The Fallen Princess: Unbound

Chapter Three

The room moved again, fast and purposeful, while the storm outside battered the castle as if it meant to shake loose every stone that had ever promised safety.

Fay returned first, arms full of towels and a bowl she’d nearly dropped twice in her haste. Her freckles stood out sharply against skin gone pale with fear, and she kept her mouth shut as though sound itself might make things worse.

Zakai came in at her heels, damp only at the hem from moving too quickly through drafty corridors, a small sack clinking softly with iron nails and a tin of salt tucked hard beneath his arm. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His presence said enough: I’m here. I’m ready.

Saoirse didn’t thank either of them. She took the items the way a healer took tools, without ceremony, without softness, and began arranging them with brisk, brutal efficiency.

Salt poured in a thin ring across the stone floor. Iron was placed at the bed’s corners, heavy and deliberate. Rowan ash scattered over the hearth stones until the flames hissed and flared in protest, as if the fire itself resented being asked to do more than burn.

The air changed as she worked, thickening with a bitter, ancient scent that caught at the back of the throat: rain and smoke, sweat and blood, and something older underneath it. Crushed bark, turned soil, the memory of forests that didn’t care what a castle wanted.

Callen stood rigid beside the bed, their daughter cradled in his arms as though refusing to loosen his grip might be enough to save her. His ceremonial uniform had wrinkled in the night’s violence; his knuckles had gone white around the swaddling.

Zephira lay unnervingly quiet. Not asleep. Quiet like a held breath. Zaria lay half-sunk into pillows, hair damp against her temples, skin flushed and clammy from labor’s aftermath.

Her body felt wrung dry, hollowed out down to bone, the pain still there in dull aftershocks that reminded her how close she’d come to breaking. She should have been drifting—dazed, floating, surrendered to exhaustion.

Instead she watched her baby’s chest. Up. Down. Too shallow. Always too shallow. Zephira’s lips parted, and for a heartbeat Zaria thought she would cry.

Instead a thin, fractured sound slipped out, almost a whimper, and the baby’s tiny body shuddered as if something inside her resisted the simple act of breathing. Callen’s arms tightened at once, instinctive and fierce.

Zaria pressed her palm to the sheets and tried to sit up, pain flashing sharp and bright through her abdomen, but fear was sharper. Callen shifted toward her immediately, ready to catch her, ready to steady her down if he had to.

“Don’t,” Zaria managed, voice raw. “Bring her. Let me hold her.” Callen hesitated, eyes flicking to Saoirse as if permission mattered when everything in him wanted to obey Zaria before the sentence finished.

The witch didn’t nod, but she didn’t shake her head either; she simply watched the baby the way you watched a thread drawn too tight, waiting to see if it would snap. Zaria’s pulse hammered. “Callen.”

He moved then, slow and careful, lowering the bundle into her arms. The moment Zephira’s weight settled against her chest, Zaria’s breath caught because she was so small, so impossibly warm... and then cold, for the briefest shiver.

Zaria pressed her lips to Zephira’s forehead as though she could pour heat into her with nothing but love, then stayed there breathing slow and deliberate, trying to make her own lungs teach her daughter what to do.

“My beautiful girl,” she whispered. “Stay with me. Please.” Zephira’s lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened. Gold, and not gold. The warm color was threaded through with something darker, red swirling faintly at the edges like ink in honey, and Zaria’s grip tightened reflexively around the swaddling as if the sight alone could make the child slip away.

“Koen,” she breathed, hating how close the name came to prayer. “Why isn’t he here yet?” She didn’t look away from her daughter’s face as she spoke. She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t bear the idea that Zephira might go still in the space of a blink.

Saoirse’s gaze slid toward the door. “He's coming,” she said, voice flat. “I can feel his magic.” The words had barely left her mouth when a knock sounded on the door and the latch clicked. No permission. Just inevitability.

Koen stepped inside like he’d been waiting. He was dry, fresh from the dinner hall rather than the storm, and it made him somehow worse. As if nothing in the world could rattle him into haste.

His midnight tunic lay smooth across his shoulders, silver embroidery along the collar and sleeves catching the light when he moved, and his hair, black as ink, hung loose tonight in clean, controlled waves to the nape of his neck. He was handsome in his own right, as if carved from darkness and patience.

