It began subtly.
At first, Kara thought it was just fatigue. The palace corridors seemed longer, her limbs heavier, her steps slower. Her mornings felt like dusk, and her dreams, once silent, were now filled with flickers of light—images of two beating hearts, entwined in stardust and shadows, whispering promises she could not fully understand.
But then came the waves of warmth in her body—gentle but unrelenting, as if her veins pulsed with new rhythm, not her own, but borrowed from something forming within her. A life. No—two lives, slowly threading themselves into her soul.
She stood before the high glass mirror in her private chamber, fingers grazing the slight swell at her abdomen. It was not yet noticeable to the world, but she felt it beneath her skin—a sacred shift, a deep-rooted
