[Rowan’s POV]
I had never hated stone the way I hated Blackthorn’s.
The walls didn’t simply hold up ceilings; they listened. They swallowed whispers in servants’ corridors and spat them out again in council chambers. Every step echoed like someone else’s footfall tracking behind you. You could almost taste the secrets being chewed through the cracks.
But at least the king was gone.
Aldric had ridden out weeks ago, armored and grim, his banners like streaks of blood snapping in the wind. The court cheered him like a god. I’d watched from the shadow of an archway, one hand on my sword, thinking: If he never comes back, maybe she lives.
I didn’t belong inside these walls—not anymore. Not since Eryndale fell. After Aldric conquered us, the only thing I had left was Seraphine… and even though she had been dragged behind stone and iron gates I couldn’t breach.
I lived in the woods outside Blackthorn, half soldier, half ghost, watching the paths, waiting for any sign she needed me. That was my debt to her family, to her parents who died defending the throne. To her.
Elowen was the one who opened the door again.
She started slipping out through the herb gardens at dawn, pretending to gather roots. Each time, she walked farther. Until the morning she found me waiting in the fog by the riverbank. She didn’t scold. She just said, “She needs you,” and pressed a sealed scrap of parchment into my hand.
That parchment held five words that changed everything:
“She is carrying his heir.”
I’d returned to the palace that same night—knowing if I was caught, I’d hang—but the idea of Seraphine alone with Aldric’s child growing inside her burned worse than any rope could.
I stood outside her chamber now, boots planted, back straight, ears strained for any sound from within.
Inside, the soft murmur of Elowen’s voice drifted through the door, followed by the creak of the mattress, and Seraphine’s quiet exhale. I wished I was in there. I wished I could be the one bringing her water, easing her breath, catching her when she grew dizzy.
The latch clicked. Elowen stepped into the corridor with her basket of remedies. Her face was gaunt, shadows carved beneath her eyes.
“How is she?” I asked.
“More uncomfortable every day,” Elowen said. “Which means the baby is growing well.”
The word hit me like a fist every time. Baby. Aldric’s baby. Yet somehow… hers. The only thing she had left that was truly her own.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“She’s carrying it high,” Elowen murmured. “That means the ribs ache, the breath shortens. She’ll pretend she’s fine until she falls over. Make her sit when you can.”
“I don’t command her,” I said.
“Then ask in that soft tone she pretends not to hear.” Elowen allowed the smallest smile. “But Rowan… she won’t be able to hide it much longer.”
She didn’t need to tell me. I saw the change even through closed doors: the way Seraphine moved slower, how she braced the doorframe when she rose, how her voice grew quieter when she was too tired to mask anything.
“She’s nearly five months,” Elowen whispered. “When the king returns…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
“I’ll be back before supper,” she said. “Don’t let any fool linger near her door.”
“I never do.”
She touched my forearm—half affection, half apology—and disappeared down the hall.
I settled into my post, the cold stone at my back. I knew it was foolish to believe my presence alone could protect her. But it was the lie I clung to.
Whispers had begun weeks ago.
“She’s ill.”
“Elowen visits daily.”
“Rowan never leaves that corridor.”
Safer they thought her sick than pregnant; but sometimes, sharp-eyed servants noticed too much.
“She hasn’t requested her monthly satchels,” I once heard a kitchen girl whisper. “My cousin keeps the herb—”
I’d stepped out of the shadows then, my voice low. “Careful what you repeat.”
She’d nearly dropped her tray. “I— I didn’t mean—”
“Walls have long memories,” I told her. “Do not feed them.”
Fear silenced her better than any blade.
Inside Seraphine’s rooms, life had shrunk to small circles. Elowen urged her to walk when she could, rest when she must, but Seraphine had never been good at yielding. Even exhausted, she held herself like the queen she was born to be.
On the rare days she permitted me inside, she sat fully cloaked, chair angled so the table hid half her body.
“Talk about anything but me,” she’d say.
So I did.
“The fishmonger’s wife chased a lord from her stall,” I told her once. “He complained of the smell. She told him the war stank worse.”
Seraphine snorted. “I’d like her.”
“You’d terrify her,” I said. “You terrify everyone.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips before fading. Her hand drifted unconsciously to the curve beneath her gown.
“Any word from the front?” she asked.
“Only that the king wins,” I said.
“Of course he does.”
Her voice was flat. Empty.
I never asked if she wanted the child, because I saw the answer every day. The way she protected her belly even in sleep. The way she flinched at any loud noise. The way she whispered under her breath sometimes, thinking no one heard.
I also never told her the truth burning in my chest—that I would gladly die before letting Aldric call that child his.
Elowen came daily with her remedies. “For your back. For your feet. And this one is for heartburn.”
For the fear, there was nothing.
“She’s exhausted,” Elowen told me in the corridor one night. “She sleeps in pieces and wakes with every sound.”
“She’ll be able to rest more once…” I stopped myself. Once what, Rowan? Once we flee? Once we hide them? Once the king is dead? None of those were plans. They were prayers.
Concealment became an art. Elowen altered gowns, adding layers. Seraphine wrapped herself in cloaks even inside. We planned her rare appearances to coincide with busy halls so her steps went unnoticed.
But eyes sharpened.
“The foreign queen grows private,” Lord Malric murmured once. “Plotting rebellion?”
“She’d need friends for that,” his companion sneered. “The king saw to that.”
I tightened my grip on my sword until my knuckles ached.
Each day, the net drew tighter. Seraphine grew thinner—not from illness, but from fear and exhaustion. Elowen counted days, measured herbs, listened to the child inside her with a growing frown.
“We’re nearly six months,” she whispered. “We needed a miracle yesterday.”
“Any news from the front?” I asked. “Anything to delay his return?”
“If there was,” she said, “you would be the first shadow to hear it.”
The morning it happened, the sky hung heavy and gray. I heard a sound. At first I thought it was wind or my imagination but it grew: a deep, rhythmic thunder beneath the castle’s breath.
Hoofbeats.
A horn sounded from the walls. Men shouted. The guards snapped to attention.
Elowen tore around the corner, breathless. “Rowan! The king’s banners are on the road. He’ll be here in a few days!”
She was still talking, but I barely heard her.
All I could hear were those hoofbeats. All I could see was Seraphine’s rounded belly beneath her gowns, the way her hand now rested there even in sleep.
Our reprieve had ended.