She did not leave the palace often, but now she found it refreshing to be where no one would recognize the glamour she’d been wearing since the coronation. The invisible girl, the unknown princess. She could have been anyone, for all the doctors and nurses knew. The medical center wasn’t very big—sickness was rare in Artemisia, so mostly the clinic served for setting broken bones or easing some elderly patient into death or, of course, childbirth.
Despite being small, the clinic was busy, the staff constantly darting through the halls, emerging from and disappearing into countless doorways. But Levana could think only of Evret and what was happening behind that closed door.
His wife was dying.
He would be alone.
Levana knew it was so very wrong to think, but she couldn’t fully deny the spark that flared behind her sternum.
This was fate.
This was meant to be.
His kind words at the funeral. His bashful glance during her birthday celebration. The little Earth charm. Your friend, and most loyal servant.
Was there meaning behind the words, something he couldn’t say before now? Could he possibly want her as much as she wanted him?
Evret seemed like the type that would never disregard his vows of matrimony, no matter how much he yearned for another. And now he wouldn’t have to. He could be hers.
Thinking of it made her whole body shiver with anticipation.
How long would he wait to make his intentions known? How long would he mourn the loss of his wife before he gave himself permission to declare himself to Levana, his princess?
Waiting would be agony. She would have to let him know that it was all right for him to mourn and love at the same time. She would not judge him, not when they were so clearly destined for each other.
Fate was taking his wife away. It was as if the stars themselves were blessing their union.
The door opened down the hallway.
Without waiting for an invitation, Levana hurried forward, concern and curiosity pulsing through her veins. Just before she came to stand in the doorway, a cart was wheeled through it and she jumped back to keep the corner from jabbing her in the stomach.
Plastering her back to the wall, Levana saw that it was not just any medical cart, but one that held a tiny suspended-animation tank. The baby lying on the blue, squishy surface was screeching and fussing, small hands and wrinkled fingers flailing beside its head. Its eyes were not yet open.
Levana had the sudden, encompassing instinct to touch the child. To run her finger along those tiny knuckles. To stroke the short tufts of black hair sprouting from that tender scalp.
But then it was gone, wheeled fervently down the corridor.
Levana turned back toward the doorway. As the door slipped shut, she saw Evret in his guard uniform, hunched over his wife. A white blanket. Blood on the sheets. A sob.
The door closed.
The sound of Evret’s sob continued on in Levana’s ears, bouncing around inside her skull. Again and again and again.
*
An hour passed. She spent more time in the waiting room. Grew bored. Passed by the closed door separating her from Evret a dozen times, but he never emerged. She began to grow hungry, and realized that all she would have to do is tell one person her identity and demand they bring her something to eat, and any person in this building would fall over themselves to fulfill her wishes. The knowing of it made her want it less, and she forced herself to ignore the gnawing at her stomach.
Finally, she took to wandering the hallways, pressing herself to the sides when people marched past, focused and determined. She found the infant viewing room easy enough and slipped inside to stare at the new arrivals through a pane of glass. A nurse was on the other side, administering drugs and checking vital signs.
She found Evret’s child. A label was now printed on the side of the tank.
Hayle
3 January 109 T.E., 12:27 U.T.C.
Gender: F
Weight: 3.1 kg
Length: 48.7 cm
So he had a little girl. Her skin was dark like her father’s, her cheeks as round and touchable as a cherub, and tufts of hair were just long enough to frizz out like a halo around her head, especially now that she had been cleaned. She was no longer fussing, just lay there in perfect peace, her little chest rising with each breath. She was impossibly small. Frighteningly delicate.
Levana had not seen many babies, but she could imagine that this was the most perfect child that had ever been born.
The little girl was the only one in the infant viewing room with a blanket wrapped around her that wasn’t in plain hospital blue. Instead, the soft cotton material had been hand embroidered—a dozen different shades of white and gold creating a shimmering landscape around the child’s tiny form. At first Levana thought it was meant to be the wild, desolate surface of Luna outside of the biodomes, but then she noticed the black trunks of leafless trees and, somewhere near the baby’s ankles, stark red mittens lying abandoned in the snow, the likes of which Levana had only seen in children’s stories. This was a scene from Earth, from a dark and cold season that Luna never experienced. She wondered what had even made Solstice think of it.