Chapter 166

Chapter 166
Each week brought new weight, both physical and emotional. Henriette's once flat stomach had rounded with the slow, relentless certainty of time, pushing outward in a gentle swell, then a firm curve, and now—a full, ripe globe beneath her ribs. It seemed surreal at first, watching her body shift like the tide, responding to a life growing inside her.

She had tried to deny it, ignore it, rationalize it. But the weeks made liars of denial. Her skin stretched. Her breath shortened. Her center of gravity tilted.
And yet, as strange as it was, she didn’t resent the transformation. Some mornings, she even welcomed it.

Now, standing barefoot in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, she slowly lifted the hem of her oversized shirt and ran her hands along the smooth arc of her belly. Her reflection showed a woman she barely recognized—stronger, softer, older somehow. 
Her stomach moved beneath her palms, a lazy kick tapping from the inside, like a hello from someone she hadn’t yet met but already loved in a way that defied logic.

She smiled, just a little. The quiet room held her in a cocoon of stillness, sunlight slipping through the curtains and casting soft shadows across the wooden floor. For a moment, the world was simple: her, the baby, the silence.
And then Thess burst through the door.

“Henriette!” she gasped, chest heaving from running, voice high with urgency. “Come quick. The portal is working!”
Henriette blinked, slowly lowering her shirt over her stomach, her mind struggling to catch up. “What?”

“The water,” Thess said, breathless, gripping the doorframe as if to anchor herself. “I saw it. It started glowing. The same way it did before. I didn’t believe it at first, but it’s happening. It’s open.”

Henriette’s heart stumbled. She instinctively laid a hand on her belly, protective and uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Thess nodded, eyes wide with something between awe and fear. “You have to come now. Before it closes again.”

For weeks, Henriette had dreamed of this moment—aching for it, mourning its absence. She’d imagined what she would do if the portal reopened. She thought she would run.
But now?

She looked back at her reflection, at the curve of her body. She thought of Arin. Of the Queen. Of the kingdom that still felt half like a dream. And of the child moving gently inside her, calm and content in its watery world.
She wasn’t the same woman who had stepped into that bath all those months ago.

Henriette exhaled slowly, eyes steady.
“Okay,” she said, more to herself than Thess. “Let’s go.”
They hurried down the hall, Thess practically dragging her toward the bathroom, her excitement palpable. Henriette followed, slower, heavy-footed, one hand always on her stomach, the other brushing the wall for balance.

Thess stepped back, giving Henriette space. “It’s ready,” she said softly. “But… are you?”
Henriette stared at the glowing water, her heart pounding in her chest.
Was she ready?

She wasn’t sure. But she knew one thing: she had to go. Whatever waited on the other side—answers, danger, love, betrayal—it was part of her story. And this time, she wouldn’t go as someone who’d stumbled into a world she didn’t understand.
She would go as someone with purpose. Someone with something to protect.

Henriette took one last look at Thess, then stepped forward. The water glowed brighter as she approached.
“I’m ready,” she said.
And with one hand on her belly, and the other gripping the edge of the tub, she stepped in.

The portal swallowed her whole.

Henriette surfaced with a loud gasp, coughing up stale water and blinking furiously against the stinging brightness of daylight. Her arms flailed as she tried to find footing in the shallow tub she’d emerged from—only it wasn’t her bathtub.
The water was murky, reeking faintly of algae, dirt, and... animals. Something wet brushed her arm, followed by a startled whinny. She turned her head sharply—and came nose to muzzle with a large horse, wide-eyed and very unhappy about a dripping woman suddenly erupting from its drinking trough.

“What the hell?” she sputtered, pushing herself up, water pouring off her clothes and hair in slow, clinging streams. Her bare feet squelched against old straw and mud as she stepped out of what was unmistakably a grimy livestock water trough, not a royal bathing tub.
Three horses shuffled backward, snorting in alarm, stamping their hooves. One let out a panicked noise and bolted a few steps away, sending hay and dust flying.

Henriette swayed, soaked and stunned, clutching her belly with one hand. “This is not what I signed up for,” she muttered.

Behind her, the familiar whoosh of air and faint shimmer of light signaled the portal’s final breath before it snapped closed. She turned just in time to see Thess stumbling out of the air behind her, eyes wide and mouth open.