“They're... perfect,” I murmured, watching as Mallack hoisted one boy onto each hip, their arms already draped around his neck like ivy.
He looked at me over their heads, the faintest look of apology in his eyes. “Give them time,” he said softly. “They’ll come to you in their own way.”
“They already did,” I whispered, still kneeling.
From the nearby cradle, a tiny sound broke the air—a baby’s sigh.
I turned. And saw her.
She lay in a cradle filled with the softest linen, one tiny fist curled beside her cheek. Her breath was soft, and her lashes seemed impossibly long for someone so small. Her hair was a red halo across the embroidered blanket, and as if sensing me, she stirred.
Thalia crossed the room without hesitation, all the swagger from before melting into something quieter, something fiercely maternal. She leaned over, gathered Zara up with practiced grace, and turned to me.
“I think she’s been waiting for this,” she said gently, and with no hesitation, placed her daughter into my arms.
The moment Zara settled against me, something shifted.
The air stilled.
Warmth curled around my skin, not heat, not light, but something older than both. It shimmered faintly at the edges of my vision, soft and silver. Fraysa’s veil. The veil I had seen when Mallack knelt for me. When love had bound us again.
And now, it wrapped around me and the child like a quiet blessing.
Zara blinked, her eyes were just as green as Thalia's and mine. And for one impossible moment, they locked on mine. Her little hand lifted, reached for me, and brushed my cheek with the gentlest of touches.
My breath caught.
The weight of her against my chest, the delicate strength of her tiny fingers, unlocked something in me that had been sealed for decades. A memory of emotions washed over me. It felt like holding my baby again. Myccael.
The son I had loved more than breath itself. More than blood. More than life. The boy who had given me purpose when everything else felt adrift. The child I had poured everything into.
And yet…
Even in those first moments—when his skin was still slick with birth and his cry rang like broken glass in the birthing hall—I had felt it.
Something was wrong.
Not with him. Never with him.
Something in me.
A piece had been missing. A corner of my soul that should have lit up with joy had only flickered weakly. I had smiled. I had kissed his forehead. I had sworn to protect him with every beat of my heart.
But I had known. Deep down, in the marrow of my bones, I had known he wasn’t mine. And I had hated myself for it. I had buried that truth. I’d compensated for it because I hated that feeling. Hated myself. I over-loved him. Smothered him with devotion, not out of duty, but out of desperate longing to fill the hollow space that his birth had ignited.
I told myself I was tired. I told myself it was the grief. That it was the weight of my station. The burden of responsibility.
But that quiet, shameful ache had never gone away.
That absence had consumed me. All. The. Time.
I had never told anyone.
Not even Mallack.
Because what kind of mother feels like a stranger to her own child? What kind of woman doubts the only joy left to her?
Me.
