Nurati shifted in her low-backed chair as the babe kicked insistently at her backbone. Once in a while it would hook its wicked fingers into her rib cage and stretch against the confines of its fleshly prison, and pain would dance up and down her spine like a naughty child. She supposed the coffee was not helping, but there was nothing to be done for that.
You have to sleep sometime.
She glanced at Paraja, who lay stretched out at her ease upon Nurati’s own silken pillows and churra-down bed. You sleep enough for the both of us. The child kicked again, a direct hit to the bladder this time, and she made a soft noise of irritation. For the three of us.
Sleep is good for the cub.
“A living mother is good for the cub.” She spoke aloud, as if releasing words into the air would make it so.
You fear the dreamshifter.
You do not?
Paraja bared her fangs, in mockery or warning. Nurati remembered the day, the glorious day, when she had slipped the golden bands onto the lovely queen’s tusks, and felt for the first time the weight of gold bands on her arms. So long ago.
Long ago, her queen agreed. We were cubs, chasing butterflies in the sunshine. She rolled over onto her side and stretched so that her long black claws extended to their fullest. You are still a silly cub, and the prey you stalk now is beyond you.
Nurati took up the quill again, one of the pretty red-and-blue ones made from the feathers of a lionsnake. They had been a gift from the First Warden some years back, and held their shape well. She dipped it into a jar of lovely purple ink and began adding flower-petals along the margins of a page.
For each of her children she had written and illustrated a story-book, and this child seemed to urge her toward flowers and fancy script. She felt certain that she carried another daughter beneath her heart. Another little girl to dress and to teach and to love. Fat cheeks to kiss. First steps to guide.
A she-cub, agreed Paraja. Your last?
Nurati wiped the nib on a soft cloth, and sprinkled sand across the dainty violets.
I know you are planning something, her queen complained, yet you keep your secrets from me. Are we not one?
We are one, she agreed. We are Zeeravashani. She blew the sand onto the table, and set the little book down. Nearly done.
The tip of Paraja’s tail curled up, and then slapped back down.
“If a neighboring pride threatened your cubs, what would you do?” Nurati asked aloud.
Paraja flexed her paws again. By tooth and by claw, I would kill them.
“Just so. This outlander king, this Ka Atu, is a threat to my children. All my children.” She rested a hand on her belly, and leaned back with a sigh. “If he dies without an heir, atulfah runs rampant and we are lost. If he dies with an heir, and this new Atualonian daemon decides to invade the Zeera, we are lost. Our Ja’Akari and Ja’Sajani together can hardly keep the greater predators at bay, much less fend off an attack from the north. I am no warrior. I have neither tooth nor claw. So what is a Mother to do?”
She opened her sa to Paraja’s touch, and let the cat rummage through her mind. Her thoughts were reflected back to her by the queen. She saw herself as a strong young vash’ai, flagging her tail at a powerful sire.
“Just so,” she agreed, laughing. “I will take their king as a consort, and he will give me a child. Surely an heir to two thrones is a threat to neither.” Such a child they would make—beautiful and powerful. Powerful enough to shake the world to its very roots.
There is no throne in the Zeera.
Nurati smiled. Ages pass. The world changes. There was once a throne in the Zeera, the throne of Zula Din.
You think to become another Zula Din?
No. She stroked her taut belly. Not I.
What of the dreamshifter? What of the dreamshifter’s cub?
She did not answer. She did not need to.
You should have stuck to hunting butterflies, Little Sister. There was such sorrow in the thought.
The child in her belly rolled over again, and then fell into a fit of hiccups that had Nurati gritting her teeth. This was going to be a long night. She picked up the little silver bell that would summon her errand-girl with more coffee.
* * *
Long into the night she worked, as the moons rolled across the sky and past her window, as Paraja snored on and the errand-girl slept in the corner. The oil lamp flickered, and her eyes blurred, even as she finished the last line of the last rhyme in her little girl’s first book. Tomorrow she would ask the smiths for gold foil, to brighten the edges of the pages. Tomorrow she would… tomorrow…
In the end, Paraja was right. She had to sleep sometime.
The quill slipped from Nurati’s fingers and landed on the rug, staining the pale wool.
Her head lolled back, and her hand slipped from her belly.
The lamp spluttered, burned low, spluttered again, burned out.
Golden eyes burned in the dark, waiting for her.
A queen hunting butterflies.