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And it shows in the way I practically jump on Veyrion as soon as he returns from his meeting with the chamberlain.

I won’t go into the details of how thoroughly I distract myself, but at the next suns-set, Rinthiah comes looking for me.

“The goats said you never made it outside. Are you sick with one of those colds you humans—oh no, Sovereigness, not again !”

“I’ve told you to call me Sallie Rose,” I remind her—with as much dignity as I can manage while trapped inside the granite embrace of his arms while we both sit in obvious mid-coitus upon his throne.

At least I’m comfortable with my legs wrapped around his stone waist (thank goodness I learned my lesson not to ever, ever sit on top of him in a kneeling position for throne sex after the last time the suns caught us out).

And thanks to him being inside me, his staff remains untouched by the rays of the two suns setting on our side of the castle.

That means, whenever I get too bored during the hours it takes before he can release me from his stone embrace, I’ve diverted myself with several rounds of Can I move my hips enough to get both myself and my mostly granite husband off?

The answer to that question is yes .

Rinthiah tuts after she climbs the shadowed side of the throne stairs, where the sunlight doesn’t reach, and finds the mess we’ve made where our private parts are still very much joined.

“I avow, you two have made me happy to have mated with a female. The state of you!” She stomps back down the stairs to bring out the bath, which has become a permanent fixture in our room.

“You and the king's seat will require a most thorough cleaning, and there are tens of people waiting outside the door to meet with you for throning hours!”

“How many of those people are requesting garlands?” I shoot back with a Veyrionesque lift of my eyebrow. “Because I absolutely refuse to hear one more complaint from those whiny nobles.”

Rinthiah drags over the bathtub. “Alright then, you have nine people wishing to meet with you—don’t you dare, Sire!”

Proving how much less obsequious she’s become since my ascendance to the throne, she rushes up the stairs to bat at the king when he tries to immediately resume where he left off the moment he uncasts.

So, that eve we’re both impatient and horny.

And get this, only five of the throne meetings are legit.

The other four are nobles with frivolous requests like more taarhorn soap in the castle stores—immediately followed by an offer to give me coin I don’t need in exchange for a flower crown, since their Door Gravels are charging them outrageous prices.

I don’t want to call the Door Gravels petty. But they’ve taken what I taught them and started bartering with their nobles for things like better treatment contracts, weekends off, and back-to-back vacation for half a moonscycle now that we’re no longer banned from tourist cities like Pridehaven.

Veyrion is rather amused by what he calls “the nature jewelry economy,” but nonetheless, he cancels throning hours for the duration of my pregnancy.

“I do not wish to cause you any more undue stress,” he tells me after trying and failing yet again to get me to talk about our upcoming delivery.

So, I don’t find myself sitting on top of my throne again until six moonscycles later, when my womb starts to painfully contract.

And then the scene is… well, bizarre isn’t even the word for it.

“Are you sure this is how I’m supposed to deliver?” I ask Yerivian for what has to be the thousandth time.

I’m sitting on my throne with my legs bent wide on either side of me, ankles bound to the backs of my thighs with a couple of Veyrion’s shadow bands… while the king himself licks my straining sex with even more enthusiasm than when he has it trapped between his face and a stone wall.

“Yes,” Yerivian assures me again. “Coaxing the egg out in this manner is a time-honored tradition among our kind. And perhaps this strange human female design feature of having your pleasure gland located on the outside of your sex will aid in your delivery. But you appear nervous. Are you certain you do not want me to invite your wonderful father in to hold your hand? He’s right outside the doors and eager to?—”

“No!” I assure him. “I have zero wish for him to see me this way.”

Though I do appreciate that Veyrion reaches up from his kneeling position to take hold of my hand as he continues to “coax” the egg.

“You are doing so very well, Sovereign,” Yerivian encourages. Then he turns his attention back to me. “Did the king not discuss any of this with you beforehand?”

“I mean, he tried… but I kind of shut him down,” I admit.

To be fair, I was way too terrified to have a reasonable conversation about the possibility of laying an egg like a barnkip instead of giving live birth.

Honestly, I didn’t believe it was a real possibility until Yerivian put a finger up there after the contractions started and said, “Yes, I feel the egg’s tip. Sovereign, it is now time for you to do your part.”

And that was pretty much all the warning I got before my unexpected coaxing.

