"Does your stomach hurt?"
Only after feeding her to his heart's content did he apparently begin worrying, gently rubbing just below her ribs as he asked.
Talia gave a small shake of her head.
"I'm fine."
"...I heard you were examined by the priestess today. Did she say anything in particular?"
Wrapped in a fullness she couldn't remember experiencing for ages, Talia's body quietly tensed.
When she'd first learned she was pregnant, she'd been curious about how Varkas would react.
But now that he was sitting right in front of her, she couldn't bring herself to say the words.
After hesitating for a long while, Talia muttered awkwardly,
"...Nothing much. She just told me to eat well and get plenty of rest for a while."
"..."
"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."
As she squirmed beneath the blanket, avoiding his gaze, she felt the arm around her back tighten.
Talia cautiously looked up.
Varkas was staring intently at her through narrowed eyes.
"Is there truly nothing you wish to tell me?"
Talia swallowed dryly.
"...No."
"There is."
Strength entered his voice.
Talia raised the corners of her eyes.
So much for everyone promising they wouldn't say a word until I did. In the end, they told him everything.
Avoiding the gaze that seemed capable of seeing straight through her, she shot back irritably,
"What is there to say? You already know."
"What exactly is it that I know?"
"Stop pretending! You already heard about it. Isn't that why you're asking?"
"If I already knew, why would I go to the trouble of asking?"
Varkas calmly countered.
Talia looked at him suspiciously.
"...You really haven't heard anything?"
"I haven't."
His answer was so steady, without the slightest hesitation, that her suspicion gradually faded.
Perhaps the head maid had merely hinted that she had something she wished to tell him.
Talia moistened her increasingly dry lips.
Brushing the hair away from her forehead, Varkas gently urged,
"Then please tell me. What did the priestess say?"
"W-Well... lately I've been sleepy all the time... and exhausted..."
Her voice cracked pitifully.
Gathering saliva in her mouth, Talia swallowed before cautiously studying his expression.
The firelight from the hearth draped warm shadows across his cool features.
That unexpectedly gentle appearance instantly melted away the strange fear stirring deep inside her.
"It's because... there's a baby growing inside me."
Without moving at all, he simply looked down at her.
Yet Talia could clearly see the silver flecks within his blue eyes shimmering like ripples on water.
Letting out a deep sigh that seemed to rise from the depths of his chest, he rested his forehead against her shoulder.
At the same time, his large hand, the veins standing out beneath the skin, came to rest over her abdomen.
The hand that had always seemed so refined completely covered her stomach.
"...It seems I'll have to take even better care of you from now on."
His breath, rumbling softly like a great cat's purr, tickled her ear.
For some reason, she felt as though she might cry.
Biting her lip, Talia waited a long time before finally managing to answer in an even voice.
"That's right. You'll have to take even better care of me from now on."
"I will."
In contrast to his almost blunt reply, the hand caressing her stomach was incomparably gentle and careful.
Suddenly, she remembered the first time they had met.
Back then, when the entire world had felt unbearably cold, these very hands had wrapped her in warmth.
The memory of that day, which had sometimes felt like a curse, no longer hurt quite so much at this moment.
Curled up in his embrace, she buried her cheek against the broad chest where his steady heartbeat echoed beneath her ear.