Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jesenia and Val-Theris walked the inner cloisters of the palace gardens, where the roses grew thickest and the fountains drowned out all other noise from the city.
Jesenia paused to steady herself near the fountain, her hand pressing instinctively to her stomach at a sudden wave of exhaustion and nausea. Val-Theris noticed at once, his brow furrowing as he reached for her elbow, his touch gentle but protective.
“You should not be walking so much,” he said, his voice low, almost a gentle scold.
Jesenia smiled faintly, shaking her head. “If I sit too long, the child will think I am weak. And I will not raise a weak heart.”
He stilled. For a moment, his eyes softened, and he bent to press a kiss against her hand. The gesture of a man whose world had narrowed to her and her alone.
“Come,” she said. “This is important.”
He followed her to the fountain where they mourned those lost in Lunareth together.
Val-Theris helped Jesenia to the ground and sat cross-legged beside her, his wings folded loosely behind him.
Between them rested a small, delicate paper lantern dipped in wax so it could float without soaking through.
“It’s a Lunarethian tradition,” Jesenia explained softly, tracing a fingertip along the rim of it.
“When a child is expected, we set lanterns on the river to carry their names to good fortune. It’s…
a journal of sorts. A way to communicate with them beyond words.
The river holds thousands of stories the mothers share with their babies.
I’ve been told my own mother made hundreds when Danyel and I were in her belly.
” Her smile faltered briefly, but she steadied it.
He handed her the lantern and his fingers brushed hers briefly before lingering there.
She looked up at him, startled, lips parting faintly before curving into a soft smile.
Together, they lit the tiny wick inside, lowering the lantern into the rippling fountain that sat in the center of the palace’s gardens.
Jesenia watched it with intensity, her thumb brushing the inside of Val-Theris’s hand in a slow, unconscious rhythm. She leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering.
“My little one,” she murmured, the words soft but sure, “this light is for you. It carries our hopes, not our fear.” Her breath hitched faintly.
“You come from a people who endured without becoming cruel. Who learned that mercy is not the absence of strength, but its truest form.” Her hand pressed more firmly to her stomach, grounding herself in the warmth there.
“I don’t know what kind of world will greet you.
I only know that I will teach you how to love it anyway. ”
Val-Theris’s throat ached with emotions he had never felt before.
He had faced battlefields without flinching, had watched cities burn in visions he could not change—but her words for their unborn child undid him in ways no prophecy ever had.
He shifted closer, lowering his head until his forehead brushed Jesenia’s temple.
His voice, when he spoke, was uncharacteristically gentle.
“And I will teach you,” he said, “how to carry what is heavy without letting it hollow you.” His hand slid to rest over hers, over the curve of her stomach.
“You will inherit a crown that was never meant to be a burden, but I fear it may become one for you. But you also inherit my vow—that you will never be alone beneath it. You are already braver than I am,” he whispered, voice thick.
“You exist without knowing fear or war or pain. I envy that innocence.”
Jesenia turned her head slightly, her cheek brushing his shoulder. “You don’t have to protect them from everything,” she said. “Just teach them how to stand tall when the world tries to push them down.”
The lantern reached the edge of the fountain, its light briefly reflecting in Val-Theris’s eyes before slipping beyond the curve of stone and out of sight.
Jesenia watched until it vanished, then leaned back against him fully, allowing herself the rare luxury of being held without fear of interruption.
Val-Theris wrapped his wings around them both, a pale arc of feathers closing like a sanctuary. He lowered his lips to her hair, breathing her in.
“Sleep well, little light,” he murmured, not to the water, but to the life growing between them. Jesenia closed her eyes, her fingers tightening briefly around his. “We will see you soon.”
As they were lost in their moment, neither of them noticed the servant boy carrying linens at the far edge of the cloister.
He froze at the sight, eyes wide, the linens nearly slipping from his arms. He had seen enough: the King of Seraveth, his hand lingering on the belly of a refugee woman, a kiss pressed to her temple with tenderness that spoke louder than any proclamation.
By the time the boy reached the lower halls, his whisper had already spread. By nightfall, the palace was alive with it. Whispers slithered through kitchens, barracks, merchant halls. By the next dawn, the city hummed with the tale.
