Chapter 30
THIRTY
The chambers were quiet, the city beyond their windows restless beneath Solmiris’s starlight. The soft perfume of night-blooming jasmine drifted in from the gardens below, mingling faintly with the lingering warmth of burning oil lamps.
Jesenia sat curled on the velvet bench beside the carved window, her shawl slipping loosely from one shoulder. The moonlight caught the silver threads in its fabric, scattering faint glimmers across her skin. One hand rested lightly against her abdomen, absentminded and protective.
They had spoken little since he spilled blood in the streets for her. The guilt weighed heavy on her shoulders as if she were the one who drew the blade herself. It made her more sick than usual, and Val-Theris could see the way his actions affected her.
He stood at the balcony doors, leaning against the carved stone frame, his wings drawn close to his back.
His gaze had been on the city for some time, tracing the faint flicker of distant torches where the lower terraces still churned with unease.
But none of that mattered to him now. After his conversation with his father, he couldn’t find it in himself to care about anything at all, save for Jesenia and their unborn child.
She gasped softly. It was a small, startled sound that made him turn instantly, his pale eyes sharp beneath the dim glow of the chamber lamps. She was staring down at her hand, fingers pressed gently against her stomach, wide-eyed.
“Jesenia?”
Her breath trembled. “I felt them move,” she whispered, her voice soft with awe. “Val-Theris, I felt it!”
He crossed the room quickly but quietly, as though afraid to disturb something sacred, kneeling before her without a word. His hand hovered in the space between them, hesitant to touch until she caught it and guided him gently, placing his palm over the soft curve of her stomach.
They waited in silence.
And then he felt the faint fluttering, fragile as the brush of a moth’s wing. Val-Theris stilled completely, his breath catching, every trace of tension drawn taut beneath his skin. He bowed his head, his hair falling forward to brush against her shawl, his voice breaking the stillness.
“There is life,” he whispered, reverent and disbelieving.
Jesenia smiled faintly, everything she had felt the days prior fading away, her free hand brushing across his temple. “That is our future,” she corrected gently, tears gathering at the corners of her lashes.
Val-Theris looked up at her then, and for a heartbeat Jesenia thought he might shatter—there was too much in his gaze, a thousand unspoken things pressing behind his pale eyes.
He reached up, cupping her jaw carefully, his thumb sweeping against her cheek as though memorizing the shape of her face in this exact moment.
He kissed her then. Soft at first, then deeper, the restrained edge of someone who carries both love and desperation in equal measure.
Her fingers tangled lightly in the collar of his tunic, pulling him closer as his wings shifted behind him, arching slightly, shadow stretching against marble and lamplight.
It lasted only a moment, but when they parted, his forehead pressed gently against hers, and she caught the tremor in his breath.
“You’re afraid,” Jesenia whispered.
Val-Theris closed his eyes, swallowing against the weight in his chest. “Every day.”
Jesenia brushed her thumb along his cheekbone, steady where he faltered. “Then hold onto us,” she said softly. “Whatever comes, we meet it together. As one.”
For a long moment, he simply held her, one hand still pressed gently against her stomach, as though trying to anchor himself to the faint flutter of life beneath his palm.
Neither of them knew this would be one of the last nights they’d ever dream of names, of soft mornings, of futures built in the soft light of their love.
Soon, Solmiris would take everything from them.
Of the ninety-three Lunarethians that arrived at Solmiris’s gates, eighty-three remained.
Of the ten that were lost, among them, the last two living infants that were born before Lunareth fell were lost to fever.
This knowledge weighed on Jesenia daily now.
She carried the future of her country inside her.
Though she was overjoyed, and Val-Theris called it honorable, she could not help but feel guilty for it.
She suspected she was the only woman of birthing age from Lunareth that was healthy enough to conceive.
Due to her time at the palace during late council sessions and her secret marriage to the king, she had once again filled out and held the curves she was born with.
All the while, her people still had to beg for scraps.
Jesenia moved through the refugee quarter with practiced familiarity, though it had been days since she last came. Smoke rose in soft plumes from low hearths and shared ovens, curling around patched linens and salvaged stones.
Her shawl was drawn close, though the morning was mild, her steps measured as she navigated uneven cobblestone.
People noticed her at once. They always did now.
Some bowed their heads. Others pressed hands to their hearts.