On hindsight, laying an egg—versus trying to give live birth to something with a set of wings—was probably the best-case scenario for my “weak” human body.

Still, I kind of wish I hadn’t given myself quite so much grace.

I have questions. Lots and lots of questions.

Which I don’t get to ask because Veyrion starts fluttering his tongue over my clit in that way that never fails to drive me crazy.

“Oh! Oh!” I start having contractions of a very different kind.

And the next thing I know, Veyrion’s catching a baby-sized egg that appears to be made of a thin-but-somehow-supple purple granite shell.

And then Yerivian swoops in for another gloved examination.

“No tearing!” he cheers. “I was worried, considering...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—my weak human body,” I finish for him.

He blushes that dark gray my father loves so much— moons, I hope Yerivian doesn’t ever recount this delivery story to Dad .

The shadow bands disappear, and I’m able to let down my legs as Veyrion regards me with the most tender of looks over the purple egg.

“Thank you for giving me legacy, my flower. I did not think it possible, but my love for you has grown bigger and brighter than the two suns.”

More poetry. I smile back at him just as happily, even as Yerivian completes the not-nearly-as-romantic task of applying the taarhorn tape to my sex and pulling my shift back down.

Then Veyrion carefully places the large purple egg into my arms. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before—and incredibly hard to describe without scientific language, which I do not have.

But even in this form, wrapped inside a shell, the egg feels like life, and I can sense the baby inside its confines.

“Now what?” I ask after several wondrous moments of staring at our egg-baby in awe.

Veyrion smiles gently. “Well, there are a few rituals we must perform to thank the Eryx moon for our blessing. Also, we have protection and intention markings to apply with black paint.”

“No surprise there,” I say with a tired chuckle.

I’m finding out the Stone Fae have a ritual for everything. Though I did dip out of the part of the post-wedding ceremony where they smeared themselves in Seraphyne’s blood and moved the festivities outside for what sounded like a seriously feral dance party.

Veyrion continues, stroking a hand over the shell. “And then, we will place our babe in the castle egg room for twenty solars until it is ready to be born.”

I blink, snapping back to the conversation at hand. “Say what now?”

Both Veyrion and Yerivian give me baffled looks. Yerivian asks, “Hold on—is this not how it goes for humankind?”

“No!” I flare my eyes at him. “What did you think I meant by live birth ???”

Yerivian shakes his head. “To be truthful, I was not quite sure, which is why I kept suggesting we make Oak part of the proceedings. He really is quite knowledgeable.”

“About plants! Plants ! Not live births!” I answer, rubbing my temple as if that might make this conversation make more sense.

“Are you honestly saying humans take care of their progeny from birth ?” Yerivian asks.

Veyrion shakes his head. “Even when they are in such a weak state that they can neither physically nor mentally care for themselves?”

“Yes!” I all but shout. “Human equals weak as flower petals. We’re born weak, and our parents take care of us until we develop into slightly less fragile adults.”

There’s a long silence.

Then Yerivian says, “Well, that is unbelievably inefficient. But that explains why Oak was so surprised when I told him before we signed our partnering papers that I was forty-two solars. He assumed me to be in my sixties, like him, and I could not believe he was the same age as my father.”

I goggle at him—then do the math on my husband.

“Wait, are you saying you’re nearly fifty solars old???”

“No, I am twenty-eight,” Veyrion answers, as if I’m the crazy one. “I cracked my gestational egg twenty-eight solars ago.”

I stare at my apparently forty-eight-solars-old husband and have to ask. “Then how old is Kinnarick.”

“Seven,” he answers. “He will soon be the youngest Ironwing Commander in our kingdom’s history.”

Oh. My. Moons.

I thought we were done with all the drama and misunderstandings, but?—

“Are you telling me we won’t meet this baby for another twenty years ? Like, we’ll miss every single moment of them growing up?”

I can’t help it. I break down crying.

And Veyrion’s baffled look softens into one of understanding.

“I am sorry, my flower. I did not understand our species were so different, or that we held such opposite values around this subject.”

He pulls me as close as he can with the egg still in my arms. “I will understand if you regret accepting my proposal for something so permanent as marriage now.”

One of the many things I’ve learned over the last solar as the Stone Fae Queen: Most people in Lunaterra partner, mate, or—on a slightly more binding note— consort.