And by the third day, the council spoke of little else.
The lamps burned low, their light pooling gold across the silk of the bed. Jesenia slept beside him, her breathing slow and even, the faintest rise and fall beneath the thin sheet marking the secret she now carried between them.
Val-Theris lay awake. He turned onto his side, watching her face in the candlelight.
Jesenia had never looked so peaceful. There was a soft warmth about her now, something he had no language for. Her hand rested loosely against her stomach, as though even in sleep she knew what she carried there and sought to protect it.
This was something he had believed impossible, but there it was, resting between them for him to admire.
He reached out, brushing a lock of hair from Jesenia’s cheek.
“Do you remember,” he whispered, voice barely a sound, “the gardens?” Her eyelids fluttered but did not open.
“You told me you wanted as many children as your body could carry.” His throat ached.
“I thought the Light had cursed me to rule, but not to create. That I was meant to guide life, never give it. And yet here you are, defying the divine again.”
He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing her in.
His voice trembled against her skin. “I’ll give you as many as I can,” he murmured.
“As many as time allows before death finds me. You’ll have a house full of laughter and noise and little hands tugging at your skirts.
You’ll have every dream you ever whispered to the wind, Jesenia.
” He exhaled slowly, eyes burning as his voice broke. “Even if I am not there to see it.”
She stirred slightly. His hand tightened around hers. When sleep finally took him, he dreamed not of fire or ruin, but of sunlight and small voices calling his name.
And somewhere beyond the reach of dawn, the god who had made him watched, and said nothing.
The council chamber was thick with the scent of incense, though it did little to mask the stench of whispered conspiracy. Councilor Gena leaned forward in her seat, her thin fingers steepled, her sharp eyes glinting like knives in the lamplight.
“It is confirmed,” she said, her voice low, carrying across the chamber with deadly certainty. “We have watched her for two months. The Lunareth girl has missed her blood. She is with child.”
Murmurs rippled through the chamber like a hiss of serpents.
Councilor Varin scowled, slamming a heavy hand against the marble table. “Then Solmiris’s shame is doubled. The child within her is blasphemy carved into flesh.”
“Not just blasphemy,” Gena countered, her lips curving in a thin smile. “Opportunity.”
Several heads turned at that, uneasy. Gena rose, her long cloak trailing across the floor as she paced slowly.
“The people already grow restless. They whisper of refugees draining our coffers, of weakness in the Angel-King who bends for foreign filth. This child will be the spark. All we need do is fan the flames.”
One of the younger councilors shifted uneasily. “And if Val-Theris learns of our hand in it—”
“He need not learn,” Gena cut in, her tone sharp as steel. “Rumor is a fire that requires no hand to guide it.”
Varin’s scowl deepened, though there was grudging agreement in his voice. “We must act quickly, then. The people will never kneel to a bastard heir.”
“They will not need to,” Gena said smoothly. “We will force his hand. Force him to choose: his crown…or his whore.”
The chamber stilled at her words, the implication hanging heavy. At last, another councilor leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “And what of the child?”
Gena’s smile thinned further, cruel. “Best it is never born.”
And though Val-Theris and Jesenia still slept peacefully in each other’s arms that night, dreaming of names and futures, the first stones of ruin had already been laid beneath their feet.
Three days later, while Val-Theris was locked away in the war chamber discussing the situation at the border, Jesenia had been summoned by the Council without warning.
Five guards came for her and escorted her through the dark corridors of the palace to a small room, where Councilors Varin and Gena waited.
“Lady Jesenia,” Councilor Varin began smoothly, his voice measured, silk laid over steel. “We are grateful you have come.”
“I wasn’t aware it was optional,” Jesenia replied softly, trying to hide in the folds of her shawl.
Varin smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ll speak plainly, then. You carry the child of Solmiris’s king.”
The air in the chamber grew colder. Jesenia’s heart stuttered, but she kept her expression steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do not lie, foreigner!” he snapped.
Gena, thin and sharp as a blade—leaned forward, her knuckles resting against the wooden table between them. “That child will not inherit Solmiris’s throne. Lunarethian blood will not stain Seraveth’s crown.”
