20. The Womb of the Realm
THE WOMB OF THE REALM
The parlor glowed with warmth, firelight dancing across the walls as the last rays of sunset bled through the windows. Spring was creeping closer, melting the last stubborn patches of snow outside. Inside, the air hummed with quiet joy.
Luko and Surian sat together on the settee, their shoulders nearly touching as they leaned over the bundle cradled in Surian's arms. The baby slept peacefully, his tiny chest rising and falling in gentle rhythm. Surian's finger traced the soft curve of his cheek, her smile radiant.
"Look at him," she whispered. "He's perfect."
Luko grinned, his bandaged head tilting as he studied the infant. "He's going to be a celebrity, you know. The first Awyan-Canariae hybrid. Bards will write songs about him."
Surian laughed softly. "And you'll be sought after by healers everywhere. The scholar who helped deliver history."
Luko's grin widened. "I can already see the lecture circuit. 'The Birth That Changed Everything,' by Luko Farishki, Grand Healer of The Talandros." He paused, then added with exaggerated humility, "I'll be insufferable."
"You already are," Surian teased.
Across the room, Leira sat in her favorite chair, pipe in hand, smoke curling lazily around her face. She beamed at the child with unabashed pride, her usual sharpness softened into near tenderness.
"I'm going to teach him to hunt," she announced. "The moment he can hold a bow. None of that coddling nonsense."
Surian smiled indulgently. "Perhaps we should let him learn to walk first, Mother."
"Details," Leira waved her pipe dismissively.
Surin stood in the doorway, silent and watchful. His pale blue eyes lingered on the baby, on his daughter's radiant face, on the warmth filling the room. He said nothing, unwilling to risk offending Leira with his presence. Better to observe from the margins than shatter the fragile peace.
Surian glanced at the baby's swaddling cloth, already planning. "Once Allora is well, she and I will go shopping. He needs proper clothes. Soft ones, maybe in cream and gold to match his coloring."
Luko nodded enthusiastically. "And toys, lots of toys. Educational ones, of course."
"Of course," Surian agreed, her smile growing.
Then a presence filled the doorway, foreboding and protective all at once.
Malec stepped inside.
The warmth drained from the room like water through a sieve. The air went cold and still, the kind of still that presses. Every body went rigid. Luko's smile vanished. He looked away deliberately, refusing to acknowledge the Awyan who had thrown him into a wall.
Surian's expression faltered with uncertainty, but she forced a polite smile. "Malec," she said softly. "Come see your son."
Malec's pale tan eyes swept the room, taking in each occupant with calculated precision. He noted Luko's anger, Surian's careful politeness, Surin's watchful stillness, Leira's unbothered confidence.
He crossed the floor with silent resolve.
Surian stood, adjusting the baby in her arms, and turned to show him. Malec stopped before her, his gaze dropping to the bundle.
The infant stirred. His tiny eyelids fluttered.
Then opened.
Pale sand irises stared up at him, flecked with silver that caught the dying light like stars scattered across warm earth. Looking knowingly up at the very Awyan that had sired him.
Malec's breath stopped.
Surian gasped softly. "Oh," she whispered. "His eyes..."
"They're beautiful," Malec breathed, the word foreign on his tongue but undeniably true.
Surian beamed, looking down at the baby with wonder. "You recognize your father, little one?"
"We have met each other already," Malec said quietly.
Surian blinked, confused. "What?"
Malec didn't look up from his son's face. "In the dreamscape. He's an ancient soul, a powerful psychic." His voice carried quiet reverence. "He told me he came here to protect her."
The room went silent.
Then came the gasps. Luko sat upright, his anger momentarily forgotten in shock. Surin's eyes widened slightly, his composure cracking.
Leira laughed, smoke puffing from her pipe. "Of course he would. A Talandros through and through."
Malec looked at her. Just once, briefly — but the message was unambiguous. Leira's smile didn't falter, but she said nothing more.
Surin stepped forward from the doorway, his voice low and measured. "Your Canariae has changed history. She's part of our legacy now."
Malec turned back to his son, his expression softening again as those pale sand eyes blinked up at him.
Leira, who had never once in her life heeded warnings, rose from her chair and sauntered over with pipe in hand. She peered down at the baby with theatrical interest.
"Seven hells, he looks just like you did," she said, her tone dripping with amusement.
"All scowl and judgment, even as a newborn.