Callen’s muscles locked, the old reflex to strike surging up hard, and beneath it, worse, was helplessness. War he understood. Steel he could answer. But this was newborn breath and hungry magic, and Koen stood too close to both.

Zakai adjusted by the door with practiced calm, a silent promise that nothing would touch them without going through him. Fay didn’t move at all, pale and watchful, as if even breathing might disturb the fragile balance in the room.

Koen didn’t glance at any of them. His gaze went straight to Zaria. Then to the bundle in her arms. Then to Saoirse’s ash ring and iron corners. Understanding crossed his features—small, precise, grim.

“That won’t work,” Koen murmured, calm enough to be insulting. “It might hold her for a moment, but it won’t save her.” Callen took one step forward. Saoirse lifted a hand sharply. “Not one more pace.”

Callen didn’t stop. His eyes went bright gold, the dragon in him rising like heat off a drawn blade. “You knew,” he said, voice low. Koen’s gaze shifted to him, unhurried. “I suspected.” Callen’s mouth tightened. “I should kill you.”

Koen didn’t flinch. “Killing me will have to wait if you want your daughter breathing by morning.” Silence snapped tight between them. Rain hammered the windows as if the storm approved of the threat.

Zaria’s heart slammed so hard she felt it in her throat. “Koen,” she said, and hated that it came out like a plea. He stepped closer, stopping at the edge of the bed where the salt line began.

He didn’t reach, didn’t touch; he simply stared down at Zephira with an intensity that set Zaria’s nerves on edge, like he was measuring something inside her that no one else could see. “Fix her,” Zaria managed, voice shaking.

Koen’s eyes lifted to her for a brief moment, just long enough for Zaria to feel the weight of his attention, then returned to the baby like nothing else in the room deserved air. Saoirse made a sound of impatience. “Enough posturing. Elf, can you anchor her or not?”

Koen’s jaw tightened once. “Yes.” A short pause and then: “That’s why I came.” Saoirse’s eyes narrowed. “And you understand what it will cost you.” Koen didn’t look away from the baby. “I understand.”

Something in Zaria faltered under the weight of those two words. Not forgiveness. Not trust. Just the sudden, uncomfortable realization that Koen had walked into this room already expecting to pay a price to save her daughter... again.

Callen shook his head once, sharp. “No.” Zaria turned her face toward him, voice hoarse. “Callen—” “No,” he repeated, harder. “We will find another way.” Saoirse’s expression went flat. “There isn’t time for your pride.”

“It isn’t pride,” Callen snapped. “It’s—” “Fear,” Saoirse cut in. “Fear dressed in armor. And it will kill her if you let it.” Callen went still. Zaria watched his throat work as he swallowed something down, his gaze flicking to Zephira and then back to Zaria.

His voice dropped to something raw. “If he harms her—” Koen’s eyes lifted, cold and clinical. “If I harm her, I’ll feel it.” Callen’s stare sharpened. “What.”

Koen nodded once toward Zephira. “An anchor doesn’t stop at her. It threads through me. If she falters, I falter. If you kill me…” He let the sentence hang, letting Callen do the math himself. Unease settled over Zaria, not because she didn’t believe Koen, but because she did.

Saoirse gestured sharply toward the bed. “Give her to him.” Zaria’s arms locked around her daughter instinctively, panic flaring again, and Koen’s gaze shifted to her, just her, as his voice lowered.

“Zaria.” Something about the way he said her name, without edge, without arrogance, stilled her enough to listen. He leaned in slightly, stepping over the salt ring as if it meant nothing to him. “You’re scared,” he murmured. “And angry. You have every right to be.”

Zaria’s lips parted, but no sound came. Koen’s eyes stayed on hers. “But you’re not stupid. You know she’s slipping.” Zephira’s chest rose again. Too shallow. Zaria swallowed hard.

“Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise me you won’t—” Koen inclined his head once. “I won’t take what isn’t mine to take.” The words sounded practiced, like an oath he’d once been forced to learn.

Zaria let out a long breath, shaky and thin, and Koen’s gaze flicked down to the baby again. “But understand this,” he said quietly. “If I anchor her, she will pull on me. When she’s afraid, when she’s hungry, when her magic surges and falters.”

