Chapter 87: An Ancient Life Unveiled
The moment Isla collapsed, the fortress erupted into chaos.
Damian had barely returned, still carrying the grime and weight of battle on his skin and shoulders, when a guard burst into the war room.
“It’s Lady Isla,” the man panted, wide-eyed and pale. “She… she collapsed.”
The words struck like a blade. Everything else, the maps, the war reports, the politics, all, ceased to exist.
Damian moved before the guard finished speaking, his blood turning to ice and fire all at once. The halls blurred around him as he sprinted through the stone corridors, his boots echoing sharply. Each step was thunder in his ears.
He turned the final corner with a snarl caught in his throat, shoving open the heavy door to their chambers. The air inside was thick, thick with fear, tension…
and her scent. That unmistakable, maddening blend of her skin, her essence, now tinged with something faintly metallic. Clearly there was something off.
A healer knelt beside the bed, hands pressed lightly over Isla’s abdomen, murmuring incantations under her breath in an ancient tongue. A gentle golden glow pulsed from her fingertips. Alaine and Lucia hovered nearby, their expressions tense. Alaine’s hands were clasped tightly at her waist, knuckles white, while Lucia’s emerald eyes flickered with something darker, something too complex to name and across the room, silent and unmoving, stood Rohen deVere. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his jaw clenched, but his eyes never left Isla’s unconscious form.
Damian didn’t pause. He pushed past them all, dropping to his knees at the side of the bed.
“What happened?” he demanded, his voice hoarse and cracked from both exhaustion and fear.
The healer didn’t flinch. She was calm, composed in that maddening way the old ones were when holding the thin line between life and fate.
“She overexerted herself,” she said gently. “Her energy was pulled in too many directions. Her body is reacting to protect what lies within.”
Damian’s brows furrowed. “The child…?” he repeated, the words rough, foreign on his tongue.
The world stopped. A dull roaring filled his ears. He turned his gaze to Isla’s face, too pale, too still and then to the rise and fall of her chest. Shallow, but steady. He reached out and gripped her hand, grounding himself in the warmth of her skin, as if he could anchor both of them with that single point of contact.
“She didn’t know…” he whispered, voice breaking. “She didn’t know the strength the baby would demand of her.”
The silence that followed was thick with realization. Alaine exhaled, the sound part disbelief, part relief. Behind her, Leo had just stepped in after Damian, he cursed under his breath. Lucia watched with narrowed eyes, like she was seeing a puzzle fall into place. Only Rohen remained unmoving. A shadow carved in stone.
Then, there was movement. A whisper of breath and a soft twitch of her fingers.
Damian leaned in immediately. “Isla,” he breathed, brushing his knuckles along her cheekbone.
Her lashes fluttered. A soft sound escaped her throat, uncertain, instinctive. Her eyes opened slowly, disoriented and heavy-lidded, and for a moment, she looked at him like she wasn’t sure if he was real.
He cupped her face, needing her to see him. “You’re safe. You’re here.”
“Damian…” Her voice was barely audible. Her fingers tightened around his. “What… happened?”
“You collapsed,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She blinked slowly, her gaze moving from his face to the healer, then to the others around the room. Her brows furrowed as she read the tension in their stances, the solemnity, the charged air.
Something clicked and her hand, still free, drifted downward, trembling slightly as it settled against her abdomen. Her fingers stilled, but pressed lightly there.
Her lips parted. “No…” she whispered. Damian took her hand and pressed it flat against her stomach, covering it with his own. “Don’t worry” he said, voice low, reverent. “All is well. You have just over exerted yourself.”
Isla looked back at him. Emotion warred across her features, shock, fear and awe… of how unique it was to be growing a life inside of you She swallowed hard, and he saw her walls begin to falter.
“I thought…” Her breath hitched. “I thought that I had lost the baby. I didn’t think it would take so much energy from me and grow this fast.”
Damian leaned closer, brushing her damp hair away from her face. “We’re not ordinary,” he said softly. “Nothing about us ever was.”
He kissed her temple, slow and grounding, and then her hand, lingering at the curve of her belly.
Behind them, the others watched silently, giving them a fragile illusion of privacy. Even Rohen’s gaze had softened, fractionally.
Alaine finally stepped forward, her voice quiet. “She needs to rest. No council meetings. No strategy sessions. Not until the healer gives word.”
“She’s not leaving this bed,” Damian growled. “Not until she’s stronger.”
“I’m not fragile,” Isla said, though her voice betrayed her.
Damian smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You’re carrying something that will change everything. That doesn’t make you fragile. That makes you sacred.”
Something flickered in her eyes then, pride, maybe, or a fierce protectiveness that hadn’t been there before. The fire that had always lived in her hadn’t gone out. It was just burning differently now, warmer and wilder.
But before she could speak, another ripple passed over her. It wasn’t quite pain but more like a shift, a flicker of awareness, another presence. Her fingers spasmed slightly over her stomach.
“I felt it,” she said, stunned.
Damian stilled. “Felt what?”
Her eyes met his. “The baby. Just for a second.” She paused, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It felt… old. Like it was watching me.”
The silence that followed wasn’t fear. It was reverence. A sense that something ancient had stirred and would not be silenced again.
Damian leaned in, their foreheads nearly touching. “Whatever it is… whatever comes… we’ll face it together.”
In that moment, with her heartbeat fluttering beneath his palm. The baby seemed to be one of a kind, ancient magic growing inside her. Isla believed in Damian’s words because the world was already shifting and fate was no longer waiting. It was coming for them.