Elara’s POV

The training sword slipped from my grip again.

It clattered against the packed dirt. A few recruits glanced over. I picked it up, adjusted my stance, and swung at the practice post.

The strike went wide.

I wasn’t here. My body stood in the royal training yard, feet planted, shoulders squared, but my mind was somewhere else entirely. Stuck in a loop. That hazy crystal image. Seraphine’s hand on her belly. The gentle curve of it. The timeline that fit like a key turning in a lock.

Seven months.

The inn. That night. His oath.

Nothing happened.

Everything happened.

"Elara?"

I blinked. Jessica stood at my elbow, her expression cautious. Careful. The way people looked at wounded animals.

"Hey. You’ve been hitting the same spot for a while now. The post is going to file a complaint." She tried a smile. It faded when I didn’t return it. "Listen, the recruits are almost done with their rounds. I can handle the cooldown drills if you want to—"

"Yes." The word came out too fast. "Yes. Thank you."

She didn’t push. Just nodded and jogged back toward the cluster of trainees already stretching near the fence.

I set the sword on the rack. My fingers were numb. Not from cold. From the effort of holding myself together—keeping every muscle locked tight so nothing leaked through.

Inside the rest chamber, three sealed letters sat on the narrow cot. Cream-colored parchment. The imperial seal pressed into dark wax. A courier had delivered them one after another, each time knocking softly, each time saying the same thing: From His Majesty. He requests an urgent reply.

I hadn’t opened a single one.

I grabbed my cloak, slung it over my shoulders, and walked out the back entrance. The stables were quiet this time of day. Most of the grooms were on their midday break. I could saddle my mare and be gone before anyone—

"Elara."

I stopped.

He was standing about thirty steps from the stable door. Waiting. Not sitting, not leaning against anything—just standing in the middle of the path like he’d been planted there.

Kaelen.

My husband. My mate. The Emperor of the Nightfire Empire.

He looked terrible.

Dark circles carved hollows beneath his eyes. His black hair, usually immaculate, fell across his forehead in disordered strands. His outer robe was creased—not slightly, not artfully, but deeply wrinkled, as though he’d slept in it. Or hadn’t slept at all.

His hands hung at his sides. Open. Empty. No guards flanked him. No attendants trailed behind.

Just him. Alone. Looking like something vital had been carved out of his chest.

From somewhere behind me, I heard the murmur of departing trainees. Whispers floated on the breeze—too low to catch full sentences, but I felt them. The weight of watching eyes.

"Five minutes," he said. His voice was rough. Stripped. "That’s all I’m asking. Five minutes."

I stared at him and felt nothing.

No. That wasn’t true. I felt everything—a storm of it, so vast and violent that it had overloaded something inside me, tripped some internal switch, and left me standing in the calm, dead center of it. The eye of the hurricane. Numb.

"Not here," I said.

"Then where?"

"There’s a tea house. Two blocks away."

"I know the one."

"I’ll walk. You take your carriage."

Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. Or shame. "We could ride together—"

"No."

He closed his mouth. Nodded once.

I walked past him without looking back.

---

The tea house was small and dim. Wooden beams. Latticed windows that filtered the afternoon light into pale stripes. The owner recognized me—I’d come here before, on quieter days—and led me to the private room at the back without a word.

Kaelen arrived moments after I sat down. He ducked through the low doorway and paused, scanning the room the way he always did. Exits. Windows. Threats.

Old habits. Even now.

He sat across from me. The table between us was barely wider than my arm span. Too close. I could smell him—woodsmoke, cedar, something warm beneath it that my body recognized even when my mind didn’t want to.

A server appeared. Kaelen ordered before I could speak.

"Black tea for her. No sugar. No milk."

The server bowed and retreated.

Of course he remembered. He remembered everything. Every detail, every preference, every small and insignificant thing I’d ever mentioned in passing. He collected them like coins and kept them polished. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

It meant nothing.

Silence sat between us. Heavy. Suffocating. He was looking at me—openly, desperately—and I was looking at the grain of the wooden table.

"Elara."

I didn’t lift my eyes.

"Do you know what today is?"

I knew. Of course I knew. The date had been circling my awareness, a vulture over carrion.

"Our anniversary," he said when I didn’t answer. His voice cracked on the second word. Not dramatically. Not performatively. Just a thin fracture, like ice giving way. "I know—I know things are—" He stopped. Started again. "I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking for anything you can’t give. But the children—"

My gaze snapped to his face.

"Valerius has been asking lately," he continued. The words came faster now, tumbling over each other. "He wants us to sit at the same table. Just once. Just tonight. And Lyra—she’s been in the kitchen for a while. She’s making a cake. Or trying to. There’s flour everywhere and the cook is losing her mind, but Lyra keeps saying it has to be perfect because—" His throat worked. "Because Mommy and Daddy are going to eat it together."

The numbness cracked.

Just a hairline fissure. But enough for something hot and terrible to seep through.

My children. My babies. Baking a cake for parents who could barely stand to be in the same room.

"It’s just dinner," he said quietly. "For them. Please."

The tea arrived. The server set it before me with trembling hands—she’d clearly realized who occupied her back room—and vanished.

I wrapped my fingers around the cup. The heat bit into my palms.

For them. Not for him. Never again for him.

"Fine," I said. My voice sounded foreign. Flat. A stranger’s voice coming from my mouth. "For the children. I’ll come."

His shoulders dropped. Not with relief—with something closer to exhaustion. The tension that had been holding him upright simply drained away, and for a moment he looked like he might fold in on himself.

"Thank you," he whispered.

I said nothing. I drank my tea. It was perfect—exactly how I liked it—and that somehow made it worse.

He stood abruptly. "Wait here. Just—wait. Please."

He was gone before I could object.

Through the latticed window, I watched him cross the street. His stride was uneven. Not the powerful, commanding gait of an emperor. The stumbling urgency of a man running out of time.

He disappeared into the third flower shop down the row.

I knew what he was doing. I knew it before the door chimed shut behind him. The same thing he’d done every year since we’d been married. Without fail. Without exception. Even the year I’d thrown the previous bouquet into the fireplace.

I set down the cup.

Five minutes passed.

He returned carrying twelve red roses. Long-stemmed. Wrapped in brown paper. Simple. No ribbon, no embellishment. Just the flowers, the way he always brought them.

He stood in the doorway of the private room, holding them out with both hands.

"Happy anniversary," he said.

His eyes were red-rimmed. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping beneath his skin. He held those roses like they were the last real thing in the world—like if I took them, something might still be saved.

I looked at the flowers.

And I thought of Seraphine’s hand resting on her swollen belly. The serene tilt of her chin. The proof growing inside her, alive and undeniable and exactly seven months along.

I stared at his desperate, ruined face.

"I don’t want them." My tone was calm, carrying an indisputable finality.