"Still fighting. Just like its mother."
His arms tighten around me, and I feel the warmth of his body through the leather and metal of his armor. It's the only thing keeping me tethered to consciousness as we climb higher, leaving the burial chambers behind.
"Vargath." My voice sounds hollow, distant. "I thought you'd forgotten?—"
"Never." The word carries such fierce conviction that I almost believe it. "I will never forget you again."
The tunnel walls seem to press closer, or maybe I'm simply shrinking into myself. Each breath becomes harder to draw, each heartbeat weaker than the last. The baby moves restlessly inside me, as if sensing the danger we're both in.
"Almost there," he murmurs, though I can no longer tell if he's speaking to me or to himself. "Hold on."
But I can't. The darkness spreads inward like spilled ink, swallowing the torchlight and the sound of his voice until nothing remains.
Warmth touches my fingers first—gentlepressure, callused skin against mine. Then the scent of healing herbs and clean linen fills my nostrils, so different from the damp stone and old death of the burial chambers.
I open my eyes slowly, blinking against soft candlelight that doesn't hurt to look at. The ceiling above me is familiar—carved wooden beams instead of ancient stone. The healer's wing.
"There you are."
I turn my head toward the voice and find Vargath sitting beside the narrow bed, my hand clasped between both of his. His armor has been replaced by a simple tunic, and exhaustion lines his face like battle scars. But his eyes—when they meet mine, they're bright with relief.
"The baby." The words tumble out before I can think. My free hand moves instinctively to my belly, still rounded but tender to the touch. "Is it?—?"
"Alive." He squeezes my fingers gently. "The healers did everything they could. The bleeding has stopped, and there's still movement. But they won't know for certain until..."
"Until it's born." I finish the sentence he can't, understanding settling heavy in my chest.
He nods, jaw tight with worry he's trying to hide. "They said you were lucky. A few inches lower and..."
"But I wasn't." I study his face, noting the fresh scratches across his cheek, the way his hair has escaped its warrior's braid. "You found me in time."
"Barely." The word carries the weight of self-recrimination. "I should have protected you better. Should have known she would?—"
"Zharra?"
His expression darkens. "She won't be a problem anymore."
Something in his tone tells me not to ask for details. Instead, I focus on the steady pressure of his hands around mine, the way he leans forward as if afraid I might disappear again.
"How long was I down there?"
"Too long." His voice roughens. "Days of the council telling me you'd run off. That you were never real to begin with."
I can hear the pain beneath his words—not just fear for me, but the deeper wound of being gaslit by his own people. Of having his reality questioned when it mattered most.
"I'm real," I whisper, tightening my grip on his fingers. "We both are."
We stare at each other in the flickering candlelight, and I can see him wrestling with something—words he wants to say but doesn't know how to shape. The silence stretches between us like a bridge neither of us knows how to cross.
"Why?" I whisper suddenly. "Why did you come for me?"
His jaw tightens, and for a moment I think he won't answer. Then his thumb traces across my knuckles, so gentle it makes my chest ache.
"Because you're mine." The words come out rough, like they've been scraped raw against his throat. "Because I can't lose you again."
The honesty in his voice hits me harder than any declaration of love could. It's not poetry—it's possession and terror and desperate need all wrapped into something that sounds almost like a confession.
But honesty cuts both ways.