Zaria’s hands trembled. “And you’ll let her.” It came out more as realization than a question. Koen didn’t answer immediately. For the first time since he entered, something uncertain flickered behind his eyes, like he didn’t quite understand his own willingness.

“Yes,” he murmured at last. “I’ll let her.” “Now,” Saoirse snapped, dragging the moment back into motion. “Before she worsens.” Zaria looked down at her baby—so tiny, so fierce, so terrifyingly quiet—and leaned forward.

Callen’s hand darted out, catching Zaria’s wrist gently. His fingers squeezed once—warm, grounding, desperate. Zaria turned her face toward him, and the look in his gold eyes hit like a wound: blazing strength on the surface, breaking underneath.

“I trust you,” he breathed, voice ragged. “Not him.” “I know,” Zaria whispered, then pressed her forehead briefly to his, breath mingling for one heartbeat, warm and shaking. “Then trust me.” Callen’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Then he let her go.

Koen took Zephira into his arms with a gentleness that did not match his reputation, and the instant the baby left Zaria’s body the room went strange again, as if the air itself had shifted its weight and decided to listen.

The hearth snapped louder. The perfumed candle flames wavered and steadied again. The temperature dipped by several degrees, subtle but unmistakable, like winter had breathed into the chamber.

Koen’s eyes darkened. Not with emotion. With focus. Zephira’s lashes fluttered. Her tiny mouth parted. A sound rose in her throat—soft, broken—then stilled again, as if something inside her pulled it back.

Koen didn’t cradle her like a proud father. He held her like something sacred and dangerous, like she was a spell wearing infant skin. Zaria watched his face, waiting for cruelty, for triumph, for possession. What she saw instead made her chest ache in a place she didn’t have a name for.

Koen looked… caught. Not smiling. Not softened. But his stillness wasn’t cold the way it usually was. It was reverent, as if he’d been handed something that changed the shape of his solitude and he didn’t yet know what to do with it.

His thumb hovered near the baby’s sternum, not touching skin, as if direct contact might pull too much, too fast. Saoirse stepped to his side and sprinkled rowan ash over Koen’s hands and the baby’s swaddling, then pressed an iron nail into Koen’s palm.

He didn’t react even when the metal bit. A thin line of blood welled. “Let it pool,” Saoirse ordered. “I know,” Koen murmured, and curled his fingers around the nail until the metal disappeared inside his fist.

He closed his eyes. The air thickened, as if the room had learned to hold its breath. Koen’s lips moved soundlessly at first, then a low murmur slipped free, nothing like Saoirse’s earlier cadence, but something harsher and older, the syllables grinding against the air like stone under pressure.

Something in Zaria recoiled at the wrongness of it even as she forced herself to stay still. Koen’s blood, bright and dark, dripped once onto the swaddling cloth. The moment it touched, Zephira’s chest jerked. A shallow gasp. Then another. Deeper. Steadier.

Zaria’s breath caught hard enough to hurt. Koen opened his eyes. Zephira’s eyes were open too. The red glint pulsed once, then softened, threading back into that dark honey-wine color until it looked almost normal. Almost.

Koen’s shoulders dropped a fraction, like a man who’d been bracing against a blade and finally felt it ease. Zephira made a tiny sound—small, indignant, unmistakably alive—Then she cried.

Not the thin, fractured sound from before. A full, furious wail that filled the chamber and snapped something tight inside Zaria’s chest. Relief collapsed her. “Oh gods,” she sobbed.

Callen exhaled so hard it shook, one hand catching the bedpost as if his legs had forgotten how to hold him. Saoirse stepped back and wiped her hands on a cloth, expression grim but satisfied. “She’ll live.”

Koen didn’t move. He stared down at the crying bundle like he couldn’t comprehend the sound, as if it had reached somewhere inside him that nothing usually touched. His throat bobbed once, and his eyes cut to Zaria and away again too fast, like he could hide the shift by refusing to look at it.

Loneliness had always fit him neatly, like armor. Now it sat heavier. Not because he’d fallen. Because something small and furious and alive had found a way inside it anyway.