the nook and casually propping his arm up on a raised knee.
"What were you working on?" His chin is a toss toward the desk, and my stomach rumbles a bit as I drink to refill the empty space hoping it'll stay down.
"Nothing that the Assembly wants me to do, that's for sure." Another sip. "Speaking of which, you're going to be late for the meeting."
His irreverent half smile kindles butterflies in my stomach as I take in the chiseled lines of his face. I remember thinking that he'd never be more handsome than when he was glaring down at me from the Parapet all those years ago, but I was wrong. Free of the burdens of war, relaxed and happy and a few years older, the scruff of the beard he's determined to grow lining his jaw - he's still the most exquisite man I've ever seen. Even when he calls me out.
"It's not my meeting. The Queen called it last week."
I grumble. "Well, the Queen is busy trying not to puke the night away. The King can be her stand-in."
"In that case," he chuckles and shakes his head, a loose tendril of hair draping over his scarred brow. My fingers itch to brush it away when his dancing eyes met mine, "with the Queen indisposed, who are they going to tattle to when I'm late?"
My giggle was genuine until my stomach rebels and it turns into a groan. I close my eyes, willing my breathing steady until the queasiness goes away.
"I heard from Sgaeyl that Tairn grounded you today."
A sore subject, he knew, but broached it anyway. "Had I known that recon past the Cliffs last week was the last time he'd allow me to fly for the next six months, I'd have enjoyed it a bit more instead of trying to keep from splattering my breakfast all over his black scales."
"Six is generous. You'll need to heal after the youngling. Ten is more likely."
"Butt out, I'm still mad at you."
A 'harumph' is all that came across the bond, less spoken and more…felt, but I couldn't fault my dragon. He'd let me get away with strapping into the saddle for weeks longer than he and Xaden had wanted, but keeping it secret would have been nearly impossible if Tairn had stopped letting me fly.
Those had been the easiest weeks of flying I'd ever experienced, and I cursed him with every word I knew for the hell he'd put me through after Threshing. He just chuckled deep and low in my head and flew gentler than I thought possible. I'm now relegated to a soft ride up to the valley whenever I want to see Tairn and Andarna, but who knows when that will end.
"I won't lie that I'm relieved."
A tiny flutter of movement behind my belly button immediately pulls me from my mood, and I reach for his hand. Excitement makes his onyx eyes shine and the gold flecks dance as he kneels next to me while I press his fingers against the movement. We've both been told it's still too early, that only I can feel them for these few weeks, but that doesn't stop us from checking multiple times per day.
Nothing for him, again, but he doesn't look disappointed. He merely says, "next time," as usual and sets his cheek against the swell. The fingers of my free hand weave patterns through his silken hair as the sun sets behind the mountains outside, the hued sky turning from fiery orange to purple blue.
He finally stands and moves back to settle across from me in the nook. "What are you transcribing? A new project?"
"You must really not want to go to this meeting," I counter, and his eyes narrow when he catches onto my avoidance. Damn. I thought I'd have a little more time.
I sigh. "They're letters."
"Okay." That's it. That's all he says, but he doesn't make a move to head out to the meeting I'd signed him up for. He even bothers to look out at the city bathed in the rising moonlight as if he has all the time in the world.
"Written by my mother."
Xaden tenses as always at the mention of her, even five years after her death and more still since she stood responsible for his father's execution. I watch as the emotion journeys across his face. The hard lines are just a little harder, and those beautiful, kissable lips are pursed in a taut line. He was clearly sorting through which question to ask as a dozen passed across those suddenly shadowed eyes.
"Mira found them in her office after the Battle of Basgiath and wasn't even sure Brennan or I would have wanted them."
"What could," he started, his throat bobbing as he swallowed what he wanted to say with something more productive. "What do they say?"
The harsh laugh tore out of me. "No clue. I haven't been able to work up the nerve the last week to read any of them."
"Are you simply nervous to read them or scared of what they might say?"
I've been asking myself that question for the last few days. "Mira gave them to me right after we told her and Brennan about the baby. She said that maybe there'd be some wisdom in there for me."
I see him shake his head dismissively at the thought, same as I did when Mira said it. But I'll never be able to unsee the sincerity on her face when she admitted that the ones Mom had written for her had saved her from some of the darkest moments of her life. That left me alternating between two thoughts.
First, of course Mira's letters were inspirational. She was the General's sword - the middle child forged of unbreakable steel. I feel that my sister's brand of inspiration would have come natural to our mother for they were both cut from the same iron core.
Second, what advice could General Lilith Sorrengail ever give me that would counter the years she neglected me?
I wasn't fully able to reconcile the idea that my mother could give me loving parental advice from beyond the grave when she hadn't ever used an ounce when she was standing right in front of me my whole life.
