I can't say his name. Can't even think it without my chest constricting.
"How to do this alone," I finish.
"You're not alone. You have me. The village?—"
"I'm alone in the ways that matter." The words come out harsher than I intended. "He's the father. He has information I need—about cursed bloodlines, about what happens to children born from contaminated omegas. But I can't go back there. Can't face him. Can't look at him without remembering every lie he told while I loved him."
Silence stretches between us. Everything I'm not saying. Everything she knows better than to push.
"Then you stay here," Yaern says finally. "We'll figure it out together. The village has a healer, a small library. It's not castle resources, but it's something."
"Is it enough?"
"I don't know." She won't lie to me—never has, never will. "But it's what we have."
I nod. Close my eyes. Try to imagine a future where I do this without him. Raise a child alone. Transform into whatever warrior omegas become when they're pregnant with cursed dragon spawn. Navigate a world that wanted me dead from the moment it learned what I was.
"I can do this," I say, and it's more prayer than statement. "I survived the first claiming. I survived contamination. I can survive this too."
"You can." Yaern's hand tightens on mine. "You will."
On day nine, I get out of bed without help.
It takes everything I have—muscles protesting, head swimming, the world tilting before it steadies—but I make it to Yaern's small table and lower myself into a chair like a normal person eating a normal meal.
Small victory. Enormous victory.
I eat breakfast properly: porridge with honey, bread with butter, tea that isn't laced with bond-weakening poison. Everything tastes sharper than it has in weeks, cleaner, like my body is finally remembering what to do with food that isn't designed to betray me.
The healer comes that afternoon, her ancient hands sure and gentle as she examines me. But this time she's more thorough—pressing deeper into my abdomen, her brow furrowed, her lips moving as if counting something only she can sense.
"Lie still," she murmurs when I shift. "I need to feel something."
I lie still. Watch her face for clues. Her expression gives nothing away—just focused intensity, clouded eyes seeing something beyond the physical.
Then she goes very still.
"What?" The word comes out sharp. "What is it? Is something wrong?"
She doesn't answer immediately. Just presses her palm flat against my lower belly, holding it there, her head tilted like she's listening to something I can't hear.
"Not wrong," she says finally. "Just more than I expected."
My heart stutters. "What does that mean?"
She sits back, studying me. "You're carrying twins."
The word doesn't make sense at first.
Twins. Two. More than one.
"That's not—" I stop. Try again. "How can you tell?"
"I've been doing this for sixty years, child. I know what one baby feels like. And I know what two feels like." She places herweathered hand over mine. "There are two lives in there. I'm certain of it."
Twins.
I'm carrying twins.
