Elara’s POV

"What’s going on? Did I miss something?"

Jessica spun around, her cheeks flushed pink with excitement. "Elara! Oh, you have no idea. Come here—come here, come here."

She grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the circle. Maya, Sophie, and Riley were already huddled together, practically vibrating. Their eyes were wide, mouths curving with the kind of giddy delight that only fresh gossip could produce.

"Tell her," Maya urged, elbowing Riley. "Show her."

"Okay, okay." Riley dug into the pocket of her training vest and produced a small crystal—milky white, no bigger than a robin’s egg. A memory crystal. The kind merchants used to record transactions or nobles used to send visual messages across distances. "My cousin works supply runs to Stone Creek, about a two-hour carriage ride from here. He recorded this recently."

She held the crystal flat on her palm and whispered the activation word.

Light bloomed upward. Hazy. Slightly distorted, the way all secondhand recordings were. But clear enough.

A general store interior materialized in miniature above Riley’s hand. Shelves of grain sacks. Jars of preserved fruit. A counter with a bored-looking shopkeeper.

And there, standing near a display of dried herbs, was Seraphine.

The image flickered, but her face was unmistakable. That elegant bone structure. The dark auburn hair pinned neatly behind her ears. She was examining a bundle of chamomile, turning it over in slender fingers.

She looked content. Relaxed. Glowing, even.

And she was enormously pregnant.

The swell of her belly was impossible to miss—round, heavy, stretching the fabric of her simple traveling dress. She moved with the careful, slightly tilted gait of a woman deep into pregnancy. One hand rested instinctively on the side of her stomach.

The image dissolved.

"Seven months," Jessica whispered reverently. "At least seven months along, wouldn’t you say?"

Seven months.

The number detonated somewhere behind my ribs.

Seven months ago. That inn. That night. Kaelen’s face when I’d confronted him—pale, confused, swearing on everything sacred that he’d been drugged. That nothing had happened. That he couldn’t remember.

Nothing happened, Elara. I swear to you.

Seven months.

"She looks so healthy," Sophie said. "Radiant, honestly. Pregnancy suits her."

"Well, of course it does." Maya leaned against the weapons rack with her arms folded. "She’s carrying the Emperor’s heir. You’d glow too."

The Emperor’s heir.

I kept my face still. Neutral. Interested in precisely the way a detached instructor should be when her students shared court gossip. I even managed a small nod, as if this were merely fascinating news about people I had no connection to.

"But why is she hiding in Stone Creek?" I asked. My voice came out steady. Almost bored. I didn’t know how.

"That’s the thing," Riley said, tucking the crystal back into her vest. "Everyone at court thinks His Majesty sent her away for protection. You know how dangerous things have been with the border conflicts. A pregnant woman carrying the imperial bloodline? She’d be a target."

Jessica nodded eagerly. "It makes sense. The Emperor is protecting her. Keeping her hidden until the baby’s born safely."

"My aunt serves in the lower kitchens," Maya added. "She says there’s already talk of a formal ceremony. Once the child arrives, there’ll be a coronation. A proper one. They’re saying she’ll be named Empress."

Empress.

The word sat on my tongue like poison.

"She deserves it, honestly," Sophie said. She was braiding a piece of leather cord absently, her tone casual. "After the Luna left—no offense to Her Majesty, wherever she is—but Seraphine stepped right in. My mother says she’s been wonderful with the little prince and princess. Reading to them. Attending their lessons. Valerius apparently calls her—"

"Don’t," I said.

The word came out sharper than I intended. All four of them looked at me.

I forced a smile. "Sorry. Bit of a headache. Go on."

Sophie hesitated, then shrugged. "I was just going to say Seraphine’s been really good to them. Patient. Kind. Not trying to replace anyone, just... filling the gap."

Filling the gap.

The gap I left.

"She’s perfect for it, honestly," Jessica said. "Noble birth. Educated. Beautiful. And now she’s giving the Empire an heir? The people love her already."

"I heard the imperial nobility is already preparing lavish gifts," Riley added. "Everyone is eager to celebrate her."

They kept talking. Their voices blurred together—a cheerful, overlapping stream of admiration for the woman who was carrying my husband’s child. The woman who had stood in my bedroom, in my home, and—

I took a breath. Held it.

"Ladies," I said. "I need to review some training schedules before the afternoon session. Excuse me."

"Of course, Instructor."

"Feel better, Elara!"

"We’ll warm up on our own."

I walked across the yard. Steady. Even. My boots hit the packed earth in a measured rhythm. One step. Another. Another.

I reached the small rest chamber at the back of the grounds—the narrow stone room with a cot, a washbasin, and a door that locked from the inside. I stepped in.

Closed the door.

Turned the lock.

And then my legs gave out.

I slid down the door until I hit the floor, my back pressed against the cold wood. My hands were shaking. Not trembling—shaking. The kind of violent, full-body tremor that starts in the chest and radiates outward until even your teeth rattle.

Seven months.

He’d sworn. He had sworn to me.

I pressed my palms flat against the stone floor, trying to ground myself. The floor was cold. Real. Solid. But the room was tilting sideways, and the air had turned to something too thick to breathe.

Seven months ago, Kaelen had stood in front of me with those dark gold eyes and told me he’d been drugged. That he had no memory of that night. That whatever I thought had happened between him and Seraphine was a lie, a setup, a frame.

And I had wanted so desperately to believe him.

Part of me had. Some small, stubborn fragment buried deep below the hurt—it had clung to the possibility that maybe, maybe there was another explanation.

That fragment was dead now.

Seven months pregnant. The timing was exact. Precise. A blade sliding perfectly between my ribs.

My breathing was wrong. Too fast. Too shallow. I couldn’t slow it down. I pressed one hand against my chest and felt my heart hammering beneath my palm—frantic, trapped, like a bird throwing itself against glass.

Valerius. Lyra.

Their faces flooded my mind. Valerius with his careful eyes and his quiet pride. Lyra with her silver hair and her arms wrapped around my knees, shouting I missed you more.

They were there. In that palace. With her.

Sophie’s voice echoed in my skull. She’s been wonderful with the little prince and princess.

Was Seraphine tucking Lyra in at night? Was she smoothing back her hair the way I did? Was she sitting in Valerius’s doorway, watching him read?

Was Lyra calling her— 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

I couldn’t finish the thought. My throat closed around it like a fist.

The coronation. They were planning a coronation. A new Empress. A new mother for my children. And the entire imperial nobility was celebrating.

Lavish gifts. A new era.

For her.

I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my forehead against them. The shaking wouldn’t stop. My lungs burned. Each breath came in a short, ragged gasp that wasn’t enough—never enough.

He lied. He looked me in the eyes and he lied.

And I had almost let myself soften. I had almost believed his excuses, almost let that wall crack. Almost believed that maybe the pieces of our family could be put back together.

What a fool. What a pathetic, desperate fool.

The room shrank around me. The walls pressed inward. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I could see was that hazy image—Seraphine’s hand resting on her swollen belly, her face serene, her body carrying the proof of everything Kaelen had denied.

And somewhere in that palace, my children were learning to love her.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Just a strangled, airless gasp that scraped the inside of my throat raw.

I couldn’t breathe.