20. The Womb of the Realm #5
By the time he reached the council antechamber, she was already there.
Ilyra stood with flawless composure, hands folded behind her back, a tailored charcoal jacket cut cleanly along her tall, lean frame.
Her hair burned the color of crushed embers, cropped blunt at the jaw in a style few could wear without drawing laughter.
On her, it looked deliberate. Precise. Everything about her carried the same quiet authority.
Refined lines, controlled stillness. A presence that allowed no easy familiarity.
Ilyra did not fluster or bend. She simply endured the room as though it were already beneath her notice.
Surion rounded on her, breath hard, eyes blazing.
"Well?" he snapped. "What in the name of my crown did I just hear back there?"
Ilyra didn't blink. Surion wasn’t even sure she knew how or had the ability to.
"The information just arrived by pigeon, Your Majesty," she said evenly. "One of our informants, posted with Leira's household guard at her eastern estate, has sent the message. He reports that Malec's Canariae gave birth. In secret. He claims to have seen the child himself."
Surion froze mid-step, arms raised, fingers twitching as though caught between command and disbelief. His pale eyes narrowed, searching her face for cracks that weren't there.
“Wait,” he said quietly. His voice had lowered, edged with danger. “Say that again.”
Ilyra's gaze didn't waver. "Malec went to the estate believing the child was not his. According to the scout, he was preparing to kill it. He only stopped when he saw it, when he recognized it as his own."
The air that followed was suffocating, wound so tight it felt on the verge of rupturing.
Surion's mouth twitched as though he might laugh, but nothing came. Only the hiss of his breath as the fire lit behind his eyes.
A child.
A child? And Malec almost killed it? A child from his own loins?
Surion doubled over, clutching his stomach as laughter broke free. He leaned heavily on Ilyra's shoulder, his amusement shaking him until he wiped a tear from his lashes. "This is too fantastic—this is hilarious," he said breathlessly.
Straightening, he rubbed his hands together, grinning with the satisfaction of a hunter who'd just spotted prey in an open field. "He must be in torment. For months, he has stalked shadows for her. And all the while, she carried his heir. Delicious."
He began to stride down the corridor, his black-gold robes dragging along the marble. Ilyra fell into step at his side, her face as unreadable as ever, though her eyes tracked him closely.
He spoke more to himself than to her, words tumbling in a fevered rhythm.
"I knew she was strange. That little stray, I knew from the start she wasn't ordinary.
Wild-eyed, reeking of untapped power. Wasteful, really, in the wrong hands.
And now this. She didn't just warm his bed, she gave him an heir.
The only being in the realms who could tame him. And she did it alone."
He stopped abruptly, turning toward Ilyra. His pale eyes gleamed with fevered delight. "Do you understand what this means?"
"I do," she said carefully.
He barked a laugh. "No. No, I don't think you do.
This miracle hasn't only elevated Malec's name—it's elevated mine.
The bloodline of Talandros now claims what no other can.
A fertile Canariae, capable of breeding viable heirs with Awyan blood.
" He pivoted toward a tall window, the golden spires of the capital city glinting under the morning light.
His reflection smiled back at him, greedily.
"She's worth more than silver. More than spice. Provinces will bend the knee for a chance to have her in their courts. Kings and queens will trade their secondborns to borrow her womb.”
Surion put his hand on his chin in a thoughtful pensive manner as though he had just come to a pivotal realization.
"An heir changes everything. The court will push for him to take the throne.
They'll say he's proven his bloodline, that he deserves the crown more than I do.
" His voice turned tense, calculating. "I become obsolete the moment they decide he's more valuable than me. "
Ilyra remained silent, waiting.
The panic bled away, replaced by calculation—cold and controlled. A slow smile crept across his face.
"But I've already solved this problem, haven't I?"
He resumed walking, his stride confident now, purposeful. "And now that we know she's fertile, that she can produce Awyan children..." He paused, savoring the thought. "She's not just valuable. She's priceless. I'll renegotiate with Kael and bleed him dry for the privilege."
He was moving again, hands clasped behind his back, steps quickening with excitement. "Send a summons."
"To Lord Malec?" Ilyra asked.
Surion turned sharply, grin spreading again, wolfish and vile. "No. To her."
Her eyes flickered. "The Canariae?"
"Do try to keep up, Ilyra," he said with mocking patience.
She held her grievances for only a beat. "That will undoubtedly provoke your cousin."
"Good," Surion snapped, his voice cracking like a whip.
He stepped closer, lowering his tone until it was venom.
"He still owes me for the last time he laid hands on me.
Do you remember? That sweet little escape plan—Surin, Surian, and me?
The great betrayal. That time he basically allowed her to vanish but then take it out on me.
He beat me bloody for it." Surion adjusted the cuff of his robe, brushing invisible dust from the golden embroidery. His grin hardened into cruelty. “Now it’s my turn.”
Ilyra hesitated, then gave a quick nod. "Yes, Your Majesty."
Surion descended the stairs with quick, decisive strides, his shadow stretching tall across the marble. "I want her here by next week," he ordered. His smile widened as he looked ahead, already imagining the chains.
And this time, it wasn't just gold he saw. It was vengeance.
Afew days later, the eastern chateau had quieted down to the soft whispers of guards and maids and the cries of a babe when it was time to be fed.
The bathhouse was cavernous and underground, connected to some hot spring that kept an ever-flow of warm water accessible, carved from old marble and veined with cracks that glistened faintly in the steam.
Malec sat waist-deep in the heated pool, the water lapping softly against his chest, strands of silver hair drifting weightless across the surface.
His head rested back against the stone rim, but his mind refused to surrender to the quiet.
He thought of her.
Of the words he'd spoken at her bedside, halting and uncertain, but truer than anything he had ever admitted. He wanted to be her husband, not her captor. He wanted to see her smile, to make her laugh again. To give her the freedom she had begged for. He wanted to be enough for her.
But the thought of freedom came with a blade pressed to his throat.
If he loosened his hold even a little, the kingdom would devour her. Surion would drag her before the court. Nobles would measure her body like cattle. They would carve up their son, piece by piece, as though he were a prophecy they could own.
He could not allow that.
He would take her north. Back to his fortress where the snow never melted and the wind howled like wolves. There, beyond the reach of kings and politics, she could have the safety she needed while recovering, the protection their son required.
She had agreed. For now. Understanding, finally, that this was strategic rather than cruel. That her vulnerability after childbirth made her a target too easy to reach. That the North offered what Caelistra could not: distance from predators who saw her only as a womb to be bartered.
Better her safe than sorry. Better her protected than exposed.
The water steamed gently around his waist, heat rising in pale clouds that blurred the edges of the chamber.
His muscles, taut and carved with weeks of sleepless strain, finally began to loosen beneath the warmth.
His silver hair floated in thin ribbons across the surface like threads of ghost-silk.
His eyes were closed, not quite at peace but close enough to trick his body into believing it.
Then the door creaked.
Malec didn't stir. "What now?" he asked flatly, lids still lowered. "Another merchant offering his daughter for a drop of Allora's blood?"
Silence. Then the soft hush of robes moving across stone.
He opened one eye.
Surin stood framed in the doorway, wrapped in dark robes, his expression unreadable. In his hands, he held a scroll. Red wax seal. Gold-threaded edge.
Malec's lips curved, derisive and absolute. He exhaled slowly. "Burn it."