She traced it once, slowly.
Below it, there was space.
She stared at that space longer than she meant to.
A name would go there someday.
Her child’s name.
Not because Maxwell allowed it.
But because she chose it.
Her chest tightened, not with fear, but with something steadier. Resolve. The kind that did not require permission or approval.
She would protect this child.
She would raise them in warmth and honesty. She would teach them that love did not vanish because someone was afraid of it. She would teach them that courage was not only found on battlefields, but in choosing tenderness when it frightened you.
She closed the book carefully and rested both hands over her stomach.
“I am enough,” she said quietly.
Enough to carry life.
Enough to make choices.
Enough to walk forward without certainty and still know her worth.
Footsteps sounded faintly somewhere beyond the library door. Voices passed. The keep breathed around her, unaware that something irrevocable had shifted within its walls.
Ariella rose and extinguished the candle.
She did not cry.
She did not look back toward her chamber.
She went instead to the window overlooking the darkened courtyard, where the night air pressed cool against the glass. Somewhere beyond the walls, the world waited.
Tomorrow, she would make arrangements.
Tomorrow, she would speak with Mairi again. With Isla. With the healer.
Tomorrow, she would write to her mother.
And when she left, it would not be in flight or in shame.
It would be with purpose.
Maxwell had given her honesty.
Now she would give herself a future.
Whether he walked into it beside her or not.
She rested her palm against the glass, feeling the chill, grounding herself in the moment.
“I choose ye,” she whispered, not to the keep, not to the man she loved, but to the small, unseen life within her.
