She can't help but smile. That is what one did, after all, when they knew they had love and it was returned so truly. A simplicity in that knowledge that fills her up. Like watching the great lake of Talonhold fill back up after a long, dry winter, and those cold mountain streams rush to pour into it when summer comes.

Lakshmi takes the hands that hold hers. Guides them. Places them onto her stomach where that bump was just beginning to form. "I had no idea. I was not keeping it from you, either. For someone just visiting to know it before I did."

But they were young, and they were fools so often, were they not? She had no reason to think a babe had crept into her belly.