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Sabriel was sleeping when Touchstone arrived in their bedchamber.
He shut the door firmly on the distant sounds of partying, smiling a little as he approached the bed. In the early days of knowing her, he'd found it frightening how still and quiet she was in sleep, as if the Abhorsen's connection with death took the opportunity to come closer to the surface of her being. Now he'd grown used to it: even become glad to see that utterly limp, motionless look in her limbs, while her chest did not seem to rise or fall in the slightest. It meant she was cradled in a rare moment of complete rest.
He moved around their room silently, peeling off clothes and ornaments and weapons and piling them on a chair to deal with in the morning. It felt good, shucking his shell, despite goosebumps rising on his skin due to the chamber's bitter air. The day had been a towering success, but he was desperately tired, sick of smiling and small talk. Slipping under the blankets with his new wife, nestling his head on the pillow beside her fragrant dark hair - he breathed deeply, contentment rising like the tide.
The season finally was turning to spring, but the old stone castle hoarded cold like a miser despite its warren of chimneys and fireplaces. Contrary to her deathly appearance, Sabriel's body warmth infused the sheets. Within minutes Touchstone was warm, too - and so slept himself, his final thought that the heating Marks in the residence should undergo a mass renewal, and soon.
He woke an uncertain amount of time later, jolted by Sabriel sliding back into bed. "Mm?" he said, blinking at her shadowy form. The only illumination in the room was from the dying embers of the fire.
"Just using the necessary," she murmured, cuddling up against him to get warm once more. "Listen to the bells - they're ringing midnight. It's the second official day of your reign."
"Oh, is that how they count it?" he yawned. "Today will be my first full day on the throne. So wouldn't it make more sense to count from today?"
"Maybe." He felt a smile, where her face was pressed to his shoulder for a nuzzle. "You can appoint a committee to consider the matter."
"Don't tease me." He shuddered, and wrapped his arms around her. "That committee to decide whether you could be queen or not was enough to make me want to abolish committees forever. Precedent this, precedent that. Just because so many history books have been lost in the Interregnum - why didn't the fools listen to me? You're hardly the first Abhorsen to be queen."
She patted his side. "They settled in our favour in the end, love."
"Just as well." They'd nearly driven him berserk with their doubt and niggling at Sabriel. Even if the office of Abhorsen had lost much of its credit in the past centuries, why had they been so reluctant to realise what an amazing woman she was in her own right - ?
He took a deep breath, centering and calming himself, focusing on Sabriel. She curled snug and supple in his embrace, and he was becoming more wakeful by the moment. He wondered how tired she still felt. They'd crammed wedding and coronations into the same day, along with more banquets and public ceremonies than he really remembered: they'd been up since dawn. And would be riding out at dawn tomorrow on a carefully calculated tour of key towns that had recommitted themselves to his sovereignty, where he'd be restoring Charter Stones and Sabriel would be patrolling for Dead.
Tentatively, he ran his hand down her back. "Can we - ?" he asked. "Or do you think we should get our sleep while we can?"
"It's our wedding night," she said, and kissed him.
Then she pulled back. "Before that - " She hesitated. "You and I have a duty to our bloodlines." Her fingers ran circles on his flank, his hip, his thigh. He swallowed, his focus narrowing to the sweet bursts of sensation created by her touch. "That means ... babies."
"I know. Some for you, some for me ... " He hoped they were as wise and steady as her. He kissed her mouth, then began to nibble down the line of her throat, feeling the pulse jumping beneath his lips, vivid as fire beneath her tranquil surface. She sighed, and then gasped when he rolled her over a little, his other hand coming up to stroke her breasts through her nightgown.
"Touchstone - wait." Her voice was unsteady.
He pulled back with an effort, suddenly anxious. In the darkness he couldn't make out her expression - what was wrong? Instinctively he pulled forth a Charter Mark for light, one of the softer ones: it hovered between them, a blurry star, and they both blinked to adjust their eyes.
"What's wrong? What did I do?"
"What? Oh. Touchstone, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you. You did nothing wrong. But you see - " It was rare for her pale cheeks to display much colour, but pale rose bloomed there now. It was rare for her to be so hesitant with him, yet she swallowed and bit her lip before plunging onwards with her words. "We didn't wait for the wedding, and so our ... our first baby is already on the way."