A few reached out—not to touch her, but to brush fingers against the hem of her sleeve as she passed, as though proximity alone might offer reassurance that she was both there and still working to improve their conditions.
“Lady Jesenia,” someone murmured.
“Blessings,” said another.
She answered them softly, nodding, pausing when she could, though the weight of their attention pressed heavier than usual today. Desperate, almost painful in its intensity.
She turned down a narrower lane where the stone darkened with age and dampness. At the end of the lane stood a makeshift tent, painted with a simple symbol of a crescent moon. She stopped before it, resting her palm briefly outside as she steadied her breath and peeked inside.
“Come in,” came a voice from within, low and steady. Jesenia smiled faintly and pushed the linen open.
Marise sat inside atop a pile of hay and dried leaves. Her hair, once black as obsidian, had faded to silver, braided and bound at the nape of her neck. Her hands were strong and sure, stained faintly with ink and herbs, her eyes sharp with a kindness that did not dull with time.
“There you are,” Marise said, setting aside a bowl of steeping leaves. “I was beginning to worry that palace had swallowed you whole.”
“Not yet,” Jesenia replied gently. “Though it’s tried.”
Marise gestured for her to sit, then her gaze dropped at once to Jesenia’s stomach, her expression softening.
“You carry yourself differently,” she murmured.
Jesenia lowered herself carefully onto the cushions. “I feel different,” she admitted. “As if I’m carrying my fear in my stomach instead of my child.”
Marise approached slowly, achy knees cracking as she moved closer. She placed both hands gently against Jesenia’s stomach, eyes closing as she bowed her head.
“Ah,” she breathed. “There you are, little river.”
Jesenia’s breath paused.
Marise opened her eyes and looked up at her. “They will be large and healthy, I think. Fitting for the child of a god, hm?” She listened once more. “The spirit of this little one is strong. They press outward, even now.”
“That’s good?” Jesenia asked quietly.
“It means they will not easily cower to the struggles of this world,” she replied. “What of your sickness?”
“Only worse at the smell of meat. I think this babe will be grown on bread alone.”
Marise smiled at that. “The baby will tell you what it wants. If that is bread, then I would give all of my grain to you.”
Jesenia swallowed. “Don’t say such things.”
“But it’s true,” Marise said. “I am old now. I have lived a full life. I have loved. I have lost. I have experienced boundless joy and endless sorrow. I have brought many lives into this world, but I suspect this one may be my last. My dying wish is for this child to play in Lunareth’s river before their world grows bleak.
This child is a miracle; you carry proof that love was not lost when our homes fell.
Promise me, no—promise Lunareth, Jesenia, that this child will know the strength it came from. ”
Jesenia sobbed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Yes. Yes, I promise—”
As she spoke, a distant, loud, hollow boom vibrated through the stones beneath them. The two women stood together and stepped out of the tent. The conversations in the street faltered and the refugees searched for the source of the sound.
Another boom followed, closer this time.
Then the bells began to ring. The frantic, uneven toll reserved for only one thing.
Invaders.
Shouts rose from the direction of the gates. People surged instinctively toward shelter, fear cracking through the fragile calm like ice splitting underfoot.
“Korvath!” A Hastati above them screamed. “Korvath at the gates!”
As he finished his warning, he went limp, falling from the top of the wall and crashing to the refugee quarter below with an arrow lodged precisely in the gap between his plated armor and his helmet.
Jesenia turned from the sight, her breath caught in her throat as smoke rose in the distance, dark against the sky. The ground seemed to shudder beneath her, as if the city itself recoiled from what approached.
Her hand flew to her stomach, instinct overriding thought.
The quarter erupted into chaos—children crying, elders shouting instructions, men scrambling to form lines and grab any weapons they could find.
Stones. Sticks. One man even pulled the arrow from the fallen soldier and held it like a javelin.
“Go,” Marise said sharply as she shook Jesenia. “Back to the palace. Now.”
She couldn’t argue. She tried to turn and run, but as she did, Korvath’s soldiers broke through the front gates of the city, swiftly cutting off any escape.
Something slammed into her from behind, rough hands yanking her backward into the crush of bodies.
A hand clamped over her mouth before she could scream, her shawl torn as she struggled, breath ragged and sharp against her captor’s gauntlet.
They cut men down where they stood, and any women they could grab, they did, corralling them like cattle at the central plaza of the city.
Among them, was Jesenia.