Chapter 188

Chapter 188
Freya‘s pov.
Three Weeks Later

Three weeks was enough time for bruises to fade and for silence to grow teeth.
Dorian and Tiberius kept their promises—no tight leashes, no coronations, no ultimatums. They let me roam the keep and the city, visit the markets, observe drills, sit at long tables with pack lieutenants and kitchen staff and stonemasons. They agreed to every itinerary Cassian and I sketched, nodded at every “I need an hour” and “I’ll be late.” They were… gracious.
They were also guarded.
The warmth never vanished, but it cooled at the edges. Dorian’s laughter came a second slower. Tiberius’s touch lingered a second shorter. Neither of them said “Arius,” yet his name haunted the pauses between our words. I had asked for space; they gave it to me like gentlemen—and, sometimes, like men bracing for an impact they couldn’t predict.
So I did what I’d sworn I would: I turned outward.
By day I walked the city with Cassian or alone, hood up, ears open. The market quarter stank of spice and sweat and hope. Children ran between stalls with wooden swords, mimicking the guards. A baker with flour on her nose told me bread was dear because the eastern fields still needed workers. A blacksmith showed me his palms, callused and split, and asked if the crown meant to tax metal the same as grain. I learned names. I learned who had lost sons and who had lost patience. I listened far more than I spoke.
Twice I rode to the river villages and ate stew at trestle tables while elders argued about irrigation ditches. Once I sat with a hunt-scarred widow who pressed a sprig of rosemary into my hand “for memory,” she said, “for the ones we keep.”
At dusk I returned to the keep and ate with Dorian and Tiberius when our paths crossed. The first week, all three of us tried too hard to make conversation gentle. The second, Tiberius left—Dante at his shoulder, tribunal papers in his saddle roll, a chip of iron duty back in his spine. “Two days,” he’d said. It became five. Then ten.
Life slid into a rhythm that felt almost normal, like a song I knew but couldn’t hum without catching.
On the fifteenth day, the sky woke cloudless and kind. I’d spent the morning with the quartermasters comparing supply ledgers and patrol routes, and for once no one needed me to adjudicate a quarrel or sign a requisition. I cut through the inner training yards on my way back—and there he was.
Dorian moved like a blade remembers the forge. Bare-armed, he was working a spear—thrust, turn, sweep, recover—breath even, eyes bright. Sunlight slicked his skin, and the Beast in him rolled beneath the surface like a great cat stretching. A ribbon of something light and ridiculous unfurled in my chest.
I leaned on the railing until he noticed me. He did, at last, and grinned, wolf-fast and wicked.
“Admiring the view, little terror?”
“Assessing your form,” I said primly, then ruined it by smiling back. “I think it could use a challenge.”
“Oh?” He twirled the spear once, casual. “From whom?”
“From the woman who has spent two weeks listening to complaints about pickle shortages and fence lines.” I vaulted the rail and dropped into the sand. “Consider this my reward.”
His eyebrows kicked up. “You want to spar.”
“I need to.” I waggled my fingers. “Unless you’re afraid I’ll bruise your royal pride.”
He tossed the spear aside and drew two practice blades from the rack. “I’m more afraid you’ve gone soft.”
“We’ll see,” I sang, taking one.
We began easy—circles, taps, tests. His footwork was teasingly perfect, which meant mine had to be precise or he’d make me pay with a grin. I parried, I slipped. I also realized, after the third lazy disarm, that he wasn’t wrong: I was rusty. Negotiation sharpens a different set of muscles than war.
He caught my wrist and spun me, chuckling into my ear. “Told you.”
“Shut up,” I hissed, breathless and delighted in spite of myself.
He gave me room. “Come on then, Freya. Sheathe the diplomat.”
“Gladly.” I let Reyna rise—cool focus flooding my limbs, angles clarifying, breath narrowing to a hunter’s patience. Hera thrummed hot behind my ribs, fierce and steady. The world clicked into a sharper register. I rolled my shoulders and smirked. “You were saying?”
His smile thinned, appreciative. “There she is.”
We moved. Sand kicked. Wood cracked. My blade kissed his ribs; his kissed my thigh. We danced that old argument our bodies loved: catch me if you can; only if you deserve me. I feinted high, dropped low, swept; he vaulted, recovered, drove me back with a flurry that set my arms screaming. I laughed. He swore. It felt like breathing after holding my head under too long.
“Careful,” I goaded, circling. “I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of your soldiers.”
He lunged. “Keep talking.”
