[Rowan’s POV]
Blood has a special smell when there is too much of it.
It pulsed beneath Seraphine’s blankets, warm and steady, with its rhythm sending a chill through my stomach. She lay curled up on a pile of straw rags, her skin pale as winter milk, her lips parted as if she were trying to call for help, but no sound came out. In my arms, the newborn boy—the prince who should never have been born inside these walls—let out a thin, tremulous cry.
Elowen hovered at Seraphine’s legs, with hands coated to the wrists in red. For once, the calm mask she always wore had cracked.
“Gods,” she whispered, checking again for the afterbirth. “She’s still bleeding. Too much.”
“How do we stop it?” I demanded, shifting the boy to soothe him. “Tell me what to do.”
“You can do nothing.” She cast a desperate glance at the stable door. “And we have no time. Rowan… two babies. Two royal heirs…”
I didn’t need reminding. The girl lay tucked in Elowen’s cloak—small, frighteningly still, but breathing. Two infants. Twice the noise. Twice the risk. Twice the reason Aldric would kill Seraphine if he discovered what we’d done.
“We stick to the plan,” I said. It sounded weak even to my own ears. “I take one child. Slip out the postern gate and ride before sunrise—”
“One?” Elowen snapped. “Do you hear yourself? And what of the other? Leave her here? Hand her to Aldric’s nurses? Rowan, smuggling out one infant was near-impossible. But two?” Her voice rose. “It is suicide.”
The boy wailed at her sharpness. I swayed him instinctively, though my own hands shook. “We can make it work. I’ll wrap them close. We’ll move fast—”
“You think speed will save you?” Her laugh was hoarse. “If the guards find you carrying the babies, they will put the things together. They aren’t that dumb, and they will know you helped. They will imprison her, to wait for the king to come.”
The words landed like a blade in my ribs. “She asked me to protect her child,” I said. “I swore—”
“She asked you to protect a child,” Elowen cut in. “One. Not two.”
A thin, broken sound escaped Seraphine’s throat. We both turned. Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused and clouded but aware enough to see our faces and feel the fear heavy in the air. She tried to lift her head, but it barely shifted.
“Seraphine,” I whispered, kneeling beside her, with the boy bundled against my chest. “Don’t speak. Save your strength.”
“What… are you saying?” Her voice was raw and thready.
“Nothing,” Elowen said quickly. She reached for Seraphine’s shoulder. “You must rest—”
Seraphine jerked away from her touch, weak but unmistakably defiant:
“Tell me.”
Elowen hesitated. So did I, but Seraphine’s eyes were the same that once commanded Eryndale’s council chambers at fifteen years old. They saw straight through us.
“Elowen thinks,” I began, swallowing hard, “that getting infants out is dangerous. For you, especially.”
Seraphine blinked slowly, with her gaze drifting toward the bundled girl against Elowen’s chest, then downward to the boy in my arms. Her lips parted, trembling.
“They’re so small,” she whispered.
“They’re strong,” I said softly. “They take after you.”
A faint, broken laugh escaped her—almost a sob. Another wave of pain rippled through her; she winced, arms curling weakly around her stomach.
Elowen leaned close. “Sera… listen to me. If Aldric finds out the truth—”
“He cannot,” she rasped. “He must not.”
“Then choose.” Elowen’s voice cracked. “Rowan can take one. We hide the other. You can claim illness. A miscarriage—”
“No.” Seraphine’s voice was suddenly fierce, even in its weakness. “No one stays. No one is left to him.”
Elowen grimaced. “Sera—”
“They are mine,” she whispered. “Both. I will not give Aldric even one thread of them.”
Her trembling hand lifted toward me. I caught it gently.
“You swore to me,” she said, and her fingers curling around mine with surprising strength. “You swore you would take my child far away from here. Keep it safe. Raise it with honor.”
“I remember,” I said, barely able to breathe.
“Then hear me now,” she whispered, cracking apart with every word. “That vow… does not break… because there are two.”
I closed my eyes. “Seraphine, if they catch me—”
“If they catch you, they catch me anyway,” she said. “If the truth comes out, Aldric will never stop hunting them. Take them. Now. Before anyone hears their cries.”
“Sera—”
“Please, Rowan.” Her voice broke. “I cannot save them. You can.”
The boy whimpered against my chest. The girl, still tucked in Elowen’s arms, gave a soft, hungry mewl. Two tiny lives. Two pieces of Seraphine’s heart.
I pressed my forehead to hers. “I swear,” I whispered. “On Eryndale’s crown and my own life, I will keep them safe.”
She let out a small, relieved sound and slumped, consciousness slipping away again.
Elowen inhaled sharply. “She’s fainting. Rowan, take them. Quickly.”
I rose on my legs unsteadily. “Give me the girl.”
Elowen hesitated only a heartbeat before passing the newborn into my free arm. For once, her hands trembled.
“Wrap them close,” she said. “Keep their heads shielded. Their breaths are fragile.”
I did as she instructed, tucking both infants inside my cloak: two tiny weights pressed against my chest, barely more than warm breaths.
I looked at Seraphine one last time. Her skin glistened with sweat, her hair plastered damp across her brow. She looked breakable like she never had before.
“I’ll come back,” I whispered. “When it’s safe. When you can hold them yourself.”
She didn’t stir.
Elowen grabbed another cloth, pressing it hard between Seraphine’s legs. “Go, Rowan. Dawn is close. If a groom comes in to check the horses—”
“I know.”
I slipped toward the stable door. The cold air outside rushed in when I opened it, the shock of it waking the boy long enough to fuss. I pressed him tighter to silence him.
“Rowan!” Elowen’s voice stopped me.
I looked back. Her face was tight and frightened. And somewhere behind that fear… something sharper. Something calculating.
“If you fail,” she said quietly, “don’t bring them back here. Ever.”
“I won’t fail.”
I stepped into the night. The fortress loomed behind me, silent and black against the paling sky. I kept to the shadows, every breath a prayer the infants would stay quiet. My horse waited where I’d left him, tethered beneath the outer pines.
The twins stirred against me: warm, small, impossibly real. I mounted, gathered the reins, and turned toward the forest path that would take us far from Blackthorn.
Seraphine’s children. My last oath.
I kicked the horse forward and vanished into the darkness before the sun could rise.