Vera’s POV
Something inside me slammed forward with violent intent, a force so sudden and absolute that my vision went white at the edges.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up, knees buckling as if the floor had dropped away beneath me. I caught the edge of the table with both hands, breath tearing out of my chest in a sound that barely resembled a scream.
The palace answered.
Wards fractured outward in concentric waves, sigils flaring and then shattering as though struck by an unseen hammer. Stone groaned. Glass burst somewhere above me.
I felt the bond network recoil violently, not snapping, but stretching to accommodate a pressure it had never been designed to bear.
This was not labor as the healers had described it. This was something forcing a door open.
“Your Majesty!” someone shouted, too loudly, too close.
Another contraction followed before I could draw a full breath, stronger than the first, ripping through me with terrifying precision. Heat flooded my veins, the gold beneath my skin flaring bright enough that I could see it reflected in the polished stone floor.
The impact barely registered before hands reached for me, voices colliding in panic.
The healers poured into the chamber, robes askew, eyes wide with fear that made their movements clumsy and uncoordinated.
“She’s too early,” one of them whispered, as though speaking softly might make the truth retreat.
“The wards are failing,” another said. “We can’t anchor the room.”
Their fear scraped against my senses like broken glass. The Blood Monarch surged in response, instinct roaring up with savage clarity.
Kneel. Focus. Fix this.
The command rose fully formed, sweet and irresistible. I could feel how easily it would take hold, how quickly their panic would collapse into obedience sharp enough to cut.
My vision tunneled. Another contraction tore through me, dragging a raw cry from my throat as the room shuddered again. Somewhere far beyond the palace walls, I felt it ripple outward, a thunderclap through the bond network that raced across the capital.
They can feel this, I realized dimly. All of them.
“Do not,” I gasped, forcing the word through clenched teeth as the healers hovered, frozen by terror and awe. “Do not kneel.”
The effort cost me. My pulse thundered wildly, the gold beneath my skin flaring brighter, hotter, as Avrora’s presence surged with undeniable urgency.
I felt her then, not as an abstract awareness or distant power, but as intent. She was not waiting. She was coming.
Lucien arrived like a counterstroke.
His presence cut through the chaos with immediate effect, the bond snapping toward him with desperate relief. He was already speaking as he crossed the room, his voice steady and grounded in a way that felt almost miraculous.
“Clear the space,” he said firmly. “Now. Give her air.”
The healers moved, not because they were compelled, but because his certainty gave them something to hold onto. He knelt beside me, one hand braced at my back, the other clasping mine with unwavering pressure.
“Look at me,” he said quietly. “You’re not alone in this.”
Another contraction hit, ripping a scream from my chest that I did not bother to contain. The pain was vast, purposeful, as though my body were being rewritten from the inside out.
“I can’t—” I choked.
“You can,” Lucien replied, not contradicting my fear, but anchoring it. “Breathe with me. Not away from it. Through it.”
He drew a slow breath, deep and deliberate, and the bond carried it to me, syncing my panicked rhythm to his steadier one. I followed, gasping, then again, the edge of the pain dulling just enough for thought to reassert itself.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Stay here. Stay with me.”
The healers circled closer now, their fear still sharp, but tempered by purpose. One of them knelt near my legs, hands shaking as she tried to position herself.
“This isn’t normal,” she said, voice trembling. “The contractions are too strong. Too fast.”
“I know,” I said hoarsely. “She isn’t asking.”
Another wave crashed through me, stronger than the last, and the room lurched violently. Somewhere deep beneath the palace, I felt ancient stone crack, wards screaming as they failed in sequence.
The bond network flared blindingly bright, and I knew that the entire capital was feeling it now. People dropping to their knees in streets and markets, not from loyalty, but from instinctive response to a force that did not care where it reached.
“She’s tearing the network open,” one of the healers whispered.
Lucien’s jaw tightened. “She’s being born.”
The doors opened. Darius walked in as if he had every right to be there.
His gaze fixed on me instantly, sharp and assessing, then softened into something dangerously reverent as he took in the glow beneath my skin, the violent rhythm of the bond.
“This confirms it,” he said quietly. “She responds to my presence.”
“Get out,” Lucien said, not raising his voice, but letting steel ring through it.
Darius did not look at him. He approached slowly, palms open, his focus entirely on me. “You’re burning yourself alive,” he said gently. “Let me help.”
Another contraction hit, and I screamed, the sound tearing out of me with enough force that the chamber shook violently. The healers flinched. Lucien braced harder against me, his breath hitching as the pain echoed through the bond into him.
Darius stepped closer. “My blood will stabilize her,” he said. “You feel it. This is why she reacts to me. This is why the bond answers.”
“You’re lying,” Lucien said tightly.
“I am offering survival,” Darius replied. “And acknowledging what is already true.”
He turned his attention back to me, his voice low and persuasive. “Take my blood. It will give you strength. It will prove what the realm already suspects.”
The words sliced through the pain, igniting fury hot enough to make my vision blur.
“I am not your proof,” I hissed, even as another contraction tore through me, leaving me gasping and shaking.
The room pulsed again, harder this time, and the healers staggered as the pressure slammed into them. A few dropped to their knees despite themselves, hands braced against the floor as if gravity had doubled.
Lucien tightened his hold on me, his voice urgent and raw. “Vera, stay with me. Do not listen to him.”
I tried. Gods, I tried.
But the pain was relentless, the force inside me demanding passage with terrifying inevitability. Avrora surged, her presence flaring outward with savage clarity, and I felt the bond network buckle under the weight of it.
“No,” I whispered, fighting the instinct to command, to end the chaos with a single word.
Another contraction hit, more powerful than all the others combined, and something inside me broke open.
I screamed.
The sound was power unleashed without restraint, a cry torn from my body and carried straight into the bond network. The room answered, bodies folding as one. Every person within reach dropped to their knees in reflexive obedience as the force of it crashed through them.
The chamber bowed. This was only the beginning.