Chapter 76: Rumors

Chapter 76: Rumors
The question hung in the dim, stifling air of the cabin, heavier than the oppressive heat of the plains.

Is it true that you had a bastard child before you became King?

For a moment, Ikarion did not move. He sat on the edge of the bed, the cup of dark wine halfway to his mouth. The relaxed, golden warmth of the man who had just made love to her vanished instantly, as if it had never existed. His broad shoulders went entirely rigid.

When he finally lowered the cup, the glass clacked against the wooden table with a sharp, violent sound.

"Where did you hear that?" he asked. His voice was no longer the low, rough rumble of a lover. It was the lethal, vibrating hiss of a Warlord who had just found a spy in his war room.

Misarya’s stomach plummeted. She pulled the fur sheet tighter against her bare chest, her heart hammering frantically. "I just… It is what people say, there are many rumors. I just want to know if it is true, My King. Did you—"

"Who have you been speaking to?" he demanded, cutting her off. He stood up from the bed, his massive, naked frame suddenly towering over her in the shadows. The air around him practically crackled with sudden, volatile hostility.

Misarya shrank back slightly against the headboard. "I just want to know... If there is a child out there, if there is a lover—"

"My past is none of your concern!" he roared, the sudden volume of his voice making her flinch.

Outside the heavy wooden door, sensing the sudden, violent spike in the King’s aggression, Azeth began to bark. The massive dire wolf let out a deep, frantic, warning sound, scratching at the wood. The chaotic noise only fueled Ikarion’s escalating rage.

"I asked you a simple question!" Misarya pleaded, her voice trembling. "Why won't you just answer me?"

"Because you have no right to question me!" Ikarion fired back, pacing a tight, furious circle at the foot of the bed. He pointed a thick, calloused finger at her. "You are my wife. I made you Queen! Yet you sit around listening to the poisonous whispers of the camp like some bored, desperate commoner! You involve yourself in petty intrigues and idle gossip instead of focusing on your actual duties!"

Misarya gasped, the sheer injustice of the accusation hitting her like a physical blow. "I do not involve myself in anything! This is brought to my door! Yes, I am your wife and I’m just trying to understand my place—"

"Your place is exactly where I put you!" Ikarion snarled, his golden eyes blazing with a dark, cornered fury. "You concern yourself with rumors," Ikarion said, his voice dropping to a cruel, mocking sneer, "when you should be concerning yourself with your own failures."

Misarya froze, her breath catching in her throat.

"Maybe if you spent less time spinning webs of rumors and whining about the past, you would be pregnant already." He delivered the blow without an ounce of mercy.

The words shattered her completely.

The air was sucked from her lungs. The fragile, beautiful hope she had been clinging to—that he loved her, that he was being patient, that he saw her as more than a breeder—shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

Hot, heavy tears spilled over her eyelashes, streaming silently down her pale cheeks. She stared at him, unable to speak, her chest heaving as a quiet, broken sob tore from her throat.

Seeing her cry, seeing the absolute devastation he had just caused, Ikarion’s jaw locked. But he could not take back a strike once the sword was swung. Instead of apologizing, his pride hardened into a wall of ice.

"You look down on Askari women," Ikarion sneered, turning away from her weeping face. He snatched his heavy leather pants from the floor. "But you are no better than Jarek's sister."

Misarya let out a choked gasp, burying her face in her hands. The comparison to Maya was the final, agonizing twist of the knife.

Ikarion roughly pulled on his pants, his movements sharp and violently agitated. He didn't bother lacing his tunic; he simply grabbed it from the chair and threw it over his broad shoulder.

Misarya lowered her hands, her lilac eyes red and brimming with tears. She looked at the man she had just surrendered her entire body and soul to mere moments ago.

"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice a fragile, broken whisper.

Ikarion didn't look back at her. He rested his hand on the iron latch of the door.

"Out."

He threw the heavy door open. The cool night air rushed into the sweltering cabin. As Ikarion stormed out into the dark camp, Azeth immediately slipped through the open doorway, his ears pinned back. The dire wolf let out a soft, distressed whine, nudging the door shut with his heavy snout.

The latch clicked into place, leaving a deafening silence in its wake.

Azeth trotted over to the bed, placing his massive front paws on the mattress and resting his large, furry head against Misarya’s lap.

Misarya collapsed forward into the furs. She wrapped her arms around the wolf’s thick neck, burying her face in his grey fur, and finally let out the agonizing, breathless sobs she had been holding back.

Misarya pulled a heavy wool cloak over her linen sleep tunic, her hands trembling so violently she could barely fasten the clasp at her throat. She slipped out of the cabin, the night air biting at her tear-stained cheeks.

Azeth followed her like a massive, silent shadow. The dire wolf kept his head low, sensing the profound, radiating grief of his master. He didn't stray to chase the desert rats or sniff the dying fire pits; he stayed pressed firmly against her leg, walking by her side.

She walked aimlessly at first, her chest heaving with silent, ragged sobs. She couldn't go to Rhea. She couldn't go to Taya or Amara. She didn’t want to be seen crying by them anymore.

Misarya found the large, meticulously clean tent near the edge of the Old Village. Unlike the chaotic Askari structures, this one was strictly ordered, smelling faintly of incense.

She pushed the heavy canvas flap aside.

Inside, a single oil lamp burned low on a small wooden table. Lady Elara was sitting up in her cot. The older woman was reading a small leather-bound book of Halendarian scripture, her silver hair braided tightly down her back, looking as composed in the middle of the night as she did in the high courts.

Elara looked up, her sharp, critical eyes narrowing at the intrusion.

But the harsh reprimand died on the preceptor's lips the moment she saw the girl standing in the entrance.

Misarya stood shivering in the doorway, clutching her cloak. Her dark hair was a wild, tangled mess, her pale face was blotchy and streaked with tears, and her lilac eyes were wide with a devastating, childlike agony.

"What are you doing here?" Elara breathed, setting the heavy book aside.

Misarya crossed the tent on shaking legs and dropped to her knees right beside the cot. She didn't say a word. She simply collapsed forward, burying her face deep into the wool blankets resting over Lady Elara’s lap, and surrendered to the violent, agonizing sobs that tore through her chest.

Elara lifted her hands, her fingers slightly stiff, and gently rested them on Misarya’s head. She began to stroke the tangled, dark hair, a rare, maternal gesture that felt both awkward and profoundly grounding.

"Hush, my dear," Elara murmured into the quiet tent. "Hush now."

"I have nothing," Misarya whispered, turning her tear-soaked face to the side, looking blankly at the dim oil lamp.

Misarya squeezed her eyes shut, fresh, scalding tears soaking into the thick wool of Elara’s blankets. The agonizing ache in her ribs wasn't just wounded pride. It wasn't the fear of being replaced by another woman, or the sharp sting of her husband’s volatile temper.

The pain was so absolute, so suffocating, because of what the brutal fight had finally laid bare in her own heart.

She loved him.

The realization didn't come with the warmth of a hearth fire; it crashed over her like a freezing, suffocating wave. It echoed in her mind like a death sentence. She loved her husband. She loved the Dragon King.

And tonight he had shown her with absolute certainty that he did not love her back.

Misarya closed her eyes, letting the strict, familiar comfort of her preceptor wash over her. She stayed on her knees in the cold tent, weeping into the lap of the only mother she had left, as the dire wolf stood guard at the door until dawn.