Octavia's POV
I woke midmorning to weak sunlight filtering through my chamber windows, feeling more exhausted than when I'd gone to bed. Sleep had become my enemy these past few days, ever since the confrontation in the garden shattered whatever fragile peace we'd managed to build.
Each night stretched endlessly, hours of turning and shifting, searching for a position that would quiet my racing thoughts and ease the growing ache in my lower back. Last night was no different. I'd lain awake listening to the sounds of the castle settling around me, my mind churning through possibilities and fears until I thought I might go mad from the weight of it all. The knowledge that war preparations were underway, that Darius was planning something he wouldn't share with me, made sleep impossible.
Finally, as dawn crept across the sky, I gave up entirely. I pulled on my thick woolen cloak and slipped quietly from my chambers, needing movement, needing to escape the suffocating confines of my own thoughts.
My steps were slow and uncertain as I wandered the castle corridors. I had no destination in mind, just the desperate need to be somewhere other than my bed, staring at the ceiling while questions multiplied in my mind like weeds.
The smell of baking bread drew me toward the kitchens, that warm, yeasty scent that reminded me of simpler times when my biggest worry was whether Cook would catch me stealing honey cakes before dinner. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and froze.
Leon stood near the storage shelves, his arms full of bread and dried fruit, obviously preparing provisions for his journey home. He turned quickly at the sound of the door, his blue eyes widening with surprise when he saw me.
"Octavia," he said, setting down the food. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I was just... gathering supplies for the road."
I stared at him for a moment, unable to find my voice. He looked tired too, I realized. There were shadows under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and painful realizations.
The golden hair I remembered from childhood was disheveled, and his clothes bore the wrinkles of a man who'd spent hours pacing his chambers instead of resting.
"I couldn't sleep either," I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we'd said and left unsaid. Then Leon's expression softened slightly, and a rueful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Do you remember when we used to sneak down here as children?" he asked, gesturing toward the pantry shelves. "You always insisted on taking the jam tarts, even though you knew they'd be missed at breakfast."
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me. The sound felt strange after so many days of tension and heartbreak, but also familiar in a way that made my chest ache with nostalgia.
"And you always talked me into it," I replied, stepping further into the warm kitchen. "You said Cook would blame the stable boys anyway."
"She usually did," Leon admitted, his smile growing more genuine. "We were terrible children."
"We were," I agreed, settling onto a wooden stool near the hearth where the banked coals still glowed with faint warmth.
Leon moved closer, leaning against the stone counter. In the soft light, he looked so much like the boy I'd known that it made my heart twist with old grief.
"I've missed this," he said quietly. "Talking with you. Hearing you laugh." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I've missed your laugh, Octavia. Do you remember how we used to dream about running away together? Finding some distant kingdom where no one knew who we were, where we could just be... us?"
My smile faded as the weight of what we'd lost settled over me again. I lowered my gaze to my hands, folded in my lap over the slight curve of my belly that was just beginning to show.
"We were children then," I said softly. "Children dream of impossible things."
"Were they impossible?" Leon stepped closer, his voice gentle but insistent. "Are they still?"
I looked up to find him studying my face with an intensity that made my breath catch. Without thinking, I reached out and touched his cheek with trembling fingers, feeling the familiar roughness of stubble that had been smooth when we were young.
Our eyes locked, and I felt tears gathering despite my efforts to hold them back. This was the boy who had protected me from my father's rages, who had taught me to shoot arrows and climb trees and believe that someday I might be free. This was the man who had offered me tenderness on the night before I was sent away to marry a stranger.
"Octavia," he whispered, his hand covering mine where it rested against his face.
I couldn't speak. The moment felt fragile as spun glass, heavy with all the words we'd never been allowed to say, all the futures we'd been forced to abandon. For just an instant, I let myself remember what it felt like to be loved without reservation, without politics or duty or the weight of kingdoms pressing down on my shoulders. Then a voice cut through the warmth like a blade.
"What are you doing here?"
Leon and I sprang apart as if we'd been burned, turning toward the kitchen door where Darius stood framed in the doorway. His dark eyes were locked on us with an intensity that bordered on violence. He was fully dressed despite the early hour, his hair still damp as if he'd just come from bathing. But it was his expression that made my heart stutter, cold rage mixed with something that might have been pain.
"Your Highness," Leon said, straightening to his full height. "I was preparing for my departure-"
"I wasn't speaking to you," Darius said, his voice deadly quiet. His gaze never left my face. "I was asking my wife what she's doing here, alone with you, at this hour."
Heat flooded my cheeks as I realized how this must look, me in my nightgown and cloak, Leon with his hands still reaching toward where I'd been sitting, both of us caught in what could only be interpreted as an intimate moment.
"I couldn't sleep," I said, my voice sounding weak even to my own ears. "I was just walking, and I found Leon here by chance."
"By chance," Darius repeated, and there was something deadly in his tone that made me remember what he became when the sun set. "How convenient."
Darius remained perfectly still in the doorway, but I could see the tension coiled in his shoulders, the careful control he was maintaining over whatever violent impulses were building inside him.