Jesenia’s breath caught, but she forced herself to meet Gena’s gaze. “You have no right to accuse the king of such lies.”
“We have every right,” Varin interrupted, his voice steady and soft as falling ash. “The king does not govern alone. We have tolerated your presence because you kept small. But now, you have become dangerous.”
The room fell silent except for Jesenia’s ragged breathing.
Varin leaned back, folding his hands lightly in his lap. “Remove yourself from Seraveth before the child is born. Before your body shows our people this disgusting display of weakness,” he said smoothly, his tone almost gentle now. “Or we cannot guarantee your safety. Nor theirs.”
They said nothing more, and did not stop her as Jesenia backed out of the room with a panic she had never known. She retreated to Val-Theris’s room, collapsing onto the chaise and muffling her sobs of fear with her hand.
What cruelty to threaten an innocent child.
There was no excuse for that evil, and Jesenia knew if she did not abide by their demands, they would not hesitate to make good on their threats.
When Val-Theris entered the chamber many hours later, he saw the look on her face. Unfocused. Fearful. Distant. He rushed to her immediately, his hair falling forward as he kneeled before her with all the concern of the heavens in his gaze.
Her name left his lips softly, but she flinched. “Tell me,” he murmured, his voice low and steady despite the storm he felt building in his chest. “What is it? Are you in pain? Is the baby—”
“They know,” she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her.
His grip grew firm around her hands. “Who knows what?”
“The council. About the baby.” Her voice cracked, thin and broken. “They said—” She faltered, swallowing hard before forcing the words out. “They said that I had to leave Seraveth before I began showing or else—”
“They threatened you?”
She nodded, breath shuddering, trying to steady her hands against his.
Val-Theris’s chest rose sharply, once, as though the air itself had turned against him. Slowly, carefully, he lifted her chin, forcing her tear-bright gaze to meet his steady one.
“No one,” he said dangerously, “threatens you. No one.”
“Please don’t do anything that will make them hate us more,” she begged, but Val-Theris could not grant her that wish—too blinded by fury and the desperation to protect his growing family.
The council convened at dawn the next day by emergency order of the king. But only two councilors arrived, Varin and Gena, for they were the only ones to receive the summons.
In the gilded chamber beneath Solmiris’s high dome, their murmured voices were already restless when Val-Theris entered.
“Your Majesty, what troubles you?” Varin asked smoothly, as if he didn’t already know.
“You summoned Lady Jesenia without my knowledge.” His voice cut through the chamber, quiet but unyielding. “You threatened the mother of my child,” Val-Theris said evenly, though his wings flared faintly behind him, casting long shadows across the marble floor.
Gena rose, chin tilting defiantly. “We sought only to protect Solmiris’s sovereignty.”
“By promising the death of a woman and child?”
“She is no mere woman! She is the face of Seravath’s weakness! We cannot allow it!”
Val-Theris stepped forward slowly, his eyes sharply cutting across the marble table like drawn blades.
He stopped in front of Varin, his expression unreadable, his hands relaxed at his sides—and then, in a single, controlled movement, he drew a narrow dagger from its scabbard.
Before anyone could speak, before Varin could even inhale, the blade slid clean and silent across his throat.
He collapsed soundlessly, blood spilling blackened red across the polished marble. Val-Theris looked down at him as if someone had spilled wine. Gena sat unmoved, but when the king’s pale gaze met hers, the facade broke and fear shown in her eyes, her lips parting in silent horror.
“Let you both be a lesson to the rest of my Council. If any one of you ever so much as breathes her name again…it will be the last thing you do.”
Then, his narrow blade met her throat as well. Gena fell limp to the table next to Varin’s body.
Val-Theris turned sharply to the Angelicus Prime, who had been watching from the shadows. “Take care of them,” he commanded, then strode from the chamber without another word, leaving the blood behind him.
While the Council dared not speak Jesenia’s name again, they had already set plans into place that extended far beyond the deaths of Varin and Gena. The cost of their deaths was now etched into Solmiris’s bones: the city would never forgive its king for spilling its own blood.