Chapter 354

Chapter 354
Aurora

We entered the room, and the two men continued supporting most of my weight as they carefully guided me toward the bed. My legs were still so weak from being held in the same position for what felt like an eternity that I couldn’t trust them to carry me without collapsing again.

I tried to take a few of the final steps on my own, partly because I didn’t want to appear completely helpless in front of them and partly because I needed to know how much strength had actually returned to my body, but the moment I shifted too much of my weight onto one leg, my knee trembled beneath me and I had to rely on the men again until the backs of my legs finally touched the mattress.

They lowered me carefully, helping me settle against the pillows before releasing their grip, and for a moment I remained exactly where they had left me, breathing slowly while I waited for my body to stop feeling as though it might give out beneath me again. Neither man said anything, and neither seemed particularly interested in whether I was comfortable, because as soon as they were certain I was sitting securely on the bed, they turned toward the door and began walking away without so much as another glance in my direction.

I watched them until the door closed behind them, and when the lock clicked into place a second later, I couldn’t help the quiet, humorless breath that escaped me.

Of course.

Even in a room that looked like a hospital, I was still a prisoner.

I let my head fall back against the pillows and slowly looked around, taking in the room properly now that I wasn’t being dragged through it by two strangers, and the more carefully I looked, the more unsettling the whole place became.

There was something almost unnaturally perfect about how clean and organized everything was. Every machine had been positioned exactly where it needed to be, every cable had been arranged neatly instead of being left tangled across the floor, and the cabinets lining the walls were filled with bottles, medical supplies, instruments, and equipment that looked far too expensive and specialized for this to be some ordinary infirmary inside a castle.

But despite everything around me, I barely paid attention to any of it.

My hands had already moved toward my stomach, settling over the large curve beneath my shirt.

I looked down at myself for a moment, allowing the reality of what was inside me to settle over my thoughts, and then whispered the only words that seemed appropriate.

“My babies.”

The words had barely left my mouth when something suddenly moved beneath my palms.

I gasped, my entire body tensing as a powerful surge of energy rushed outward from somewhere deep within my stomach and spread through me so quickly that I could feel it moving through my chest, down my arms, and into my fingertips. It wasn’t painful, which somehow made the sensation even more startling.

There was an intensity to it that I had never experienced before, a strength that seemed to fill every part of my body at once while I sat there trying desperately to understand what had just happened.

My eyes dropped to my hands.

What the hell was that?

I knew what my magic felt like, or at least I thought I did after everything Cecilia had taught me, and this wasn’t the same familiar current I had spent weeks learning to control. My own magic usually felt like warmth beneath my skin, something that gathered gradually when I reached for it and responded to my concentration, but whatever was moving through me now felt deeper and somehow more alive, as though it wasn’t simply coming from me at all.

Slowly, almost cautiously, I lifted one hand away from my stomach.

The sensation disappeared.

I froze.

For several seconds I stared at my hand, wondering whether I had somehow imagined the entire thing, before lowering it back against my stomach.

The magic surged through me again.

I lifted my hand once more, waited, and felt nothing, before placing it against my stomach again and experiencing that same overwhelming rush of energy almost immediately.

I stared downward in disbelief, my mind struggling to make sense of the pattern that was becoming impossible to ignore.

It couldn’t be coincidence.

I tried again, this time removing both hands and waiting several seconds before placing them back against my stomach, and the moment my palms touched my skin, the strange energy returned with enough force to make my fingertips tingle.

I swallowed.

“Okay…”

I didn’t even know who I was talking to, but I found myself testing it again anyway, because I needed to be certain that I wasn’t simply confusing my own magic with something else.

My hands away from my stomach, there was nothing.

My hands against it, the energy returned.

Again, I lifted them.

Again, everything disappeared.

And when I placed them back, another pulse moved through me, stronger than the previous one and powerful enough that the machines beside my bed flickered for a brief moment before returning to normal.

My eyes immediately snapped toward the screens.
I stared at them for several seconds before slowly looking back down at my stomach.

“What are you?”

The question left my lips quietly, although I wasn’t sure whether I was asking myself or the two tiny lives growing inside me.

I kept my hands against my stomach and closed my eyes, allowing myself to focus entirely on the sensation instead of fighting to understand it, and the moment I did, something became clearer than it had been before. The energy wasn’t coming from one place.

There were two distinct presences beneath my hands.

Two separate currents of magic, each different from the other in its own subtle way, yet somehow intertwined with one another and connected to me so naturally that I could feel them moving through my body as though some invisible thread had always existed between us.

My eyes opened.

“Oh my God.”

The realization settled over me slowly, my mind seemed almost unwilling to accept what my body was already telling me.

They weren’t simply responding to my magic.

They weren’t drawing energy from me.

I was channeling theirs.

My babies.

Their magic was flowing through me.

I stared down at my stomach, completely overwhelmed by the realization, and when another faint pulse moved beneath my hands, I couldn’t stop the breathless little laugh that escaped me.

“You’re doing this?”

The magic answered with another surge.

For the first time since I’d woken up in that concrete room, I felt something other than fear.

Hope.

It wasn’t enough to make me believe I could simply walk out of this place, since I still had no idea what this ability was or how much control I had over it, but it was enough to make me realize that the people who had taken me had made one very important mistake.

They had suppressed my magic.

They had restrained me.

They had locked me underground and surrounded me with people who clearly knew exactly how to keep prisoners under control.

But they hadn’t accounted for something that wasn’t entirely mine.

I carefully kept my hands against my stomach, allowing another wave of energy to move through me while I tried to understand how to use it, and for several precious moments I allowed myself to believe that perhaps I finally had a way to fight back.

Then the door opened.

My eyes immediately lifted.

The same female doctor who had examined me earlier stepped into the room, pushing a small medical cart in front of her before closing the door behind her, and although she didn’t say anything as she entered, her attention immediately shifted toward my stomach.

I kept my hands exactly where they were.

She moved closer.

One step.

Then another.

And something inside me reacted before I had even consciously decided to do anything.

The strange energy beneath my palms surged suddenly, much more violently than it had before, and the woman stopped in the middle of her movement as her eyes widened with sudden confusion.

I didn’t move.

I didn’t raise my hands.

I didn’t reach toward her.

I simply stared at her while the unfamiliar magic continued building inside me, growing stronger with every second until the air itself seemed to become heavy around us.

Then the woman’s body jerked violently.

Her eyes widened even further as an invisible force seized her, pulling her backward with enough strength to lift her partially from the floor before a sharp crack echoed through the room.

I froze.

The sound seemed impossibly loud in the otherwise silent room.

The woman’s body immediately went limp, and she collapsed heavily onto the floor beside the medical cart, which tipped over beside her and sent several pieces of equipment scattering across the polished floor.

I stared at her motionless body, my mind refusing to catch up with what had just happened.

I hadn’t touched her, hadn’t thrown anything, hadn’t even consciously directed a spell toward her, and yet somehow the moment she had approached me, something inside me had reacted on its own.

My breathing gradually became heavier as I looked down at my hands, which were still resting against my stomach.
The strange magic hadn’t disappeared.

It was still there, moving quietly beneath my skin.

I realized that perhaps I wasn’t as powerless as they thought I was.