18. Almost Unmade #5
Luko stepped forward, his hands steady on instinct as he reached for a cloth.
But the moment his eyes fell on the newborn, he froze.
His expression shifted in an instant. Wonder drained into shock, then into a fear that hollowed his face.
His lips separated, trembling. His knees buckled slightly, and he caught himself against the bedpost. The tray slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor, the metallic crash ricocheting off the walls like a funeral bell.
In the doorway, Surian gasped at the sound, her hand flying to her mouth. Surin stood beside her, his expression unreadable but his posture rigid with tension. Behind them both, Leira's pale eyes gleamed with curiosity as she craned her neck to see what had stolen the breath from the room.
Luko's voice cracked when it came, no louder than a whisper, and entirely unshakable in its rawness. "The gods." His hands trembled as if he feared to touch what he saw. "This is impossible…th…th…there's no…no way."
Malec still held Allora against his chest, his face buried in her damp curls, his body coiled tight around hers. He hadn't looked yet. Hadn't seen. His hand remained on the hilt of his dagger, fingers white-knuckled and waiting.
Waiting for the cry.
Waiting for his moment.
Kalemon worked frantically, rubbing, stimulating, her breath coming in short bursts.
And then, finally, a sound.
The chamber pressed in from every direction — and then the cry tore loose, raw and outraged, the sound of a soul arriving with opinions about it.
Luko stumbled backward, one hand braced against the wall, his eyes never leaving the child. His face had gone pale as death, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
From the doorway, Surian took an instinctive step forward. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Luko couldn't answer. He just stared, chest heaving, looking like he had just witnessed the impossible made flesh.
Kalemon continued undeterred, wiping blood and fluid from the infant's skin with swift, practiced movements. She grabbed a clean linen, wrapping the baby quickly to preserve its warmth, her hands moving on pure instinct.
"Luko, the blanket—" she snapped, but he stayed stationary, shocked into a statuesque state. He just stood there, staring, useless.
She cursed under her breath and reached for it herself, tucking the fabric around the tiny body with efficient precision. Her entire focus was on the child, on keeping it stable, on making sure it continued to breathe.
She didn't see Malec rise.
Didn't notice his hand still gripped on the hilt of his blade as he moved with the slow deliberation of an executioner approaching the block.
Outside the birthing chamber, the hallway had filled with Awyan bodies—Leira, Surin, Surian, guards, servants, stable boys, mid wives that had not been killed…
yet. None dared cross the shattered threshold.
But all of them heard it: the silence where a cry should have been, the serrated gasp from Luko, the metallic clatter of steel against stone.
The air was heavy, suffocating. No one stepped forward.
Because the Silver Fox was still inside.
And if he was quiet, then the danger had only escalated.
Inside, Malec's grip around Allora did not loosen. He held her like an anchor, his jaw pressed to her sweat-drenched hair, but his stillness carried a different weight.
Allora was too weak to speak, too weak to run. She clung to him, her hands trembling, nails barely grazing his skin. She held on because she knew…knew he was seconds from rising. Seconds from tearing the child from Kalemon's arms, from deciding, once and for all, that it would not live.
And then Malec shifted.
His breath deepened, shoulders uncoiled, limbs unlocked like chains snapping free.
He stood.
Allora's voice broke, barely a whisper. "No... Malec, wait?—"
But it was too late.
He moved toward Kalemon, the steel of his dagger catching firelight, slow and methodical. Every step the prowl of a predator nearing the kill. His shadow stretched long across the bloodstained floor.
Allora tried to sit up, her hand reaching desperately. "Luko—Kalemon—stop him, please?—"
Her voice cracked, fading into nothing. Her vision blurred while consciousness slipped away like sand through her fingers.
Luko stepped into Malec's path, hands raised, his voice cracking with desperation. "Malec, wait! Just look at it first. Don't—don't react, just look?—"
Malec didn't slow.
His hand shot out, catching Luko's chest with brutal force. Luko's body flew backward, slamming into the stone wall with a sickening crack. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious, blood trickling from where his head had struck stone.
Malec didn't even glance down.
He kept moving.
Kalemon's head snapped up, her hands still wrapped protectively around the bundle. She saw him coming. Looked at the blade in his hand and the feral emptiness in his eyes.
"LOOK AT IT DAMMIT, JUST LOOK!" she screamed, her voice raw with panic.
She spun toward him, unwrapping the linen with frantic hands, exposing the tiny body to the firelight.
"LOOK!"
Malec froze three steps away, his blade raised, his entire body coiled to strike.
And then his eyes fell on the child.
The baby was small. So impossibly small and fragile. Its chest rose in trembling bursts, each breath a fight.
But its skin?—
Not dark like Allora's. Not pale like his.
A rich, golden brown. Luminous like earth bathed in soft evening sunlight.
And its hair.
There wasn't much, but enough to catch the torchlight. Soft, downy strands curled damp against the crown of its head.
Silver.
Not flaxen or white.
The same shade as his sister.
The same shade as his father.
But unmistakably Talandros silver.
Malec's breath caught in his throat. His grip on the dagger faltered.
And then Kalemon turned the baby slightly, and he saw them.
The ears.
Small. Delicate. Slightly pointed. Like a noble Awyan child’s, though softened by a quiet human inheritance.
An ancient contradiction. A merging of two worlds that should not have touched, yet had. A truth he could not deny.
That’s when the dagger slipped from his fingers, clattering against the stone floor with a sound that rang like a death knell.
Malec stood there, frozen. His mouth opened but no sound came. His dust-toned eyes, wide and unblinking, locked on the tiny face. On the silver curls, those impossible, undeniable ears.
It was his.
The realization crashed through him like an avalanche, burying everything in its path.
All this time, he had been fighting his own flesh and blood. All this time the presence in the dreamscape, the defiant entity protecting her, defending her from him?—
And it was his child.
His son.
A sound escaped him. Not words. Just a broken gasp, strangled and raw. His knees buckled. He caught himself against the bedpost, one hand braced on the wood, his entire body trembling.
"How..." The word barely formed. His voice cracked. "What... how is this..."
The room spun. The walls closed in, his vision tunneled to nothing but that tiny face, those silver soft curls he wanted to touch but couldn’t seem to move his body to do so.
He had been ready to kill it. Had been seconds away from slitting its throat.
His own son.
The horror of it slammed into him with physical force. His stomach turned while his breath came in short, ragged gasps.
Behind him, Allora lay stirring, slipping in and out of unconsciousness, bleeding and broken.
In front of him, Kalemon held the child, her eyes locked on his face, the look in them split between pity and fury.
And Malec stood between them, shattered, staring at the impossible truth wrapped in bloodstained linen and a truth he could not deny.
He was the child’s father. Not a Canariae.