[Seraphine’s POV]
Aldric didn’t move.
The scout’s words were still hanging in the air, sharp as winter breath: two infants. Then the door closed behind him, and silence crashed down.
Aldric stared at me. There was nothing in his face for a moment. Nothing human, nothing readable. Just shock, carved into stone. When he finally spoke, his voice was not the voice of a king giving orders. It was thin, raw, as if scraped out of his chest.
“Tell me the truth,” he said. “Were they mine?”
My mouth went dry. “Aldric—”
“Don’t,” he cut in, voice trembling. “Do not lie to me again. Not now. Not after this.” His hands opened and closed at his sides, as if he wasn’t sure whether to reach for me or strangle me. “Were you with a child? Did you bear my children?”
The world tilted. I could have lied; I tried.
“No,” I whispered. “You… you misread what you saw. I was ill. Elowen—”
“Enough,” he said, so quietly it scared me more than his shouting ever had. His eyes were bright, dangerously bright. “I found blood in the stables. I found fever herbs in the records, given to you. No monthly tinctures for half a year. And now Blackharrow boasts of two infants under his protection.”
He took one step closer, and I shrank back against the pillows.
“You think I'm a fool?” he asked. “You think I cannot see?”
The lie crumbled in my throat. I felt something in my chest give way. The wall I had been patching for months ripped open, and everything I’d been holding back came flooding out.
“Yes,” I choked. “I was with a child.” The words seemed to strike him physically. He flinched.
“Children,” I whispered. “Twins.”
His breath caught. I couldn’t stop now. It all came tumbling out—the months of fear, the shadow of his temper, and the way every look from him felt like a judgment passed on my very existence.
“I hid it because of you,” I said, voice breaking. “Because I knew exactly what they would become in your hands. Proof of conquest. Little crowns you’d put on their heads to make people bow. Weapons to wave at Eryndale and every other kingdom you want beneath your heel.”
He stared at me, eyes wide, stunned.
“I could not let that happen,” I went on, tears burning hot. “I couldn’t bear the thought of looking at my children and seeing banners and treaties instead of faces. I would not let you do that to them.”
His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind.
“I hid the pregnancy,” I said. “Elowen helped me. I stayed in my room. And when it was time… we planned for them to be taken away. Somewhere far. Somewhere that wasn’t yours.”
His eyes flashed. “You smuggled my heirs out of my castle.”
“I smuggled my children out of a prison,” I shot back, voice shaking. “Out of reach of a man who burned their grandmother alive, who razed their homeland. What kind of life do you imagine they would have had here? Raised on stories of your victories over my dead parents?”
“You stole them from me,” he hissed. It wasn’t the roar I expected. It was worse—hoarse, ragged, blistered with hurt. “You lied to my face for months, let me walk these halls ignorant while my own blood grew under my roof. You bled in a damned stable like a servant animal. And then you gave them away.”
“I gave them a chance,” I said. “Something no one ever gave me.”
He shook his head, disbelief bordering on rage. “You do not get to decide that. They are mine as much as yours.”
“Where was that claim when you crushed my city?” I demanded. “When you stood in my father’s hall with his blood on your boots and told me I would warm your throne whether I screamed or not? Where was this sudden love then?”
His eyes blazed. “Do you think I don’t regret that night?”
“I think you regret nothing that gave you power,” I snapped. “You wanted heirs, Aldric, not children. There’s a difference.”
“Do not presume to tell me what I want,” he snarled.
“Then tell me,” I shot back, throat raw. “If you had known I was pregnant, what would you have done? Forced me to parade in front of your court? Locked me in some tower until I produced a royal brood?”
His mouth opened—and shut. Whatever answer he had died on his tongue. For a moment, I saw the boy under a crown. Young, furious, terrified of being powerless. Then it was gone.
“I would have protected you,” he said. “Protected them.”
“And I was supposed to take that on faith?” I whispered. “From the man who hurt me when he was merely drunk and jealous? From the king who thinks fear is the only way to rule? I have lived in fear since the night you dragged me from my father’s throne room. I did not trust you with my life… why would I trust you with theirs?”
Pain flickered across his face. It didn’t soften me but only hurt more.
“You had no right,” he said, voice rough. “No right to keep them from me.”
“You had no right,” I answered, “to make me so afraid that hiding them felt like the only way to keep them alive.”
Aldric took a step toward me, hands shaking. “Where were you going to send them? Who helped you? How did Blackharrow get them?”
I flinched. The answers were knives in my throat—Elowen’s name a fresh wound, Rowan’s failure another.
Before I could speak, the air shifted. Rowan moved.
“That’s enough,” he said quietly.
Aldric’s gaze snapped to him. “Move, knight.”
“No,” Rowan replied. “If you raise a hand to her now, you will have to go through me first.”
“Aldric, please,” I whispered. “Stop.”
Both of them ignored me.
“You are one breath away from treason,” Aldric said, voice low with warning.
“Then breathe carefully,” Rowan answered, jaw tight. “You can rage later. Right now, you’re breaking the only person in this room who actually bled for your heirs.”
Aldric took another step, his whole body coiled. Rowan’s hand shifted toward his sword hilt—barely. A promise, not yet a threat, but the air thickened as if steel were already drawn.
“Enough!” I cried, forcing myself upright despite the pain ripping through my abdomen. “Stop this, both of you!”
Their attention snapped back to me; it felt like being pinned by two different storms.
“If you fight,” I said, breath hitching, “nothing good comes of it. Either the truth tears us apart, or your blades do. I won’t watch more blood spill over my children.”
Aldric’s jaw flexed. He looked as if he wanted to hit something, break something, burn the whole world down and start again.
“Get out,” he said to Rowan, voice shaking. “Before I decide your life is worth less than my questions.”
Rowan held his gaze a moment longer—then stepped back. “If you hurt her,” he said quietly, “there won’t be a kingdom left worth ruling.”
The door slammed. Aldric’s eyes returned to me, wrecked.
“You hid them from me,” he said again, barely a whisper. “You let someone take them.”
“I was trying to save them,” I whispered back.
He laughed once, a harsh, broken sound. “Look how well that went.” he said, hand on the latch, voice cold and shaking. “I will find them. With or without you.”
And then he was gone. The echo of his vow hung in the chamber, and I realized with a hollow, aching clarity that I might have just shattered whatever fragile change had begun to grow between us.