" Leira took another drag from her pipe, smoke curling around her words.
"I'll take him for the summer months once he's walking.
It's only fair—I did keep his mother alive for you, after all.
" She exhaled slowly. "You were in no state to care for her properly. "
The air shifted.
Malec exhaled slowly through his nose, the sound quiet but lethal.
Surin saw it immediately. The way his son's shoulders went still. The deliberate slowness of that breath. The warning in every line of his body.
He braced himself.
Malec looked at his sister trying his best not to point his anger at her, voice perfectly controlled and calm, yet still strained. "Take him to Allora. Both of you."
Surian blinked. "Now?"
"Now."
Luko stood immediately, relief flooding his face at the prospect of finally seeing Allora. Surian carefully transferred the baby into his arms, then glanced between Malec and Leira with growing unease.
"Malec—"
"Go," Malec said softly.
It wasn't a request.
Surian and Luko hurried from the room, the baby cradled protectively between them. The door clicked shut behind them.
And the warmth died completely as the door clicked shut behind Luko and Surian.
The world went quiet and then he was simply there, as though the air had rearranged itself around him.
In an instant, his hand was clamped around her throat.
His arm like iron as he drove her back against the wall, lifting her until her toes barely scraped the floor.
Her pipe clattered to the ground, smoke still curling from the bowl.
Leira's hands flew to his wrist, nails biting into his skin, clawing desperately at his arm.
Her mouth opened in a soundless gasp, eyes going wide with shock.
Her face began to redden, veins standing out against her temples as her body fought for air.
Guards burst through the doorway, drawn by the scuffle. They froze the instant they saw the Silver Fox with his hand wrapped around the High Lady's throat. Not one dared step closer. This was family business. Family business got soldiers killed.
Surin stepped forward from where he'd been watching, his face going ashen.
"Malec—"
"You will never," Malec said, his voice laced with cold fury, "go near my wife or my son. Not as long as I draw breath."
Leira's nails scraped harder, her legs kicking weakly. Her breath came in strangled wheezes, each one shorter than the last.
"You kept her from me for months while she carried my child," Malec continued, his grip tightening fractionally. "While she needed my blood, my protection. You left false trails, fed me lies, watched me go insane searching for her."
Leira's face darkened from red to purple. Her eyes bulged slightly, tears streaming down her cheeks from the pressure. Her mouth worked soundlessly, trying to pull in air that wouldn't come.
"You let me spiral so far into madness that I gave my essence to another just to get her back." His voice cracked on the word, raw with self-loathing. "And you sat there from your perch, watching and enjoying it."
Her struggles grew weaker. Her hands stopped clawing, began to slip down his arm.
“You stood by and ordered strangers to force poison between her lips, allowed them to wrench her body into labor before it was prepared. She bled at the brink of death while bringing my son into this world.” His gaze fixed on hers, merciless and unyielding.
“For what purpose? Tell me what sin of mine demanded a price like that.”
Leira's eyes began to roll back.
"Malec!" Surin moved forward, hands raised. "Let her go. Inter-familial murder will destroy you. Is she worth that?"
Malec didn't release her, did not even look at his father.
Leira's body went limp in his grip, her hands falling to her sides.
Then, as suddenly as he'd grabbed her, he let go.
She crumpled to the floor, collapsing onto her hands and knees.
Harsh, rattling gasps tore from her throat as her lungs dragged in air.
She coughed violently, her whole body convulsing with the effort.
Surin rushed to her side, kneeling, checking her throat, her pulse.
He didn't condemn Malec but nor did he defend Leira either.
Just assessed the damage with clinical precision.
Malec stood over them both, chest heaving, fists still clenched.
“I always understood what you were,” he said, his voice trembling despite his effort to steady it.
“I knew there was nothing sacred left in you. But how could you sit there, draped in talk of legacy and bloodlines, while your own son writhed beneath it?” The control he clung to splintered, his voice breaking free in a surge of fury and hurt.
“Tell me what I have done that warrants such cruelty! WHAT?”
Leira lifted her head slowly, one hand pressed to her bruised throat. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, broken, but holding more pain and truth than he had ever heard from her.
"I did not do this to you."
Her gaze moved to Surin, who still knelt beside her.
"I was doing it to him."
Surin's hand froze on her shoulder.
She shoved it away violently, pushing herself up onto unsteady legs. "I wanted him to suffer. To feel the pain, even if it's only a fraction of what he put me through."