Chapter 30 He Stops Functioning as a Human
Night had swallowed the Solheim estate whole. The world beyond the window was a quiet abyss—ink-black sky, silvered only by a thin, distant moon that offered no warmth, only observation. The kind of moon that watched men unravel. Aric stood before it, unmoving. Still. Too still. One hand rested against the cold glass, fingers slightly curled, as if he had forgotten midway through a motion what he had intended to do. His reflection stared back at him—sharp, composed, carved from discipline and war. Except for the eyes. The eyes were not right. They hadn’t been right for countless days. Too focused. Too distant. Too… fractured.
He had not slept properly. Not since that night. Not since— His thoughts looped again. Relentless. Unforgiving. Reconstructing. Replaying. Overanalyzing. Every second. Every word. Every expression. The way she had looked at him. The way she had spoken. The way she had— Aric inhaled slowly. Measured. Controlled. He had survived battlefields. He had endured sieges. He had stood before death more times than he could count. This— This was worse. Because this made no sense. Because there was no enemy to cut down. Because logic—his most trusted weapon—had turned traitor. She appeared in my room. She spoke as if we were already… His jaw tightened. Impossible. There had to be an explanation. There was always an explanation. He would find it. He would—
“Good evening.”
Aric froze. Every muscle in his body locked. Not gradually. Not cautiously. Instantly. Like prey that had just realized the predator had been behind it the entire time. Slowly— Too slowly— He turned. And there she was. Sitting on his bed. Again. Exactly like before. Same posture. Same calm. Same utterly unreasonable presence, like reality itself had bent to accommodate her. As if she had never left. As if the past few days of his quiet psychological collapse had been irrelevant. As if he had imagined the absence—not her existence.
Aric did not react immediately. That was the most concerning part. No shout. No step back. No hand reaching for a weapon. Just— Stillness.
“…I am dead,” he said calmly. It was not a joke. It was not sarcasm. It was a conclusion. A rational one, given the circumstances.
Ulrika tilted her head slightly, studying him. “Not yet,” she replied. A beat. Then— Brightly. Cheerfully. Like she was announcing the weather. “Good news.” Pause. A small, expectant smile. “You’re going to be a father.”
Silence. Not ordinary silence. Not the absence of sound. This was something else. This was the kind of silence that pressed. That distorted. That bent the edges of reality and held them there, trembling. Aric did not blink. Did not breathe. Did not exist. For one long— Endless— Moment. Then— Reality shattered. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally, in the way his mind processed the world. Every thought he had been holding— Every careful reconstruction— Every fragile thread of logic— Snapped. Gone. Obliterated.
His brain attempted to respond. It failed. Restarted. Failed again. Attempted to form a sentence. Father. The word echoed. Foreign. Unfamiliar. Father. No. No, that— That was not— He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Closed it. Opened it again. “…Explain,” he managed finally. It was a miracle the word existed at all.
Ulrika lit up slightly, as if pleased. “Yes, of course,” she said, as if this were a completely normal conversation between two completely normal people under completely normal circumstances. She shifted slightly on the bed, smoothing her skirt. Casual. Comfortable. Like she belonged there. Like he was the one intruding. “I am pregnant.”
Aric nodded once. Sharp. Mechanical. “I heard that.”
“Good.”
“With my child.”
“Yes.”
A pause. “…Child,” he repeated.
Ulrika smiled, a little brighter. “Children.”
Something inside Aric died. Not physically. But something essential. Something foundational. The part of him that understood the world. “…Children,” he echoed.
“Yes.”
“…Plural?”
“Yes.”
“…As in more than one?”
“Yes.”
“…Twins?”
“Yes.”
There it was. The blow. Clean. Precise. Merciless. Aric stood there. For exactly three seconds. His body, still operating under the illusion that it was functional, attempted to continue. Then— Very carefully— Very slowly— He walked to the nearest chair. Sat down. Back straight. Hands on his knees. A man maintaining dignity in the face of annihilation.
Ulrika watched him. Hopeful. A little nervous.
Aric Solheim had faced war. He had stood knee-deep in blood and mud while the sky burned red above him. He had stared down charging cavalry, intercepted assassination attempts mid-strike, and once—famously—held a collapsing mountain pass long enough for three thousand civilians to escape. He had never fainted. Not once. Not even when he had taken a blade through the ribs and kept fighting because retreat had not been an option. Not until meeting Ulrika.
So when he sat in his bedroom —his safe, orderly, perfectly controlled bedroom—and heard the words— “You’re… pregnant?” —and received the calm, utterly unbothered reply— “Yes.” —something inside Grand Duke Aric Solheim quietly… stopped. Not broke. Not panicked. Not shattered. It simply ceased to exist.
