Watermelon
Dumpling screams at four in the morning.
Not because he’s hungry. His bowl is full—I checked at two, when my bladder declared independence and demanded immediate tribute. He screams because the hour of the Tiger is his hour, and I need to know he exists.
I know. I’ve known for months. I will continue to know until one of us dies, and given our respective situations, that’s going to be him.
Beside me, Ren’s hand finds my belly in sleep.
His palm settles against the curve like it belongs there, warm and broad and steady.
Something in his face softens. Not quite a smile.
Something quieter. Something that looks like peace, or as close to peace as an emperor gets at four in the morning when his wife’s cat is yowling at the moon.
The baby kicks against his hand.
He smiles then. Definitely a smile. I watch it happen in the half-dark, the way his mouth curves without his permission, the way his fingers spread wider like he’s trying to catch more of her movement.
Something warm crawls under my ribs.
Inconvenient. I’m supposed to be annoyed about the screaming cat and the aggressive bladder and the tiny dictator using my organs as a percussion set. Instead I’m watching my husband smile in his sleep and feeling things I don’t have names for.
Eight hundred years. You’d think I’d have run out of new feelings by now.
Dumpling screams again, louder this time, putting his whole orange body into it.
“Acknowledged,” I tell him. “Your existence is noted and resented.”
He purrs. Insufferable creature. I love him more than I should love anything this annoying.
Getting out of bed is a production in three acts.
Act One: the roll. This involves rotating my entire body toward the edge of the mattress while trying not to wake Ren, which is impossible because the mattress dips and my elbow inevitably lands somewhere uncomfortable and the baby takes the opportunity to lodge a formal complaint via my ribcage.
Act Two: the lever. This is the part where I attempt to use my arms to push myself upright, discover that my abdominal muscles have gone on permanent vacation, and reconsider my entire life.
Act Three: the slow, undignified hoist. Both hands on the mattress. Legs swinging over the side. A complete abandonment of any pretense at grace, dignity, or the assassin mystique I spent centuries cultivating.
I’ve scaled palace walls. Crossed rooftops in the dark. Fought on moving ships in monsoon season. Once climbed out of a catacomb while partially on fire.
None of that prepared me for “standing up while pregnant.”
The physician arrives at dawn, all cheerful efficiency carrying measuring instruments I’ve stopped trying to understand. She does this every week now—charts and calculations and that particular smile medical professionals develop when they’re about to say something their patient won’t like.
“Excellent,” she announces, consulting her notes. “The baby is approximately the size of a honeydew melon now.”
I stare at her.
“Last month she was a mango.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Growing right on schedule.”
“The month before that, a pomegranate.”
“Correct. The progression has been textbook.”
“I’m growing a fruit salad.”
The physician’s smile doesn’t waver. This woman has been delivering imperial babies for thirty years. She’s seen worse than my commentary. “In approximately four weeks, she’ll be the size of a watermelon.”
A watermelon.
I’m going to be carrying a watermelon. While trying to walk. While my spine has submitted a formal complaint to whatever cosmic authority handles these things, and my hips have begun negotiations for early retirement.
“Wonderful,” I say. “That’s wonderful news.”
It does not sound wonderful. It sounds like unconditional surrender.
The physician pats my hand with the gentle condescension of someone who has heard every variation of pregnancy complaint and is no longer impressed by any of them. “You’re doing beautifully, Your Highness.”
I am doing beautifully. Like a ship that’s beautiful while sinking. Like a building that’s beautiful while on fire. Like any other magnificent disaster in progress.
She dismisses me once she is happy and I waddle off to my next appointment.
The nursery is perfect.
This is the problem.
Wei stands in the doorway like he’s guarding a military installation, arms crossed, expression set in that particular configuration that means he’s found seventeen things to worry about and is planning to address all of them before lunch.
“The window latches have been reinforced,” he reports. “Three locking mechanisms. Can’t be opened from outside.”
“We’re four stories up.”
“Ladders exist, Your Highness.”
“Wei.”
“Siege towers exist. Grappling hooks. Determined climbers with sufficient motivation.” He pauses, as if considering additional threats. “Birds. Large ones.”
“No one is going to siege tower a nursery.”
