[Seraphine’s POV]
Aldric’s orders rolled across the courtyard like distant thunder.
“Ready the war riders! Double the scouts on the southern pass! No one enters or leaves without my command!”
I heard every sharp command through the open window, each one a nail driven deeper into my chest. Soldiers sprinted across the stones below, armor clattering, horses restless with the scent of impending pursuit. The castle wasn’t simply alert—it was coiled, preparing to strike.
If he discovers the truth… if he realizes the twins are missing because they existed at all… He will unleash war in their name.
My stomach twisted. I gripped the edge of the mattress to steady myself, breath tight and shallow. My body still felt wrong: hollow, aching, as if something vital had been carved out of me. Which, in truth, it had.
The door slammed open. Aldric entered without waiting for permission, half-armored, cloak sweeping behind him. He filled the chamber like a storm cloud, the scent of steel and sweat clinging to him. His hair was damp from the cold morning, jaw set in a hard line.
He looked at me—and stopped. His anger flickered into something else. Confusion, maybe. Concern.
“You’re pale,” he said. “Worse than this morning.”
“I’m recovering,” I said. “Slowly.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s the cold.”
“It’s not.”
His eyes were too sharp. They caught every flaw, every tremor, every thready breath. I tucked my hands beneath the blanket to hide them. He stepped closer.
“I need you to answer me, Seraphine. Elowen went straight to Blackharrow’s territory. That is not the action of a frightened servant.”
“I told you,” I said, trying to sound calm, “I did trust her as she tended to me, only to break it in the worst ways possible. Know nothing about her intentions."
“You lie.” He said it softly, without heat. As if stating a fact, he wished weren’t true.
I looked away. “Believe what you wish.”
He moved to the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his breastplate. “Elowen knows something. Something valuable enough to carry to our enemies.” He went on, quieter but sharper: “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing of use to Blackharrow.”
“Nothing of use to anyone,” he corrected, frustration edging in. “Yet she flees the same night you collapse.”
“She feared blame,” I whispered. “She feared punishment.”
“For what?”
“For letting me fall ill and letting me faint outside my chambers. She was always timid.”
Aldric stared at me long enough that the air between us thickened. He wasn’t convinced—nor should he be.
“You’re still not sitting properly,” he said abruptly. “Does your side hurt? Your ribs?”
“Only a little.”
“Show me.”
I stiffened. “No.”
His jaw tightened. “Seraphine.”
“Aldric, I can manage.”
But when I shifted even slightly, a bolt of pain lanced through my abdomen. I gasped before I could stop it.
Aldric’s expression changed instantly—anger dissolving into a pressure I’d never seen in him: fear.
“What pain is that?” he demanded. “Where?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re on the verge of collapsing again,” he snapped. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
He turned sharply toward the guards outside.
“Bring healers,” he barked. “Three of them. Now.”
“Aldric—”
“You’ll stay still until they arrive.” He sat beside the bed before I could protest, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. His presence felt too close, too heavy. He removed his gauntlets, setting them on the table with a thud.
He looked suddenly… human. Not the king who burned Eryndale, but a man who was frightened.
“You should have told me sooner,” he muttered, voice quieter. “I didn’t know you’d grown this weak.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you.”
“I would ride through fire to reach you,” he said, surprising us both. “I should have been informed the moment you faltered.”
I swallowed. “You were at war.”
“And what is a kingdom worth if the queen dies in my absence?” His voice cracked, barely audible. “I… I grabbed your arm too hard that night. I saw the bruising when I came in. I swore to myself I’d never touch you in anger again.”
His remorse disarmed me more than his rage ever had.
“Aldric…” My throat tightened. Something inside me buckled under the weight of too many truths. “I lost—”
Footsteps approached. I bit the words back violently. Not now. Not with healers coming.
The door opened, and three healers swept inside. They worked quickly: checking my pulse, pressing gently along my ribs and stomach. Each touch made my breath hitch. I willed them not to feel the hollow ache beneath my skin where hours-old birth still lingered.
“She’s weak,” one murmured. “Pulse unsteady.”
“Her body is strained,” another added. “She needs days of rest.”
Days I did not have.
A healer reached for the blanket to adjust it. Something slipped free and drifted to the floor—soft, white, edged in pale blue stitching.
My heart stopped. One of the newborn swaddling scraps.
Aldric saw the motion. Saw the scrap.
Everything inside me froze.
He bent, picked it up, and turned it over in his fingers. The cloth looked small in his hand—smaller, somehow, than when it had wrapped my daughter’s tiny body.
“This,” he said slowly, “isn’t castle linen.”
“It’s nothing,” I said too quickly.
His gaze flicked up. “It’s Eryndale work.”
My breath strangled. One of the healers began to speak, but Aldric silenced him with a raised hand.
“Where did this come from?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The walls felt too close. I felt cold and seen.
“Seraphine,” he said quietly, stepping closer. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. My stare fixed on the blankets, willing him to look away, to believe anything else.
His voice dropped lower—not angry now. Dangerous.
“You tremble,” he said. “You pale at the sight of a child’s cloth. You lie about your pain. You lie about Elowen.”
His fingers tightened around the scrap. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I forced myself to meet his gaze, and he saw everything in that moment. Not the truth, but the fear of it.
“Your Majesty,” one healer ventured, “her pulse is spiking—”
Aldric didn’t look away from me. “Leave us.”
The healers fled. Silence filled the chamber like smoke. Aldric stepped closer, until the torchlight glinted off the edge of his armor.
“Seraphine,” he said, voice hushed and lethal, “I know you’re hiding something.”
My heart pounded so fiercely I thought he might hear the truth in it.
“And I will find out what it is,” he whispered, “even if I must tear this castle apart stone by stone.”
His hand closed around the scrap of cloth, and the truth I’d been running from pressed its nails deeper into my ribs.
Aldric was not done. Not even close.