Someone has the idea of giving her a Ring of Sustenance so she doesn't need as much sleep to feel rested and it doesn't matter if she eats poorly. Some other people have herbal tonics and so forth. 

She can accept a ring of sustenance and whatever other treatments people have. It starts helping in a week, like it's supposed to; she starts feeling a little less exhausted, though she still has a lot of sleep debt to make up.

She's still fine with whatever her husband wants to try.

Then, he tells her, he will try to bear children by some other people, too. He would still like to see her most nights.

Then most nights she will keep seeing him. In the mornings she will stare at the ceiling and wonder how many other children he's going to have by other people. If she has any children, they won't really be special at all, in a sea of however many other half-brothers and sisters.

She supposes it shouldn't matter very much. He's never going to be hers again anyway.

The number of other children he is managing to have is, actually, zero! He doesn't tell his wife this because he feels awful about it, in a bunch of complicated and distracting ways - he's hurting her, and he would be able to stop if he had heirs, and the situation is putting a lot of pressure on her, and also presumably she meant to marry a man, and he is obviously less of one, if -

- the problem, insofar as he can diagnose it, is that he doesn't like having sex with women he hates at all. They can try to get him into it - they're honestly much better at trying than Korva - but he hates them, for being of this palace, for being stupid, for being cooperative, for being the pharaoh's rather than his, for being scared and cooperative and conspicuously defenseless and -

- every time he tries he feels sick afterwards, for hours, and he usually doesn't get off and he's pretty sure that means it won't work. Also people will probably talk, and rumors cause wars, these days, and -

With Korva it's different, even now.

She's not very good at trying. Or maybe she is, it takes a lot of trying to be still and be quiet and not complain and not flinch or turn away, no matter how much it hurts or how horrible it makes her feel. But she doesn't think about him very much. Sometimes she pretends it isn't him at all, that she never married anyone and that he and Fazil and Mahdi left her trapped in Numeria, years ago, and that that's where she is now.

Sometimes she wonders why he still bothers. Not for children, she thinks, he'll have plenty of those now. So it has to be that he likes having sex with her. Even when she's hurting and terrified, even when she can't process what he's saying to her, even when it's killing her.

It's what she's for. Not any good at having kids. Not any good at having conversations. Not even any good at this. But she's his wife, so he's entitled to use her for this if that's what he wants.

It takes several more months of trying. She doesn't know how many; it's too hard to keep time. Eventually she stops bleeding again, although it takes her quite a while to notice this. The morning sickness is a little less bad, this time. She doesn't tell him before she has to. She doesn't want to get his hopes up, or look like she's trying to get out of anything. (It probably wouldn't matter anyway; children aren't the point anymore.)

When she can feel the baby moving, she tells him over dinner, as blandly as she tells him everything else.

" - okay. I'm - really glad - do you think you should be on bedrest again - I missed you a lot but if it helps then it helps, right -"

She blinks at him.

"I don't know."

" - well. Okay. I guess we'll ask the doctors and do what they say?"

"That makes sense."

"Do you want to go back to your rooms right now - it couldn't hurt if we have one more night together, right -"

"I wouldn't expect it to."

So he will take her back to his rooms and cuddle her quietly. 

"I love you so much, you know. I know that this is hard, and you've been sick, and you've been so unhappy, and I know I've asked of you more than anyone has the right to ask of another person - but we'll get through it -"

She's not really very good at listening while she's touching him. Or at talking. She can nod, though. Nodding is usually okay.

"Did you want anything?"

"- I think we're not supposed to, it's bad for the baby. Or might be, and it would be really silly to take chances for something that - uh, that you don't even seem to really like - not that I'm upset, I'm really not -"

- well of course she doesn't like it. 

Maybe she's supposed to be doing a better job of hiding that.

"Okay."

Lean. "Did you want anything?"

Headshake.

"I'm going to miss you a lot."

...nodnod?

"Is there anything I can send that'd - help - so you're not bored -"

"I don't know."

"Charm Person."

She starts crying.

"Hey. Hey, I'm sorry. I just thought - if it was going to be our last conversation for a while - I miss when we would really talk to each other -"