Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Jesenia sat near the window of her chamber, the moonlight washing out her face as her hands folded low against her stomach. She had suspected for days—the weariness, the restless sleep, the faint morning sickness.
It should have been expected, the way they lost themselves in each other so often. But the only time they had discussed such things, Val-Theris was not even sure it was possible.
Tonight, after her missed blood, there was no more doubting.
When he entered the room, his steps softened at the sight of her stillness. His wings folded low as he crossed the chamber, kneeling before her where she sat.
“What troubles you?” he asked, his blue eyes searching hers.
She swallowed, then guided his hand to rest against her belly. “I think…” Her voice caught, tears welling in her tender eyes. “Val-Theris, I think we are no longer just two.”
For a moment, he said nothing. His hand trembled against her, his eyes wide, his lips parting as if the air had fled him. For an instant, he forgot to breathe. His gaze lowered to her hand where it rested, then back to her face, her mouth trembling faintly as she waited.
“Jesenia,” he whispered, his voice breaking on her name. “Are you sure?” As he asked the question, she began to sob, hiding her face in her hands. “My love,” he said, unfolding her from herself, tenderly asking: “Why are you crying? This is wonderful news.”
“They will hate this child before it even draws breath,” she said through tears and heavy breaths. “This world will never be safe for them.”
“That’s not true,” he whispered, pressing another kiss to her stomach. “I will reshape the earth to keep them safe. I swear it on all that is divine.”
“I’m scared,” she said, her mouth turning downward with sorrow. “I’m scared of the world we are giving them.”
He threaded his fingers through hers, grounding her in the silent ways she had always grounded him as she threatened to spiral further into that fear. “Then I will change the world for you both if that’s what it takes.”
She brushed her trembling thumb across his cheek. “Are you…happy?”
He let out a sharp, unsteady breath—and then he bent, pressing his forehead to her stomach, his hair falling like a silky curtain around them both.
“Happy?” His voice cracked, shaking with something deeper.
“I am undone. Jesenia, I am…I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.
It is a miracle. You are magnificent. You have given me more than I ever dreamed to ask.
You have given me forever. That you would give your body, your strength, your heart, to carry something of mine… ” He hesitated. “I do not deserve it.”
Her breath caught at the rawness in his tone, and she turned fully toward him, cupping his jaw with one hand, thumb brushing lightly along the sharp line of his cheekbone. “It isn’t about deserving,” she whispered. “It’s about us. About what we made together.”
Val-Theris lowered his forehead against hers, eyes closing briefly as though grounding himself in her steadiness, her warmth, the quiet conviction she carried when his faltered.
Jesenia leaned against him, her head resting lightly against his shoulder, the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear before reality struck her once more.
She lifted her head from his and her eyes grew wet with fear again.
“Your vision…”
Val-Theris swallowed heavy. It was at the forefront of his mind too—his prophecy of death and the dread of knowing he was unable to escape it. He did not want to share that dread with her. Not now. So instead, he whispered:
“The future can change.”
It was a lie.
Solmiris’s high corridors were silent, lit only by the faint blue glow of lanterns lining the marble walls. Rain pattered softly against the towering stained glass windows, catching on the intricate carvings of Seraveth’s winged saints.
Rohannes found Val-Theris where he often did when the weight of visions pressed hardest—standing alone at the eastern balcony, wings drawn close, his gaze fixed on the sleeping city below.
The gardens beneath were silver in the rain, gold-veined spires cutting against the clouded night.
“You called for me, sir,” Rohannes said quietly, stepping into the cool wash of lamplight.
“Indeed,” Val-Theris murmured, his voice soft but hoarse from silence.
“Something has changed in you.” Rohannes moved closer, boots steady against the slick marble, until he stood a few paces behind him. “You’ve tripled the guard around the palace and the terraces without explanation.”
Val-Theris’s grip tightened on the carved railing, knuckles pale against gold-inlaid stone.
Rohannes waited. Val-Theris’s wings shifted, feathers catching faint threads of lantern light. “It’s about the unrest in Solmiris. In a way,” he said with a particular sharpness, as though willing Rohannes to leave it at that.
“I know you better than that.” His voice remained steady, low enough to keep the words beneath the veil of rain. “You can tell me.”
The king said nothing for a long moment, his jaw squared and his eyes reflecting the restless lights of Solmiris below.
Finally, softly: “Jesenia carries my child.”
The words hung in the cold air like fragile glass. Rohannes stilled, the sheer weight of those words holding them both frozen in place. “I see.” He recovered quickly, as he always did, but his voice was lower now, edged with careful weight. “That is…dangerous knowledge, my king.”
“I know.”
“The council cannot learn of it.” Rohannes’s tone sharpened, footsteps drawing closer, the faint rasp of leather shifting as he rested a gloved hand against the railing.
“You’ve seen how they already speak of her.
Of her people. If they believe the bloodline of Solmiris will carry Lunareth in its veins—”
“They will not touch her,” Val-Theris said flatly, his voice cutting like honed steel.
Rohannes’s hand dropped back to his side. “I know you believe that. But you cannot fight them with words in this. They will call for your abdication, or worse—civil war. They’ll–”
“Rohannes.”
For the first time, Val-Theris turned toward him, pale gaze bright beneath the shadows, his voice a whisper carrying too much weight.
“I’ve seen my death.”
Something unreadable passed across the Angelicus Prime’s face, his hands curling loosely at his sides, but he said nothing.
Val-Theris stepped forward, closing the distance until they stood shoulder to shoulder, his wings drawn wide enough to catch the lamplight, shadowing the space between them.
“I’ve seen it,” he said again, softer now, almost a confession.
“Blood on marble. My body broken beneath the throne. I thought I understood it and could accept it as destiny. But now…” His voice faltered, breath uneven.
“Now all I can think of is Jesenia and our child. If I die, they’ll be left alone in a city that wants them gone. ”
“You don’t know that’s what the visions mean for certain," Rohannes said, though his voice carried none of his usual surety.
“Yes I do,” Val-Theris murmured, his gaze lowering to the sprawling lights of Solmiris below. “I feel it like I feel the air in my lungs and the heartbeat under my chest. This is not a fate I can escape.”
Rohannes studied him for a long moment, reading the tension carried in every line of him—the king who was also a man, the angel who feared not his own death, but rather, losing the one tether still grounding him.
“I’ll keep them safe,” Rohannes said finally, voice low and steady. “Even if you fall, I swear it. I will take them from this city and find sanctuary far away from here where they cannot be harmed.”
Val-Theris’s jaw tightened. He could not ask that of Rohannes, but neither could he bring himself to reject it.
Neither spoke again. They stood together in silence, Solmiris’s restless spires rising before them, the rain falling soft against his wings and the stone.
And though neither said it, both men understood the same unspoken truth:
Destiny had already chosen where this would end, and Val-Theris would see it coming far too late to change it.