Damien
The healer's voice barely reached me, the sound fragile and drifting like smoke across the cold air of the infirmary, and for a long moment I stood still, arms folded behind my back, my breath shallow in my chest as if even the act of breathing might shatter what remained of my control.
“She’s pregnant,” she said again, and this time the words didn’t just land, they echoed. Loud. Relentless. Like a bell tolling in the ruins of a chapel long abandoned.
Pregnant.
Time didn’t slow. It broke. The room, the healer, the guards outside the door all of it tilted, shifted sideways like the ground had betrayed gravity, and suddenly nothing was solid beneath me. Just her. Just Ayla. Still pale. Still fragile in a way that frightened me more than any blade ever had.
I heard more words. The
