Caelum
The palace felt wrong.
He knew its sounds—every creak of stone, every drip from the aqueducts, every whisper that trembled in gilded halls. He had ruled here for ten years, carved obedience into marble and men alike. He knew fear when he heard it.
Now fear walked differently.
The servants bowed lower than before, but their eyes darted upward when they thought he couldn't see. The generals stood straighter, but their silence dragged like chains. Even the chandeliers seemed to burn brighter, as if the palace itself strained to watch.
Not him.
Her.
The thought turned his stomach.
Elowen had shifted something. At breakfast, at the gallery, in the way she now carried herself. She wasn't Empress yet, not crowned, not sanctified. But already, she drew eyes like a blade draws blood.
And he hated it.
He hated that they looked at her.He hated that she let them.He hated that when he closed his eyes, he still felt the shape of her mouth on his.
The council had been useless that morning—empty words spilling across maps he no longer cared for. When he dismissed them, they fled like cattle.
And he stood alone.
With silence. With memory. With her ghost lodged behind his ribs.
Elowen
The empire smelled different when you weren't blind.
Elowen moved through her chambers like a queen rehearsing coronation. Every movement deliberate. Every gesture calculated to remind herself: I am not prey this time.
The bruise on her throat peeked above the velvet collar. She had left it there. Not as shame. As proof. Rumors grew like weeds when fed with just enough sunlight. And she intended to cultivate a garden.
Lira hovered near the hearth, twisting her hands. "You were reckless, my lady. The court whispered all morning."
"Good," Elowen said. "Let them sharpen their tongues until they cut themselves."
Lira bit her lip. "But His Majesty—"
"Is unraveling." Elowen sat, arranging parchments she wouldn't read. "And when a man like that begins to slip, the empire trembles with him."
"You're not afraid?"
"Afraid?" Elowen looked up, eyes glinting. "Lira, I already died once. Fear is for those who still believe they can lose."
Her hand drifted to her stomach, hidden beneath silk. A warmth pulsed faintly there, invisible to all but her. She didn't flinch this time. She embraced it.
The child is my secret weapon. My legacy. My vengeance.
Caelum
He told himself he wouldn't go to her.
He told himself a hundred times as he paced his chambers, fists raw from striking marble, throat raw from swallowing rage. He had better things to do. Wars to plan. Edicts to sign. Enemies to crush.
And yet his feet carried him down the east wing, past bowing guards, past nervous scribes, past shadows that whispered her name.
He hated himself for it.
He hated her more.
He reached her chamber door. Stopped. His breath was uneven.
Then he shoved it open.
Elowen
She didn't rise.
She stayed seated at her desk, quill poised above blank parchment, a candle flickering beside her. Lira started, then fled at a flick of his hand.
Now it was only them.
"You look tired," Elowen said, voice cool as glass.
"I don't sleep," Caelum answered.
"You don't deserve to."
He crossed the room in three strides. The air shifted with him, heavy, suffocating, pulling at her lungs. He towered over her chair, hands gripping the carved wood.
"You're playing with me."
"No," she whispered, meeting his eyes. "I'm winning."
His breath brushed her mouth. His hand curled against the chair. He could kiss her. He could kill her. He did neither.
Caelum
Her defiance should have enraged him. It did—but not enough to move him. Not enough to end her. Instead, it bound him. Shackled him.
Every nerve screamed to break her. Crush her. Remind her who she belonged to. But his body betrayed him. He only wanted to taste the venom in her words.
"You think last night made you stronger?" he asked.
Her lips curved. "Didn't it?"
He leaned closer, nose brushing hers. "I could take you here, on this desk. Make you beg."
"You'd beg first."
He froze.
The words slid into him like a blade. Not shouted. Not screamed. Whispered, calm, certain.
And it was true.
That realization nearly buckled his knees.
Elowen
She saw it—the flicker in his eyes, the fracture in his mask. He wasn't used to hearing "no." He wasn't used to defiance that didn't tremble. She gave it to him like a gift, and watched him choke on it.
"You're unraveling," she said softly. "Piece by piece. And you don't even know which chain is breaking first."
He growled, low in his throat. "Careful."
She leaned forward, lips almost grazing his. "Or what? You'll kill me again?"
His body stilled.
For a heartbeat, the room held nothing but silence. The fire hissed. The candle guttered. His grip on the chair trembled.
He remembered.
He remembered the blade. The blood. The stairs.
And he knew she remembered too.
Good.
She wanted him haunted.
Caelum
He should have struck her. Should have silenced her. Should have ended this before it grew teeth.
But he didn't.
He couldn't.
Instead, he straightened, stepping back. Her defiance lingered on his skin like a fever.
"You're not the same woman," he said.
"I buried her," she replied.
"What rose in her place?"
She smiled. "Your ruin."
He left without another word.
Elowen
When the door closed, she exhaled.
Not in relief. In satisfaction.
He was breaking.
She knelt by the hearth, hand on her belly. "He thinks he still holds the leash," she whispered. "But he's the one chained."
The fire flared, as if it agreed.
And in her stomach, faint but certain, something shifted.