“Gladly,” I said again, and switched hands mid-strike. The blade snapped toward his shoulder; he caught it a hair late. The thud of wood on muscle was satisfying. He grunted, eyes flashing. The Beast prowled closer.
“Oh,” I said, bright and taunting. “Did that sting?”
He didn’t answer with words. He answered with momentum—stealing mine, turning it, spinning me into his chest. I twisted to break it; he anticipated, stepped through, and with a clever hook of his ankle and a hand at my hip sent us both down in a controlled tumble that ended with him braced over me, forearm to my collarbone, our breaths colliding.
We froze, grinning like fools. Then—inevitably—we stopped smiling.
His gaze dipped to my mouth. Mine to his. A crackle rushed my skin.
I opened to him.
And my stomach lurched.
The world tilted. Heat drained from my face. I shoved him away hard, rolled to my knees, and retched into the sand.
“Freya?” Dorian’s voice went from amused to alarmed in a heartbeat. He was beside me, palm at my back, panic shredding his words. “Little terror, did I—did I hurt you? Did I hit—what’s wrong, talk to me—”
I spat, wiped my mouth, blinked tears out of my eyes. My heart was beating in my throat. I sat back on my heels, pressed a shaking hand to my belly, and heard my own voice like it came from a distance.
“I think… I think I’m pregnant.”
Silence. The yard, the keep, the entire sky seemed to pause and lean in.
Dorian’s mouth opened and closed. Once. Twice. Then he scooped me up so fast the world blurred and began barking orders I didn’t remember him giving. By the time my feet touched stone again we were already in the healer’s wing, and a flurry of competent hands had placed me on a cool bed.
Herbs steamed in clay bowls. Someone tied my hair back. A healer with steady eyes and ink-stained fingers took my pulse, asked me questions I answered on automatic, pressed gently against my abdomen with a touch that felt both clinical and reverent. Time stretched and folded and snapped like thread.
At last, the healer smiled. “Your Majesty,” she said to Dorian out of habit, then corrected herself with a small bow to me, “My lady—you’re with child. Five weeks, perhaps six. Strong pulse. Stronger than most.”
Dorian made a sound that was half laugh, half prayer. He kissed my knuckles, my forehead, then stood and paced and sat and stood again because his body apparently didn’t know what to do with joy.
I, meanwhile, forgot how to breathe.
A baby. A life soft as new grass. A heartbeat tucked under mine.
The healer said more—remedies for nausea, foods to favor, herbs to avoid. Dorian asked a dozen practical questions, bless him, about rest and travel and the safest sparring stances for fools who insist on training. I heard maybe half of it. When she finally bowed and withdrew, leaving us with the hush of the room, the quiet pressed.
He sat at the edge of the bed, took my hands, and spoke first. “Tell me what you’re feeling. All of it.”
I stared at our joined fingers. “Terrified,” I said honestly. “Happy. More terrified. Guilty for being terrified. Excited. Worried I’ll be a terrible mother. Worried I’ll be a good one and it will change me so much I won’t recognize myself. Worried I’ll break.” I swallowed. “Worried I’ll break them.”
He exhaled, long and shaking, and some of the wild gleam left his eyes. “Thank you,” he said simply. “For saying it instead of swallowing it.”
“What are you feeling?” I asked, because he’d been pretending at composure for both of us.
He laughed, raw. “Everything and its opposite. I’m—gods—Freya, I’m happy. Stupidly, scarily happy. And then I remember war, and politics, and our lives, and I think, Can we protect this? And then I think, We have to.” He cupped my face. “I want this. With every part of me. With every part of us.”
Tears burned again, but they felt cleaner. “Me too,” I whispered, a little surprised to hear how true it sounded.
He kissed me, soft and careful in a way that made my bones ache, and then he straightened, king-mask slipping back into place—but this time it was gentler. “Can you walk?”
“I can try.”
“I’ll carry you,” he said at once, and when I snorted he added, “I am capable of not overreacting. Occasionally. Today is not that day.”
He did not, in fact, carry me—he tucked an arm under mine and let me lean, which felt better. The hallway air was cooler, and I breathed it like I’d been underwater.
We reached my door. It swung open before we touched it.
Tiberius stood inside, road-dusted and sun-browned, a coil of something fierce and relieved in his eyes. He opened his arms, and when I all but fell into them, he laughed quietly into my hair.
“Surprise,” he murmured. “I came home.”
“We have a surprise too,” Dorian said, and I could hear the grin in his voice even if I couldn’t see it.
Tiberius set me back enough to look at me, and that hunter’s focus sharpened. “What happened?”

“I—” My throat went tight. “I’m pregnant.”