Chapter 18: Changes Will Come

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Tania had been angry at being put under a spell, but that wrath became as nothing when she learned that Auberon had got his mortal lover with child.

"I hadn't even considered the possibility," he tries to explain, "I've never fathered a child before..."

"You think I am not aware of that?" Tania shrieks, then collapses into tears, "Why...why would you give her a child and not me?"

"I have never purposefully withheld a child from you, you know that Tania," Auberon sighs, "Whether  you conceive or not is not in my control."

"So it's my fault?" Tania sobs.

Auberon sits beside her on the fountain's edge. "There is no blame, either way, for what we are, Summerdream. The mortals are just more fertile than fae. If I had known..." he cannot finish the sentence because he doesn't know what he would have done differently if he had considered the possibility of a child resulting from his union with Uvie. Very possibly, quite probably, he would have done everything the same. "I am sorry, Tania," he says, "I never wanted for there to be this discord between us."

"No, I suppose that cannot be helped either..it is not in the nature of the fae to consider the consequences of our actions, is it?" Tania asks as she rises to leave him.

"I am worried; my people are worried," Uvie tells him as she lays back in his arms, "It goes much faster than normal."

"What is normal, for you kind?"

"Nine turnings of the moon."

Auberon rests his hand over her expanding belly. "She is fae, at least in part," he says, "And she grows inside you at the speed of a fae."

"She?" Uvie asks, laying back as Auberon rests his head on her belly.

"Yes, you carry a daughter," Auberon answers, wishing that he could see more than that, feel more than just the spark of magic the girl inherits. He's seen Shayeleigh's son with her dragon, and shares their worry over the boy's strangeness, not just for the fate of little Ametair, but for what it could mean for his own daughter. Uvie is no dragon, but she's not fae either, and who can say what their child will be.

"The people are talking," Ardax says as they gather herbs together in the forest.

"The people are always talking," Uvie sighs.

"You haven't named the father of your child. And since you keep mostly to yourself, because we are so often together..."

"They think you are the father," Uvie finishes for him, "I know. And I have told them you are not."

"If you do not name another, they will not believe you."

"I can heal wounds with a touch, summon fire from the air, and yet they will not believe I can bear a child without a father," Uvie sighs, "Even though the pregnancy goes unnaturally fast, they won't believe the spirits gave me a child because I asked for it..."

"Maybe if it were the truth, you could convince them," Ardax says, "but your child does have a father..."

"Ardax, you know I cannot tell them who the father is," Uvie says, her eyes pleading.

"I don't like being seen as a man who would abandon the mother of his child, Uvie."

"I am sorry for that," Uvie says, "But I beg you not to reveal the truth..."

"I have kept your secret, and will continue to keep it," Ardax promises, rubbing her belly affectionately, "Let me be a father to your child."

"You want me to take you as a mate to stop the gossip about you?" Uvie asks, a bit disappointed that he would be so swayed by wagging tongues.

"Your child should have a father in the tribe, Uvie. You should have a man that will stand by you, be there for you. I am not asking for the love you've given to this...fae...who fathered your child. I know that a heart cannot be told who it will be given to. My heart died along with my Thari, and yours lives for one who is not of the tribe, who will not be with you to raise your child. Let me stand in his place, for your child's sake."

"You have been a better friend to me than I have deserved," Uvie says, feeling ashamed of the way she had treated him when he came to her tribe, and of the way she had just moments ago thought of him. He had kept her secret even though it meant being the subject of gossip himself, and now he was offering her not just cover for her lies to the people, but to act as a true parent for her child, "My daughter could ask for no better father," she says, with just the slightest hint of bitterness at the thought of her child's real father, who would not be there for her in the way a parent should. 

Riain and Shayeleigh watch their son, scratching in the dirt, sniffing the air as though for prey.

"It's not a dragon thing?" Shayeleigh asks again, desperate for an explanation, "You are hunters, are you not?"

"We hunt," Riain says, "We have a keen sense of smell, But this...He is not a dragon, my love."

"Does it not upset you that Aymeri has refused you what Shayeleigh's dragon has given her?" Tania asks.

"Are you trying to set me against him?" Ico laughs, "It won't work. Aymeri hasn't 'refused' me anything. In truth, I have no great desire for a child and am quite happy to have so far not conceived one."

Tania sighs, "I have long desired a child, Auberon's child. But it is his mortal lover who is favored."

"She is mortal," Ico points out, "You will still be here long after she passes, and you may yet conceive a child. Don't be so impatient."

"That's easy for you to say; you prefer to wait. I want a child now, I have wanted one for such a very long time. And yet it seems everyone else is given what is denied me."

Aymeri sweeps Ico off her feet and carries her off before she can tell Tania that not everything is about her.

Left alone, Tania's gaze falls on Tegan, seated by himself at the water's edge. The frisson of desire that tingles in her spine when she looks on him is just the lingering effects of the spell Auberon put on her, she tells herself, and with a blush that no one sees, she turns away and leaves the camp.

Uvie screams as the pain becomes unbearable. It should be far too early for her to start labor, but nothing about this pregnancy has gone as normal. 

"The birthing chamber is no place for the chief," Ardax says when Tor joins them.

"I am here for my people," Tor says simply, "She should not be giving birth so soon. They will want to know what happens here."

Though painful, the birth goes quickly, and soon Uvie holds her daughter in her arms.

"Her skin...it's not right," Tor observes.

"She is healthy and alive, that is what matters," Ardax says firmly, knowing that this won't be the end of it.

"I will call her Evenfall," Uvie says.

"I suppose the gossip now will be that you are not her father, after all," Uvie says. "I am sorry, Perhaps it would have been better for you not be my mate now. I would understand if you chose to disown me publicly..."

"Truly, I don't care what the people say," Ardax answers, "Evenfall may not be my child by blood, but I will raise her with you just the same. That was always my intent, and no gossip will turn me from that."

Auberon could not attend his daughter's birth in person, wishing to remain unknown and unseen by her people. But in the dark of night while they all sleep, he appears to look on his child.

He holds the girl in his arms, feels the spark of her magic as she nestles close to him, and he worries. It is too early to tell what she is, human, fae, or like Shayeleigh's Ametair, something new.

Gently, he lays his daughter back with her mother. If the child is fae, she might be better raised amongst his own kind. But he hasn't the heart to take her from her mother, no matter what she is.

For just a moment, he lies beside Uvie, resting his arm over her sleeping body. She dreams, and he could be with her in those dreams, but tonight, he leaves her to dream alone. It is not very fae to think about the consequences of one's actions, but Auberon cannot help but worry about what changes will come to the world from his giving his heart to a mortal girl, and creating a child with her. 

Long before the sun begins to rise, Auberon leaves the hut.