“With my… children?”
“Yes.”
His voice was getting thinner as he repeated himself. “…Twins?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. A very long pause. The kind of pause where the world itself seemed to lean in, waiting. Aric blinked once. Then twice. Then very, very carefully, as though sudden movement might somehow cause reality to worsen, he reached behind him and sat down in the nearest chair. He did not look away from her. He could not.
Across from him, Ulrika Vincent—no, Ulrika Solheim, soon enough—continued sitting on his bed with one hand resting lightly against her abdomen, her expression composed but her eyes just slightly too bright. She looked… calm. Too calm. Suspiciously calm. As if she had just informed him of the weather. As if she had not just detonated his entire existence with a single sentence.
Aric opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out. His brain, which had once orchestrated battlefield formations under impossible pressure, which could calculate supply routes and casualty projections in the span of a breath… …was currently buffering.
Ulrika tilted her head, watching him with a faint, nervous smile. “So,” she said lightly, as though this were a perfectly normal conversation between two perfectly normal people, “do you want me to get married in a wedding dress with or without a baby bump?”
There are moments in a man’s life where he is tested. Where his strength, his will, his identity are all placed upon a scale and measured. Aric Solheim had passed every test life had ever thrown at him. Until now.
He fell off the chair.
It was not graceful. There was no attempt to catch himself. No reflexive bracing. No dignified collapse. He simply… tipped. Like a statue that had finally, after years of standing firm, decided it was done. He hit the floor. And immediately fainted.
Silence.
Ulrika stared at him. Then she sighed. A long, deeply familiar sigh. “This is déjà vu all over again…” She pressed her fingers lightly to her temple, looking down at the unconscious war hero sprawled inelegantly across the floor. “His nerves are clearly very weak,” she muttered. “I really have to fix that after we’re married.”
There was no panic. No screaming. No frantic calls for servants. Because Ulrika Vincent—former assassin queen, current noble lady, future grand duchess, and now apparently mother of twins—did not panic. She assessed. She adapted. She acted.
Carefully—because despite everything, she was now acutely aware of the small, fragile lives growing inside her—she lowered herself to the floor beside him. Her movements were controlled, deliberate. Graceful even in something as mundane as kneeling. She reached out, her hands gentle as they slid beneath his head, lifting it from the hard surface. For a man built like a fortress, Aric was surprisingly easy to handle when unconscious. (Which was a sentence she would absolutely never say out loud.)
She adjusted herself, settling more comfortably, and then placed his head in her lap. There. Better. His silver hair had fallen across his face, slightly disheveled from the fall. Ulrika clicked her tongue softly. “Honestly,” she murmured, brushing the strands back with careful fingers, “you collapse once and suddenly all your discipline disappears.” Her tone was mildly critical. Her touch was anything but.
She studied him for a moment. Even unconscious, Aric looked… intense. His features were sharp, composed, as though even in rest he refused to fully let his guard down. There was a faint crease between his brows. A lingering tension. As if his body hadn’t yet realized it was allowed to relax.
Ulrika’s expression softened. Just a little. “You’re going to be a father,” she said quietly, almost testing the words. They felt strange. Heavy. Real. Her hand drifted unconsciously to her abdomen. Twins. Their children. The thought sent a flicker of something unfamiliar through her chest. Not fear. Not exactly. Something warmer. Something… steadier.
She looked back down at him. “And you fainted.” A pause. “…Again.” Her fingers moved to his temple, gently massaging in slow, practiced motions. Not because he needed it. But because she… wanted to. Her other hand continued smoothing his hair back, tucking stray strands behind his ear with an ease that suggested she had already memorized the shape of his face.
“You really are terrible at this,” she added, voice softer now. “I expected better from the Empire’s most feared war hero.”
No response.
Ulrika huffed lightly. “Unbelievable.” But she didn’t move. Didn’t rush. Didn’t call anyone. She simply sat there on the floor, his head resting comfortably in her lap, her fingers idly combing through his hair as she waited.
Time passed. Quietly. For once, there were no schemes. No assassinations. No political maneuvers. No calculated steps toward survival. Just… this. A quiet room. A fainted duke. And a woman who had never expected to find herself here—waiting patiently for someone to wake up.
Her hand stilled briefly against his hair. “…You’d better not stay unconscious too long,” she murmured. A beat. “Or I’m going to start making decisions without you.” A pause. Then, almost as an afterthought— “…Actually, I already do that.” A faint smile tugged at her lips.
And still, she waited.