I choose my words carefully. A queenly trait I've been trying to lean into - one that balances out my hot-headed king. "It seems like moments are going to last forever all the time, but things actually move too damn fast. It feels like it was a month ago that I walked the Parapet and only a few weeks since we fell in love. It was last week when we rebuilt Aretia's marketplace and a couple of days ago that the theater reopened. It was yesterday that Andarna asked why my scent changed, and an hour ago when I felt him move for the first time. And while I know that nothing about that timeline makes sense because it's nonsense and only how memory works, we did all of that - I did all of that without her advice."
My hand rests on my stomach drawing his eyes, though I keep watching him as I pour a week's worth of nervous energy into my words. "I can do this without her too, right?"
It's not often that Xaden is surprised into silence, and normally I revel in those moments. This isn't one of those times. It also doesn't stop me from continuing.
"In an equally short and long moment of time, I'm going to be a mother."
Xaden is still focusing on where my hand, adorned with his ring, sits against the swell of my stomach, so my other reaches out, the edge of my pointer finger pressing against the newly growing scruff under his chin. With a gentle strength, I lift those blazing onyx eyes to meet my own confident stare.
"And I am so excited. Do not mistake my nervousness for those letters as regret for this. That's not what any of this is stemming from."
I can see his shoulders relax and follow the lines of his perfectly tailored black tunic inlaid with twining silver and blue metallic thread that decorate in Tyrrish symbols around the buttons. The collar is open and the top few buttons are undone, the fabric a little wrinkled as if he'd been tugging at it all day in an effort to shed the formality that is our normal and return to the skies atop Sgaeyl and scout the borders.
His throat bobs a couple of times before his trademark half grin hits his mouth, only made sexier beneath the dark growing beard. "You keep saying he, but we're having a girl," he grumbles, emotion lingering in his voice.
I laugh. I can't help it. The queasiness returns in a flare of nausea cutting it off. I take a deep breath through my nose and push it out through my lips in an effort to not bolt back to the washroom.
He clears his throat, so I wait patiently for him to find his voice.
"The hardest step of the Parapet is the first one. Not because of the fear or because of the challenge, but because you have to do it alone. Love, you're not alone."
My anger flares a bit despite his gentleness and the swell in my heart at his endearment. "What could possibly be on those pieces of paper that I could use to be a good mother? She was anything but a good mother to me. Will it just be a list of things she didn't do for me but wanted me to eventually know?"
His shrug is light, almost nonchalant as he leans into his new kingly trait of maintaining his composure when I lose mine. "I don't know."
"Trying to think back to when she was kind and loving…the memories are so foggy and unclear because I was too young to really remember. So I'm stuck with what she taught me when I was older."
His quiet encouragement spurs me on. "Which is what?"
I refocus on the darkening of the city below us and feel that it's a bit too spot on with how I'm feeling. I don't often let the darkness of years past overwhelm me, and though nightmares still pop up from time to time of the Sage, Varrish, and other foes long gone, it's few and far between that either of us are plagued. The thought of my mother's confident words pull me back to the stone, damp earth, and iron-scented cell, and I fight the visceral reaction as it tries to blend with my nausea. Her advice came so soon after being dragged from the bowels of Basgiath's brig - too soon for me to really think them through.
"That day you came for me after…Varrish -", I sigh again, "my mother told me that when I have children I would understand everything that she had done."
When my pause went on longer than expected, he filled the silence. "Everything she'd done to you?"
Not 'for you', but 'to you'. It would be a cold day in Malek's realm before Xaden Riorson forgave Lilith Sorrengail for anything, least of all how she treated me in the last few years of what was to be her life.
My head shakes almost on its own. "No. At least…I don't think that's what she meant. She told me that when I became a mother we could discuss the risks I'd be willing to take and the lies I'd be willing to tell in order to keep my children safe. And I was furious. The thought that I would ever sacrifice other people's children - willingly - to protect my own was…unthinkable."
"Was?" His quiet whisper poked at that shameful part of me that I've been trying, and failing, to ignore these last few weeks.
One by one, lanterns light the cobblestone streets as Aretia comes to life. Gone is the city that would only rise and sleep with the sun, the people too tired to live outside of those warm rays. Below Riorson House shines the newly crowned capital city of Tyrrendor, and the people take to the streets for food, music, dancing, and fun.
After three years of rebuilding, gone are the flattened and wrecked streets and the burned skeletons of homes and shops. In their place is a bustling and sweeping city just as alive after sunset as after sunrise. Some scars remain. Buildings that withstood the venin onslaught still bearing gouges and polished, preserved burns in the wood trellises and porches shine day or night, but it's all still here - as are the people. As are we.
None of this changes my words, and the little flutter under my heart pulls my hand, though I can't feel them yet against my fingertips.
"I'd burn everywhere else in the world to the ground," I admitted softly, "and they're not even here yet."
…
A/N: One of my favorite theories for the end of Iron Flame is that Mira has disappeared because she's run to the General's office to find things that she doesn't want burned. To me - I like the idea of letters. Dozens of letters that Lilith wrote to her children.