"I need to tell you something."
The words land heavy in the space between us, and I brace for another blow. Whatever she's about to say, I probably deserve it.
"It's twins." She watches my face with those sharp dark eyes, measuring my reaction. "I'm carrying twins."
Twins.
The word bounces around inside my skull without finding purchase. I've been thinking of the pregnancy as one child, one life, one small fierce thing growing inside her. The mathematics of it made sense—one omega, one alpha, one baby.
"Twins," I repeat, and my voice sounds distant to my own ears.
"A boy and a girl." Still watching me. Still measuring. "I found out from the village healer after I left."
A boy and a girl. A son and a daughter. Two children where I expected one, two lives tangled together in the warm dark of her womb.
Something cracks open in my chest—wonder and terror and desperate joy all flooding through at once, overwhelming in their intensity. I've never let myself imagine being a father. Three hundred years of watching omegas die, of knowing my curse killed everything it touched, of accepting that my bloodlinewould end with me because anything else would be too cruel to contemplate. And now?—
Twins. A family. Something I never thought I'd have.
"That's—" I stop, swallow hard, try again. "Twins."
"There's more." Her voice goes hard, and the wonder curdling in my chest turns to dread. "The curse, Rhystan. It passes to male heirs. And when there are twins—when there's a sister sharing the womb?—"
"Tell me."
"The curse activates around month six. Your son will try to kill your daughter before they're born. Male heirs eliminate competition—it's what cursed bloodlines do."
The room goes very cold.
My son. My curse. Three hundred years of divine rage passed down through my blood, turning my own child into a weapon pointed at his sister before either of them draws their first breath.
"No." The word scrapes out rough and broken. "There has to be a way to stop it."
"There is." She lifts her chin, fierce and determined despite the exhaustion carved into every line of her face. "Warrior omegas can absorb curses—take them into themselves. There's a ritual, but the texts I found were incomplete. The page that explained how to do it was torn out."
Warrior omegas absorbing curses.
The texts I hid.
She doesn't know yet—doesn't know I pulled those references from the archives months ago, terrified she'd find them and volunteer to die the way forty-seven omegas died before her. I had Corvith restore everything the night she left, but she hasn't had time to discover that yet.
I could let her find out on her own. Could avoid the conversation entirely, let her stumble across the restored texts and draw her own conclusions.
No. I'm done with lies. Done with omissions. Done with making choices about what she gets to know.
"I know those texts." The words come out steadier than I feel. "I had them removed from the archives. Months ago. Because I knew what you'd do if you found them."
Fury sparks through the bond before it shows on her face.
"You—"
"I had Corvith put them back the night you left." I hold her gaze, don't let myself look away from her anger. "Everything I hid is in the restricted section now, waiting for you. No more secrets."
She stares at me, processing. I can practically see the calculations happening behind her eyes—weighing my admission against my actions, trying to decide if this changes anything.
"You hid texts that could save our daughter," she says finally. "Because you were afraid I'd sacrifice myself."
"Yes."
