Noa wasn’t exaggerating at how hot the summer months would become. My skin stuck to everything it touch, soaking with sweat. I could barely find the strength to get out of bed most days, and I carried a fan around with me. Kaibi more or less followed me around, fanning me when he could. The only other person who seemed to be as affected by the heat was Ku’e. Her clothes soaked through with sweat, hair sticking to her forehead. She would come sit near me, hoping to catch some of the breeze from Kaibi’s fanning, or a soft breath of wind coming through the open windows. She had told me she was from the mountains, where it snowed almost every day, and it stayed cool year round.

The thought of laying in fresh snow cooled me some, but never gave me the energy to move. It didn’t help any my stomach was sticking out even more, making it harder for me to find comfortable positions to sit or lie in. Nor did it give me any comfortable peace of mind. The sooner it came to me giving birth, the more I felt hatred with myself. Ku’e tried to cheer me up by telling me all my fears would go away once I saw my child’s face. I bit down on the candy in my mouth, feeling the satisfying crack. It wasn’t fears, I explained to her. It was apathy. I didn’t care what happened to the infant, if it lived or died, if Noa would keep it or get rid of it. I was beginning to stop caring about myself, as well. I was just a warm body for him. Something to push out kids and look pretty, ever hoping he’d come ask for me to entertain him in the evenings.

I twisted the tissue paper that had held the cinnamon candy. Since Tal’kka and G’wala had left, I thought about their offer of visiting the east. It was rather intriguing, the first place I would go besides town since coming to this world. I decided to take matters into my own hands and told Kaibi that I wanted to talk to Noa. He left, Nu’ibi taking his spot as my man-made breeze. Morality told me to feel bad for the eunuchs, to do everything in my power to set them free, but my silent observations of this world saw them as something different than slaves. They had wanted this life, chose it in most cases. Something about entering noblemen’s life held immense status for the commoners. If they couldn’t marry rich, the next best thing appeared to be becoming a slave to the rich.

Ku’e was becoming my lady’s maid in a sense, and I assumed it was her way of making up for every slipping instance of my baby. She followed me almost everywhere, helped me with sitting and standing, even if I didn’t want her to. She was curating every one of my meals to be high in essential vitamins and made excuses for me when she was sure I didn’t want to be apart of any large groups. She helped me to my feet and walked with me to the entrance of the harem, Noa already waiting.

I shooed her off before he could speak. “Sae,” he held his hand out for me, “what does the mother of my heir need?”

I took it, reluctantly. “Ice, for one.” He shuffled down the hallway at my pace. “I want to visit the east before this thing comes out of me.”

He stopped. “Absolutely not.” He let go of my hand, crossing his arms. “That ‘thing’—as you’ve put it—could come out at any moment.” His ears flattened against his head. “It’s too risky. I’ll not have my child killed or my wife die because we can’t find adequate care.” I told him to stop worrying, that I had at least three more months. “How long is Ny’yom’an gestation?” He covered his mouth when I said it was nine months where I’m from. “Sae, vii’ta, Yu’ottuan children don’t need that long.”

I looked down at my middle, at how distended it had become. I had never been pregnant and found working with pregnant moms and childbirth to be too gruesome for me, so I didn’t have a clear basis of trimesters to go on. My gut told me it was too big for where I had assumed I was in my pregnancy, but I didn’t believe it. A trick of the mind, telling myself I was fatter than I was. I half expected to feel contractions, just to drive home Noa’s point that this baby could crawl out of me at any moment. I felt the light flutter of kicks instead. Maybe he was wrong, and my humanness was keeping the baby from developing at an abnormally fast rate. I remembered the miscarriage, at the small fetus, already with his animal ears forming.

“Then, after?” I didn’t bring myself to look at him. I kept rubbing my hands over my middle, trying to gauge how big the baby bump actually was.

“Maybe,” he said. “You’ll be a new mother, and I have to take into account your small size before we do it all again.” I froze at his words. My lurking suspicion that he would want male spares was true. I would become nothing but a body bag for his children. “Would you even want to travel with the child or be able to bear traveling without it?”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t want it, Noa,” I said. “For all I care, one of your other wives can raise it.”

I half expected him to slap me, instead he balled his hands into fists at his side. “Go back to the harem, Sae.” He released his fingers. “I’m busy, so if that’s all?”

I gave him the finger as I walked back down the hall to the harem. I knew he was watching me the entire time, he wouldn’t go back on his word now. G’wala was a one off, his own business with Tal’kka superseding the rules he put into place just earlier. He must not have seen G’wala as a threat to me. I didn’t know many men who’d want to take advantage of a pregnant woman, anyway. I took my spot by the window again, fanning myself with my discarded fan, one of the eunuchs returning to the duty of fanning me. I could barely think in the heat, my clothes and organs soaked through with sweat.