He gives me the look. The one that says he’s been a soldier for forty years and he knows exactly what people will and won’t do, and my optimism is noted but not shared. It’s the same look he gave me the first time I suggested the guards didn’t need to follow me to the bathroom.
“I’ve prepared a briefing document,” he says.
Of course he has.
“Threat assessments. Guard rotations. Evacuation protocols.” He produces a scroll from somewhere—the man has an endless supply of scrolls—he must be colluding with Jing. “Three different escape routes, depending on the nature of the incursion.”
“The nature of the—”
“Fire, armed intrusion, or supernatural threat. Each requires different response timing and personnel allocation.” He hands me the scroll. “Page four covers the supernatural contingencies. I consulted with Tianlong on appropriate countermeasures.”
I should argue. I should point out that this is excessive, that the baby is not yet born, that preparing detailed tactical responses to supernatural nursery invasions is perhaps a step beyond reasonable caution.
But Wei lost his son. Just sixteen years old. A boy who thought he was a man, dying for duty he was too young to carry.
“Thank you,” I say instead. “For the briefing document.”
He nods once. Gruff. Satisfied. This is how he says he cares—in guard rotations and threat assessments and three-page sections on supernatural countermeasures.
I’ll take it.
Jing finds me in the corridor outside the library, arms full of scrolls and that particular gleam in her eye that means she’s discovered something she needs to share immediately, whether or not the recipient is prepared.
“I’ve completed the curriculum,” she announces.
“You said that last week.”
“I’ve expanded it. Significantly.” She falls into step beside me—or tries to, adjusting her pace for my significantly reduced speed.
The scrolls wobble dangerously. “Language acquisition begins in the womb. Studies across three dynasties suggest that infants recognize patterns of speech they heard before birth.”
“Studies across three—”
“I’ve compiled recordings of classical poetry. Diplomatic correspondence formats. Basic mathematical concepts that can be read aloud during the final trimester to establish foundational neural pathways.”
“Mathematical concepts. For a fetus.”
“Early exposure establishes recognition patterns. The child doesn’t understand the mathematics, obviously, but the rhythm and structure—”
“She doesn’t have ears yet.”
“She does, actually. Since week eighteen. Fully functional auditory processing has been confirmed. She can hear your heartbeat, your voice, possibly Dumpling’s screaming, although that last one might explain certain personality traits that emerge later—”
I stop walking. Partly because Jing is overwhelming me with prenatal development facts I didn’t ask for. Partly because my back has decided that three consecutive minutes of being upright is its absolute limit today.
“That’s... very thorough.”
“You deserve thorough,” Jing says simply.
Something catches in my chest. Ambush of feelings.
I was not prepared for Jing to look at me like that—like it’s obvious, like of course I deserve thorough, like this young woman who once brought me tea I didn’t drink has somehow decided that my child is worth scrolls and research and mathematical concepts for fetuses and three-dynasty literature reviews.
“Thank you,” I manage.
She beams like I’ve given her a gift instead of the other way around.
Mei finds me before lunch. She appears in that way she has—suddenly present, as if she’s been there all along and I simply failed to notice. Her stillness is a kind of art form. I’ve known her for months and I still can’t predict when she’ll materialize.
“The situation is managed,” she announces.
“Which situation?”
“The ministers who were expressing concern about the succession timeline. Their concerns have been... addressed.”
“Addressed how?”
“Effectively.”
I decide I don’t need details. Mei’s version of “addressing concerns” tends to involve either blackmail, strategic information releases, or pointed reminders about what happens to people who irritate the imperial spymaster.
All three options are likely preferable to whatever the ministers were planning.
“The betting pools are active,” she adds, tone unchanged.
“Betting pools.”
“On the baby’s arrival date. Lady Chen has next week—she’s been watching your walking speed and has developed a theory about hip positioning. The kitchen staff are collectively backing the new moon, based on a folk tradition involving lunar cycles and first pregnancies.”
“Everyone in this palace has too much time.”
“Everyone in this palace has exactly the right amount of time,” Mei corrects. “They’re simply choosing to spend it invested in your happiness.”
She says it like it’s nothing. Like an entire palace betting on when my daughter will arrive is perfectly normal. Like people caring is just something that happens.