Thirds Person’s POV
The sun had not yet breached the horizon when the doors to her chambers burst open. The noise split the silence like a blade. Seraya did not move from her chair by the window, where the dying embers of the hearth still whispered low heat into the room. She had heard the boots long before the latch turned. Only one man in this palace entered without permission.
King Theron stormed into the chamber as though it still belonged to him. His doublet hung open at the collar, the velvet of it wrinkled from the previous night. His face bore the signs of little sleep—jaw tight, eyes bloodshot, and a thin line of fury etched between his brows.
“You dare shame me in my own court?” His voice thundered, the weight of it meant to intimidate.
Seraya did not rise. Her fingers remained loosely clasped around the stem of her goblet, though the wine within had long gone warm.
“Did it bruise you so deeply?” she asked, her tone even. “To watch your prize disobey?”
Theron crossed the chamber with swift strides, stopping just short of the hearth. His posture was tight, breath sharp with anger.
“You’ve humiliated the crown,” he said. “Before Drosmere’s delegation. Before Elowen.”
She turned her head slightly, just enough to meet his gaze.
She tilted her head, her voice sharpened but calm. “You paraded her through the hall like a saviour, as though I were already in the ground. And now you cry foul when the court sees you mocked?”
“You kissed him, Seraya.”
His accusation hung in the air like smoke. She finally turned to face him directly.
“And you announced my replacement before the ink had dried on your treaty.”
Theron scoffed, jaw clenched. “You always needed too much. Too much devotion, too much patience.”
Seraya rose slowly, her gown falling in elegant folds as she took a step forward. The expression on her face did not falter, though her heart beat steady and fast beneath her ribs.
“You gave me nothing,” she said flatly. “Not affection. Not truth. You abandoned me in every way that mattered—then had the gall to act as though I failed you.”
For a moment, his mouth parted. A lesser man might have searched for apology, but Theron only turned his face slightly, jaw clenched. His silence was not that of shame. Only arrogance.
“You forget yourself,” he said at last, low and warning.
“No,” she answered. “I have remembered who I am.”
He said nothing more. The look he cast her was not confusion, nor heartbreak—it was irritation, perhaps even something like fear. Theron turned without further word. The door slammed behind him, echoing through her chambers long after his footsteps vanished.
She did not attend the council that morning. Instead, she summoned her handmaid and gave one instruction: Tell them the queen is unwell. The maid hesitated, but Seraya’s tone did not invite discussion.
Alone again, she returned to the carved writing table tucked beneath the tall window. From the bottom drawer, long hidden beneath linens scented with dried sage, she retrieved a folded ribbon of parchment. The seal had broken long ago, but the memory clung stubbornly to the page.
Their vows.
Written in her own hand, during those early days when love had still seemed possible. The lines were faded now, edges curled. She stared at the words, no longer hers, until her fingers began to move.
She tore the paper.
Once.
Then again.
By evening, the remains had been fed to the fire.
She left her chambers without her guards. The halls were quiet, the courtiers occupied with some formal supper she had declined. Her steps brought her to the southern wing, past the antechambers and into the room Caelum had claimed as his temporary war quarters.
The door stood ajar. She entered without knocking.
He sat at the long oaken table, his black cloak draped over the back of the chair. Charts and sigils lay spread before him. A candle flickered by his elbow. He did not look up at first.
“You’re early,” he murmured, his voice low.
“I didn’t come to speak of treaties.”
That made him look.His expression remained unreadable.
She crossed the room slowly, letting the rustle of her skirts mark the silence between them. With careful grace, she lifted herself onto the end of the table, just beyond the scrolls, her eyes locked on his.
The heat in the room shifted.
She reached beneath her skirts and pulled the hem upward, exposing the smooth skin of her thighs. The movement was slow, unhurried, but her fingers trembled faintly. She did not look away.
Then, without breaking eye contact, she gripped the thin silk of her undergarments and tore them in one swift motion. The sound was unmistakable.
Caelum’s eyes widened. His lips parted as though to speak, though the words did not come at once.
“You’re actually doing this?” he said, voice hoarse as he stared, unable to mask the heat rising in his face.
She saw him looking—his gaze locked between her legs.
“Only if we make it real,” she replied.
There was a long moment where neither moved. The fire crackled softly.
“If they believe I carry an heir,” she continued, “Theron cannot cast me aside without consequence. No king dismisses a pregnant queen. Not without cost.”
His eyes lifted back to hers. She could see the thought in them, the calculation, the hesitation that came with a man being offered power cloaked in danger.
“You’d let me touch you again for this?”
“You already have.”
She slid forward, her knees brushing the edge of his seat. The hem of her gown remained pooled at her hips. Her voice dropped.
“Would you stop me?”
He said nothing. And in that silence, she knew the answer.
30