Time felt so still in the heat. Hours could’ve passed or it could’ve been minutes. I was becoming one with the cushion the longer I sat on it. I needed something cold, even if it was just a little bit of ice, just enough to put the tip of my pinky in. I would even gladly take tepid water, anything mildly cool was better than this heat. There was some commotion at some point. I wasn’t strong enough to get up to see what was happening, but Ku’e came over, walking fast, with two bowls in her hands. “Noa sent us ice dumplings.” She maneuvered around objects and people, coming closer. “Do you want mango or pomegranate, Sae?”

Her short white hair was sticking to her forehead by the time she got to me. I took the pomegranate from her, her tail wagging slightly at the prospect of having mango. They looked like shaved ice rolled into balls, the meat of the fruit wrapped inside each one. They froze my tongue, chilled my body from the inside out. “Ku’e,” her ears perked up, “when do you think I’m due?”

She set her bowl down and tapped my stomach with one hand, her other feeling for kicks. She repeated this a few times, placing her ear against my stomach. “A week or two.” Ku’e popped another ice round in her mouth. “You’re already leaking milk.” I looked at my chest, unable to tell the difference between what was sweat and what was milk through the soaked fabric. “There’s no need to worry, Sae. I’ve assisted most of the women in their births. I haven’t lost one since…”

Her eyes shifted to the bowl in her hands. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t Malawashi, and that her death wasn’t guaranteed to happen to me. Noa’s words, Tal’kka’s words floated through my head instead. I looked just like her besides the animal traits, who was to say I wasn’t a semi-reincarnation of her. I must have been brought to this world for a reason instead of dissipating in the ether, G’wala had to be right. The alternative would be much worse, to me. Some divine being was bored and wanted to shake things up, to drop me in an environment I didn’t know and watch as I descended into emotional pain all because they gave me to a rich man who was desperate for a son.

I had to get to the east. I felt my purpose was there, whatever it may be. Or more information to help me find it, and I felt G’wala had the information I sought. He saw me for what I was: someone from a different world who didn’t belong. Maybe he knew of a way for me to get back if he hadn’t heard me say Ny’yom’a. The vibrations in my words must not lie, then, even if the sound they heard did.

It cooled off considerably at night. It was still humid and hot, but the breeze was at least colder compared to the daytime. Ku’e moved herself into my small room, wanting to be with me in case contractions started in the middle of the night. It felt stuffy with her sleeping on the floor, one person too many for the open window to cool the room down. Sleep hadn’t come easy for me in the heat. What little sleep I could get ended with me waking up coated in sweat. It was even harder for me to get comfortable with the baby pushing up against different organs. If I had my way I would cut the baby out myself just so I could get another hour of sleep.

Every kick I felt had me convinced I had started having contractions. I felt each and everyone out, praying that when it decided to crawl out of me, the heat would die down even just by a single degree. Going through all that pain while I could barely move wasn’t ideal. And when they did start, I grabbed onto Ku’e, keeping her from walking away, and screamed. My stomach was being stabbed, burned, every muscle screaming out with me. She told me to breathe, ordering other women and eunuchs while she rubbed my shoulders and kept me standing.

Ku’e moved us from the main room to my room. She tried to coach my breathing, rubbing my back as she swayed with me. Tears stained her bare shoulder, dripping into her clothing and mixing with her sweat. She directed every object and person that arrived, never once leaving my side, until Noa showed up. He took Ku’e’s place swaying with me and keeping me upright. As the pain grew, I tried to push him away, screaming any and everything I could think to yell at him. That I hated him, that it’d be his fault if I died, that I would hate him forever, even if I did love him.

He shushed me, holding me a bit tighter. “I don’t know who this Nate is, but I won’t discard you, vii’ta.”

I found myself crying harder at my unknowing mixing of them both. Nate wasn’t Noa and Noa wasn’t Nate, no matter how much they looked alike. I hated Noa, I couldn’t bring myself to hate Nate when he was doing the same thing everyone had done. I wondered, in quiet moments, if he regretted his choice, if he knew I was dead, if he came to my funeral. I doubted he felt wholly disgusted with me when I told him, it was a reflex. Recoil from anything outside of the “normal.” And I wanted to recoil as my lower body turned numb, Noa the only thing keeping me standing.

Ku’e barked orders at me, each scream, each millimeter of my fingernails digging into Noa’s skin bringing this closer to the ending. The smell of sweat, blood, mixed with the hot summer air and the smell of desert roses. My sobs and the wailing of the infant turned into a piercing cacophony that joined with the chirps of the birds that frequented the garden. I was placed on the floor, Ku’e wiping the face of an infant with a wet cloth. “Benu,” Noa said, “after my grandfather.” A new wave of tears fell out of me at what that meant. It was a boy, the first of ninety-nine wives to give him a son. This would happen at least once more, he would need a spare in case his first son didn’t make it.