Chapter 178: Echo

Four years is not long in a kingdom built on centuries…But gods, how everything has changed. The sunlight spilling across the courtyard is warmer than I remember. The air hums with life, not magic, not ceremony, not fear or tension, just life. Pure and unfiltered. Laughter rings through the open walkways, high-pitched and breathless, the kind of laughter the castle walls did not hold for far too many years. Children. Dozens of them. Infants wrapped in soft linens. Small toddlers wobbling unsteadily on new legs. Newborn cries drift from shaded carriages as nurses rock and sway. Mothers. Fathers. Families. Everywhere. All because one child broke the silence of an entire era. My son. Emrys. Small footsteps slap against the polished stone behind me, fast and chaotic, and I turn just in time for a blur of dark curls and mischief to launch himself into the air. Too high. Far too high for any normal four-year-old. But Emrys is no normal child. A gust of wind swirls beneath him — instinctive, Elementi-born — cushioning his leap straight into my arms. I catch him against my hip, though the momentum nearly spins me in a full circle.

“Mama!” he squeals, proudly baring two tiny, pearl-white fangs. “I jumped!”

“You flew,” I correct, breathless, brushing a curl from his forehead. “You’re supposed to practice flying with Papa. Not by yourself.”

He beams at me with absolutely no remorse. “Papa says I can do anything.”

Of course he does. Nicholaus appears a moment later at the end of the walkway, hands on his hips, head tipped back in a silent exhale that is equal parts awe, fear, and resignation. His eyes find us instantly; they always do, softening the moment he sees Emrys safely in my arms.

“Little terror,” he mutters under his breath as he approaches, but the smile tugging at his mouth betrays him completely.

Emrys twists in my hold, reaching toward him with chubby hands. “Papa! I flew!”

Nicholaus sweeps him into his arms with exaggerated effort. “You flew,” he agrees, kissing Emrys’s cheek. “But next time, you fly with me, not at the unsuspecting back of your mother.”

Emrys laughs and presses both palms to Nicholaus’s cheeks. “I wasn’t scaring Mama.”

Nicholaus lifts an eyebrow. “No? You weren’t trying to leap off a balcony either, I suppose?”

Emrys grins wider. “Maybe a little.”

Gods help us all. I slip my arm around Nicholaus’s waist as we stand overlooking the central courtyard, and the sight still steals my breath, no matter how many times I see it.

A kingdom reborn. Brightly dressed mothers now chat in the gardens where there were once quiet corridors and empty halls. Toddlers now chase leaves blown by the breeze. Cradles line sunlit benches. Nurses laugh as they juggle babies. The babies have discovered that their vampiric sides make escaping their arms far too easy. No one is frightened. No one whispers curses. No one hides. This is what a kingdom looks like when hope outnumbers fear. Nicholaus shifts Emrys onto his hip, brushing a kiss into his curls.

“He’s strong,” he murmurs. “Every day stronger.”

“He’s a miracle,” I reply.

He looks at me then with that quiet awe that still loosens something deep in my chest. “So are you.”

A small toddler near the fountain shrieks suddenly with joy as she run around the fountain in the blink of an eye. Her mother gasps and claps. Another infant babbles, waving pudgy fingers as their fangs drop out of a babbling smile. A father nearby laughs so loudly it echoes off the stone archways. This kingdom is no longer holding its breath. It is exhaling. It is living.

Nicholaus slides his free hand into mine. The feeling is warm and familiar. “Come,” he says softly. “Walk with me.”

We stroll through the courtyard, people pausing to bow their heads as we pass. Not out of obligation, but out of gratitude, recognition and love. Some step forward to show us their newborns, tiny fists curled, fangs barely budding, eyes too bright for how new they are.

“Blessed be your family,” one mother whispers.

“And blessed be yours,” I answer, brushing my fingers gently over her baby’s cheek.

Emrys leans down from Nicholaus’s arms and squints at the infant. “He’s small.”

“You were small once, too,” I tell him.

He gasps as though I’ve spoken absolute heresy. “No, Mama. I was big.”

Nicholaus snorts.

We continue our walk until Emrys wriggles free, dropping lightly onto the stone with a puff of displaced air. He toddles toward the garden patches, instantly drawn to a cluster of blooming silver-petaled flowers. The wind stirs in a soft circle around him, responding to his mood, always gentle, always curious.

“He’s getting better at controlling it,” Nicholaus says beside me.

“He’s getting better at everything.”

Nicholaus’s arm slips around my waist as we watch Emrys toddle from flower to flower, brushing petals with chubby fingers, humming to himself, occasionally baring his fangs at a bee as though that will convince it to share its nectar.

“I used to imagine this,” Nicholaus murmurs quietly. “Centuries ago. Before the curse. Before the darkness. I pictured what it would be like to walk through a courtyard filled with children again.”

“And now you have it,” I whisper.

He lowers his forehead to mine, breath warm, eyes soft. “Now we have it.”

Emrys suddenly glances over his shoulder at us, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed, curls wild, and I feel the bond between us flare, bright and warm.

“Mama! Papa! Look!”

He lifts both hands, and a breeze spirals upward. Leaves scatter in a joyful whirl, and in the centre of it all, Emrys giggles, pure magic, pure joy, pure life.

Nicholaus exhales a soft, reverent sound. “He will change everything.”

“He already has,” I whisper.

And it’s true. This child broke a curse that strangled a kingdom for two hundred years. His heartbeat carried life back into the world. His first breath reopened the future. And as he spins beneath drifting leaves, laughing, fangs flashing in sunlight, I know, with absolute certainty, that the world ahead of him will be filled with more hope than sorrow.

Nicholaus slips his hand into mine again, fingers weaving through. “Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s go get our son before he accidentally summons a storm.”

I laugh softly. “He gets that from your side.”

He kisses my temple. “Then gods help us all.”

We walk toward Emrys together — our son, our future, our miracle — in a world that is finally full of life again.