The examination was scheduled for the twelfth day.
Physician Aldric had requested it formally — a full prenatal assessment, he had said, because the situation was unusual enough to require a complete medical record at each stage. He had said unusual in the careful, qualified way of a man who had decided that unusual was doing an enormous amount of work and he was going to let it keep working rather than name what he actually meant.
Serena had agreed because she needed the information. Because Maren was three hundred miles away and she was twelve weeks pregnant with twins whose bloodline apparently hadn't existed for three centuries, and the decision to have the most qualified physician available monitor that pregnancy was not a difficult one.
She had agreed to Elder Voss being present b
