Chapter 89: Bent the rules

Chapter 89: Bent the rules
"You dragged me to the Plains," she said, her voice rising, trembling with the force of the storm finally breaking within her. "I learned your ways. I learned your traditions, your rules. I learned the language of your women, and now I dress myself like them. I abandoned my whole life—my family, my home, my title. Even the name I was given at birth shall never be spoken again. Because you decided so."

She took a step back, her hands moving to her stomach, a protective, instinctual gesture over the slight swell that carried the future he had been so desperate to secure. "You claimed my body. You pleased yourself with it until your seed took root in my womb... My womb that now finally carries your heir. There is not a single part of me you haven't conquered, Ikarion. From my body to my name, to my soul..." Her voice cracked, a fresh wave of tears spilling over her pale cheeks. "...and even my heart. The one thing I ever asked you in exchange for all that... You couldn't give me."

"It is not like that—" Ikarion started, his voice rough, reaching out as if to physically halt the words tearing at him.

"Yes, it is!" she cried, cutting him off, her voice shrill in the quiet cabin. "You made that deal with Tzariak-Lir. You were willing to take another woman for yourself! You couldn't even give me the grace of a little more time. You couldn't trust in the fate you claim brought us together!"

"I didn't have more time to give, Misarya!" Ikarion roared, his frustration boiling over, his hands clenching at his sides until the knuckles turned white. The air around him seemed to shimmer with the heat of his anger. "You speak as if I already fucked Tzariak's daughter," he said, his voice low, laced with a genuine, bewildered frustration. "I stand here and tell you I will break my word to a man who holds the fate of my army in his hands. I tell you I will risk the unity of the tribes to keep only you. Why does that not bring you peace? Should you not be happy?"

Misarya let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, turning away to cover her mouth with a shaking hand. "Happy?" she whispered, disbelieving. "You speak of breaking your word to Tzariak as if it is a gift to me, but it is only evidence of your instability. You swore to be faithful to me first, Ikarion. That was the first vow."

"I told you, I had no choice!" He screamed.

"You bent the rules of your people!" she screamed back, not backing down, her small frame trembling with the sheer force of her indignation. "You crowned yourself King despite your Riven blood and now you are the most powerful man in Askaris!" she shouted, her breath hitching on a sob. "But when it came to me, you decided I wasn't worth the struggle. Being faithful to me wasn't worth it."

The silence that followed was absolute. It was not the quiet of peace, but the vacuum left after a devastating explosion. The fire in the hearth seemed to dim in response to the coldness that settled over the room.

Ikarion stood frozen. His chest heaved, the roar of his breath the only sound in the stillness. He looked at her and saw the devastation he had wrought.

"My love..." The words tore from his throat, ragged and desperate. He closed the distance between them in a single, heavy stride, capturing her face between his calloused, scarred palms. He tilted her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze, his thumbs brushing away the relentless tears that stained her porcelain skin. "Let us put this behind us," he pleaded, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "Let us celebrate the arrival of our child. Let us rejoice in this blessing. You are the woman of my life, the one and only. Please, forgive my desperate decision. I did it for us, for the stability of this kingdom."

Misarya looked up at him, her lilac eyes swimming in a sea of grief, and the sight of it was a spear to his heart. But the softening he hoped for did not come. Instead, a cold, terrible clarity settled over her features.

"There will always be another war," she said, her voice hollow, void of the anger that had fueled her just moments before. "There will always be another conflict, another problem... And there will always be other women." She let out a shaky breath, her hands resting limply on his wrists, not pushing him away, but not holding him either. "I was a fool to ever think I could hold that power. It was my fault for deluding myself into believing you could fulfill that promise."

"No, it is not like—" he began, panic clawing at his insides, but she cut him off, her voice steady despite the tears that continued to track silently down her cheeks.

"If this child is a healthy boy," she said, the words dropping like stones into a deep well, "then I will have fulfilled my duty to you as your wife. So... I shall return to Halen-dar after that."

Ikarion froze. The air in his lungs seized, his heart stuttering in his chest as if he had taken a physical blow. The hands that held her face flinched, his grip tightening instinctively before he forced himself to loosen it, terrified of bruising her. "What?" he choked out, the word barely audible. "What are you talking about?"

"The Askari law grants me the right to end our marriage after fulfilling my duty by giving you a male heir," she said, her voice barely a whisper, yet it carried the weight of a death sentence. "So..."

The silence that stretched between them was suffocating. Ikarion stared at her, his mind struggling to process the words, to wrap around a reality where she was not standing by his side. Panic, raw and blinding, erupted in his chest.

"Fuck no," he snarled, the sound more animal than human. "I won't let you go! You're not going anywhere! You're my wife! You cannot leave!" He was shaking, the tremors running through his massive frame. "I will burn your father's castle to the ground before I let you go back there!"

"You cannot attack Halen-dar for as long as I live!" she cried, her voice rising with a defiant, trembling strength. "The Askari law says I have the right to leave after giving birth to a male son, and your vows of protection shall be upheld until I die! Or now you are suddenly willing to bend the laws of your people?"

"Fuck the laws!" Ikarion roared, the words exploding from him like a clap of thunder, shaking the very walls of the cabin. He paced away from her, running a shaking hand through his hair, his eyes wild, searching the room for an enemy he could fight, but finding only the crushing weight of her resolve. He spun back to her, his chest heaving. "I won't let you go, Misarya. Even if I have to chain you by the ankles to this bed, you are not leaving. You are mine!"

The fight drained out of her as quickly as it had come. Her shoulders slumped, and the fire in her eyes extinguished, leaving behind a dull, devastating emptiness. She looked at him—not with anger, not with hatred, but with a pity so profound it shattered him more than any blade could.

"Yes," she whispered, the sound barely audible over the crackle of dying embers. "I am. Like your sword and your gold is yours. I'm just another spoil of war on your pile of treasures, Dragon King. For you to use as you please."

She pulled her face away from his hands, the action slow and deliberate, breaking the contact that seemed to be the only thing tethering him to the earth. "I was stupid to believe this could ever be different."