As her time loomed near, Kvothe was afraid, a fear even greater than that she’d felt for the birth of her first child. A fear that eclipsed every other emotion; the grief of losing so much, the gratitude for this new beginning, the uncertainty that still filled her when she glimpsed the depths of Tyr’s desire for her. She just wasn’t ready— not to give herself to another, and certainly not to bring another life into this world.

The pain of losing Aslan was still as fresh, as raw as it’d been the night he’d rolled to a limp and lifeless stop at her hooves. In the hours that followed, she’d been too numb to think of anything but the present, too broken-hearted to refuse the comfort that the golden bachelor offered. But now… feeling the foal stir restlessly within her and clinging to him with a desperation born of her fear, the slender mare wished that she had. The thought of losing another child was unbearable, particularly when it felt like the only piece of her heart that was left to her. Ironclad had turned from her (her fault, it was her fault), Pike would be grown by now, Medusa must surely hate her, and everything else had been razed to ash and bone. Tragedy, it would seem, followed her wherever she went— and what little joy she found was fleeting.

Perhaps this was the reason for the careful distance that she cultivated between herself and Tyr. After all, she wasn’t opposed to the stallion’s company, or even his affection. In a way, she was even grateful for these things as a sign that she wasn’t so truly unworthy of love. But Kvothe could not bring herself to reciprocate any more than she could give up on the battle that she was destined to lose. Pacing in restless circles around the small sheltered clearing, the chestnut Friesian sought to escape the intensifying cramps in her belly… and failed. Dark eyes glassy with pain and terror, she finally stopped in the clearing’s center, head bowed and legs splayed wide apart. No, the word spun through the despair of her thoughts. No, no, no. Not now. Let it come tomorrow, or in a week, or a month. Let it come never, so long as I can hold him inside me and know that he is safe.

But neither nature nor her son would be denied even a moment longer.

Afterward, she would remember nothing save rolling back upright, her red skin sticky with sweat and her lean body aching. Behind her, the small (no, he was big, bigger than any of her children had been before) figure wriggled, tearing itself free of the membrane that encased it. Taking its first breaths, and then calling out to her with a voice that was both deeper and louder than she’d heard before. A voice not unlike his father’s. Whickering a gentle response, Kvothe scooted her body and stretched out her neck to rest her chin on the curve of the red boy’s flank. Breathless and beyond words, but communicating in this simple touch: I am here.

And then, with a brush of her lips across the small ridge of his spine: nothing will take you from me.