A child.
Touchstone sat up, urgently shoving the blankets back, pulling up her nightgown to stare at her flat stomach. "Are you sure?" he whispered. He reached out to touch, then froze, unsure.
"Of course. She or he was conceived a little more than two months ago. It's why I took that visit to the House last week - to shake that dratted cat awake for some questions."
Touchstone swallowed. He remembered the flying exit she'd made in the Paperwing ten days ago, forcing the rearrangement of several meetings. He'd thought she just wanted to escape Belisaere, worried she was regretting their engagement, evaded sly questions from scheming members of the court ... But all she'd been doing was ...
All she'd been doing was telling Mogget first. Not him.
"Touchstone. Jealousy is unbecoming." Sabriel sat upright too, voice stiffening. "I needed to ask, because I'd been in Death since conception, and ... wanted to know, before telling you, if the baby might have ... stayed in Death itself ... "
Oh, by the - Touchstone swallowed. Hating himself. But a few deep breaths, and he put it behind him, because she needed his support, not his self-recrimination. "I'm sorry, and I understand," he said, and reached out to gently touch her stomach. "What did Mogget say? Have there been pregnant Abhorsens?"
"Yes. Not many, since my predecessors have tended to inherit the job at a more advanced age than I did - but some. He said that if the baby - " She looked down at Touchstone's hand, tracing circles around her navel. The Charter light washed a golden tinge over her snowy skin, called tiny glints from the dense blackness of her hair. "If the baby is going to be the next Abhorsen, Death won't ever harm it. But if the baby isn't - if the baby is going to be of the Royal line, instead - while my spirit will provide it some protection, I shouldn't go into Death too often." She shivered. "Mogget didn't say why. I didn't want to ask further."
"That's only helpful information if there's a way to tell in advance," Touchstone said. His heart was doing funny things, every time Sabriel said the word "baby". Fatherhood had been a happy hypothetical an hour ago. Neither he nor his wife had exactly had a traditional relationship with their parents themselves ... what would it be like, raising a child? A few months into their new life and he knew they'd be obliged to eternally work and travel to excess ...
"He said once a month into Death should be safe. Which will be inconvenient, but - "
"But better than the alternative."
"I did some calculations. I've only been in Death three times since around the time of conception. The baby should be all right. I feel stupid, for not thinking ahead more clearly."
"Who of us was thinking clearly, in Kerrigor's aftermath?" He remembered funerals, hospitals, the long trek north, the claiming of his throne, the start of endless work with the Charter and the bells ... remembered clinging together in the nights, after the bewildering, overwhelming days.
Her gaze fixed on him, solemn as a statue. "Touchstone, I don't think we dare do this more than twice. One for each of us. I can't be constrained too often in my fight against the Dead."
"I know. I agree. Oh, Sabriel." He felt dreadfully ashamed of his flash of resentment before - but the guilt was being washed away with pure excitement. He wriggled forward in the bed, hugged her tightly. "No wonder you've been particularly tired," he said, amazed. "Isn't it a marvellous thing?" Their love would be enough, he thought. Whatever difficulties there might be, they would love the baby and every other aspect of parenthood would flow from there ...
She hugged him back, smiling. "I feel strange," she admitted. "Not just in my body, but my spirit. For once I think Life is stronger within me than Death."
He bore her down into the blankets, banishing the Charter Mark for light. "Sleep," he ordered into the dimness, tucking her in tightly between the blankets and his chest. "We'll shorten the wedding trip - or I'll do most of it, and you'll stay here."
"No," she said. "I'm the queen, as well as the Abhorsen. The people need to see me as well as you."
He'd revisit that argument tomorrow, when hopefully the stubborn note in her voice would have faded. "Then at least go to sleep now," he said, stroking her hair.
"No," she said again, and squirmed to get an arm free, bringing it up in the darkness to trace his face. "It's our wedding night, Touchstone."
"But," he said, and then shut up when her hand wandered somewhere else entirely.
"This won't hurt the baby, will it - ?" he whispered, a little later.
"You could benefit from a Biology lesson at Wyverley College," Sabriel said severely.
And then neither of them said anything more, being far too warm, excited and preoccupied. Outside, the world and future awaited them, neither especially friendly: but in their bed, they needed only each other for complete happiness.