[Aldric’s POV]
The scrap of cloth lay between my fingers, its blue Eryndale stitching catching the dim light. Delicate work. Too delicate to be found in a stable.
Across from me, Seraphine held herself rigid. Only her eyes betrayed her—wide, guarded, fixed on the cloth as if it were a blade at her throat.
“What is this?” I asked.
Her swallow was visible. “A… remnant. Eryndale weaving. It reminded me of home.”
“Home,” I echoed.
“It must have snagged on my gown,” she added quickly. “When Rowan carried me. Perhaps from some old storeroom cloth.”
It was plausible. It was also a lie.
“Strange,” I murmured, “that a simple scrap of linen makes you tremble.”
“I’m ill,” she whispered. “Everything makes me tremble.”
But when I smoothed the stitching with my thumb, panic flickered across her face: small and sharp, but real.
“You’re lying to me,” I said quietly.
Her jaw tightened. “Not about anything that matters.”
My temper sparked. “Everything in this castle matters. Everything touches my reign. My people. My life.” I held her gaze. “Including you.”
Before she could speak, the door creaked.
Rowan stood in the threshold: too comfortable there, too alert. His eyes darted from her pallor to the cloth in my hand.
“You again,” I said, voice cold. “Why are you here?”
He stepped inside without hesitating. “Your Majesty. You summoned healers. I came to see if the queen needs anything further.”
“I did not summon you.”
“No,” he agreed calmly, “but she would never call for me while you’re in the room.”
The soft tone only sharpened the insult. My jaw clenched. “You presume too much, Rowan.”
Seraphine hissed, “Rowan—”
He ignored her, nodding at the cloth. “That from the stables? Old laundry. Those lower stores hide centuries of cast-offs.”
“You sound certain,” I said.
“I grew up in these halls,” he replied. “I know where decay hides. If it alarms you, I’ll order every rag in the stable wing burned.”
“It’s not the cloth that alarms me,” I said. “It’s confusion.”
He stepped closer, positioning himself just slightly between us. “Then ask me, not her. I carried her through filth. She’s in pain. Every raised voice worsens it.”
Seraphine flinched, whether from pain or humiliation.
“She’s hiding something,” I said.
“She’s hiding grief,” Rowan shot back. “She’s lost Eryndale, her family, and now the only healer she trusted. You storm in from war and interrogate her like a criminal—what should she do? Break open for your convenience?”
“You speak boldly,” I said slowly. “For a man who once swore me fealty.”
“I swore to the crown,” Rowan said, voice low, “not to stripping her dignity while she’s barely standing.”
I should have had him dragged out by his hair. Instead, a weariness pressed against my ribs.
I looked at Seraphine. Her lips were pale, tight. She wasn’t defending him—or me; she looked afraid. And that… unsettled me more than her tremors.
“You are dismissed,” I said at last. “Both of you. Stay in this wing until I permit otherwise.”
Seraphine’s voice wavered. “Aldric—”
“I will find Elowen,” I said. “And when I have answers, you will give me yours.”
I left before something in me softened further.
***
The castle whispered like a nest of serpents, and I hunted their whispers.
Maris, the chambermaid, twisted her apron nervously. “The queen stopped attending meals, sire. At first, we thought it was because you were away… then she simply refused to leave her chambers.”
A guard on her corridor shifted uneasily. “Her gowns grew looser, Your Majesty. Some said she lost weight. Others said she gained. Forgive me—I mean no insult—”
“Who ordered her gowns changed?” I cut in.
“Elowen,” he replied. “Said the queen needed comfort. Extra layers.”
Layers. Concealment disguised as care. The head seamstress wrung her hands when I questioned her.
“Elowen brought the new measurements herself. No fittings allowed. Said Her Majesty, Queen Seraphine, tired easily.”
“How long?” I demanded.
“Since early winter. Four or five moons.”
Too long. Too deliberate.
“Did Elowen take anything unusual upstairs?” I asked.
“Tonics for nerves. For sickness.” She hesitated. “And she stopped requesting the monthly tinctures.”
My blood chilled. “Stopped?”
“Yes… months ago. Said Her Majesty didn’t need them.”
Didn’t need monthly herbs. Gowns enlarged. Daily visits. Seclusion. A pattern forming like frost on glass.
All afternoon I moved like a man walking through smoke—voices distant, maps a blur. My eyes kept returning to the scrap of cloth. Seraphine’s shaking hands. The look she gave me the moment I touched it.
Not grief. Not fear. Guilt.
I shed my crown, pulled on a cloak, and slipped into the corridor alone.
***
Two guards stood at Seraphine’s door. They straightened when they saw me.
“No one enters without my leave,” I said.
Her chamber was dim, lit only by the dying stub of a candle. Moonlight cut across the bed in a pale stripe. She slept on her side, with her face turned toward the shutter. Her hair spilled across the pillow like spilled ink. Even in her sleep, her forehead was furrowed with tension, as if she were preparing for something. She looked smaller than I remembered. Breakable.
I stood in the doorway too long. I hadn’t come to watch her sleep but because everything about the past months sat wrong. Wrong enough that I needed the truth—even if I feared it.
I stepped closer, silent on the stone.
The blanket had slipped a little as she shifted. Only a hand’s width. It was enough.
Moonlight illuminated the faint curve of her abdomen beneath the thin linen. Not the softness of indulgence or poor appetite. Something that had been there recently. Something carried and lost.
My breath froze: Blood on stable straw. Elowen’s disappearance. The missing cart. The riders heading toward Blackharrow. Eryndale cloth. No monthly tinctures. Gowns altered. Seraphine’s trembling.
Her hand moved in sleep, settling instinctively atop that curve. Protective. Desperate.
A realization struck me: terrible, electric, and undeniable.
She was with child. My child. And whatever became of that child… she hid it from me. I stood in the moonlit quiet as the truth crystallized like ice around my ribs.
Seraphine did not stir. The faint rise and fall of her breath was the only movement in the room. But inside me, something shifted—something sharp, furious, terrified.
Whatever truth lay between us would not stay buried much longer.