Author's Note: Well, I think this story is getting closer to the end. I don't see a lot of new chapters on the horizon. Thank you for sticking with me thus far! Love you!

Tamora Pierce. All I need to say.

Chapter 24: I Will Not Lose Her

April 446 H.E.

The birth of the new sister was almost as disastrous as the labor for Marinine.

The expecting period had been tense for Alanna. The visit from her children had brought her out of despair, but it had not destroyed the pain completely. Now that she knew her son and daughter, missing them was impossible not to do. The sweetness of Marinine and the intelligence of Jasson had been undeniable, and Alanna knew that their dispositions would have lightened the palace. She struggled to find the same temperaments in headstrong Kalasin and fearless Thom and clever Roald and light-hearted Alan. She did not love her other children less for not being Marinine or Jasson, but she wished more so than ever that she could see her brood together.

This labor lasted from before noon to the wee hours of the next day, and Alanna struggled and pushed and sweated and prayed and cried through it all. But finally, finally, Eleni wrapped the new infant in a clean cloth and handed her to Jonathan.

Jonathan cradled the tiny girl in his arms as he looked at her delicate features. There was the red fuzz dusting her scalp, there was the bright violet blinking eyes.

"She looks like Marinine," Alanna breathed. "Except for her eyes."

"In more ways than one," Eleni whispered with tight lips. "Alanna, this one is much like Mari in the ways of her health. I fear…" The healer dare not say her thoughts, remembering how desolate Alanna was. Please, Mother, do not take this one, or I fear her mother will not be long afterward.

Alanna knew what her stepmother meant. "She will not die," was the Lioness' only reply as she took the babe from her husband's arm. Alanna had not shared the midnight visit of her dead children with anyone but Jonathan. The moment was too private to be shared, and it would mean that the queen would have to explain the Great Mother Goddess' habit of dropping in on her chosen.

Through the night, Jonathan kept watch over his wife and child. Many were called to help her, but the general opinion was that the child would follow her sister to the grave. Offerings in shrines and temples were lit throughout the kingdom, both for the child and her mother. Prayers were muttered on bended knee, begging the Goddess to protect the sanity of the queen.

Had Alanna known of this outpouring of love for her by the Tortallan people, she would have been embarrassed. But her world no longer consisted between the Emerald Ocean and the edge of Scanra. Her world was the sporadically beating heart of her daughter.

Nearing noon of the next day, Jon suggested that they choose a name for the princess. He did not say whether it would be for the gravestone or the child, but it was something to distract his Lioness, whose violet eyes had yet to leave the child's face.

"A name?" Alanna blinked. "I've got no idea, Jon."

Jon puckered his mouth as he thought. "What about 'Alanna'?"

"No."

Jon continued to ponder, as he rubbed circles on his wife's tense shoulder. "We've used Thayet's mother's name, and your mother's name. How about my mother's name?"

"Lianne?" Alanna asked distractedly.

"Mhm," Jon nodded. He looked down at the tiny infant. "What do you think?"

"Does she look like a Lianne to you?"

She gazed back down at the object of her intense study. The tiny blue veins just visible on the forehead, the jerky motions, the soft spot under the sparse red tendrils of hair…Lianne?

"Let's ask the others," Jon suggested, sensing that Alanna could not focus. The children were brought to the room.

"We want to name your sister. Do you have any ideas?"

"I don't know any girl'th nameth," replied Thom, talking around his missing two front teeth.

Kalasin immediately rattled off all the names of her dolls.

"Um…um…um…" mumbled Roald.

Alan just smiled pleasantly and shrugged his shoulders. "Sistah?"

"What about Lianne?"

"A what?"

"Lianne? Does she look like a Lianne to you?"

"A-lianne?" asked Kalasin, mishearing Jon. "Alianne? I like that name. We could call her Aly for short. Kally and Aly!" She laughed delightedly.

"Alianne?" Jon asked, his eyebrows raised.

Alanna smiled. "I like Alianne. If you don't mind, Jon. It is your mother."

"No," Jon returned Alanna's smile, hoping his wasn't as thin and tired as hers was. "I like it."

"Alianne," Alanna whispered. "Be brave, Alianne."

Duke Baird entered the room. "Your Majesties. Your Highnesses." He bowed to the king and queen, and then their children. "I'm afraid that there is not much else I can do for your daughter."

"Her name is Alianne!" cried Kally, before Thayet, who had come to monitor the royal children, could shush her.

Baird acknowledged Kally's outburst with a nod, but he remained silent, waiting for the parents' response.

Alanna said fiercely, "She will not die. I will not lose her."

Jon and Thayet exchanged a look as they watched their Lioness fight for her cub.

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