Aldric laid a hand on Elias’s shoulder, grounding the storm of awe inside him. "I know this is a commitnt that binds not only you but every descendant who cos after. It is not a small thing, and I will understand if you do not want—"
Before he could finish, Elias bowed deeply, the movent abrupt and driven by instinct rather than thought. His voice, when it ca, trembled with conviction.
"How could I refuse such an honor? I am only... only shocked that you would even consider worthy."
Aldric’s smile ward, quiet and full of the trust he had held for years. But still, he cautioned, gently and firmly, "Speak with Emma first. This oath is not sothing that can be broken once made. It is a blood vow, binding your family to ours for as long as the line continues."
Elias nodded with an enthusiasm that betrayed how deeply he already desired it. But even so, he would speak with Emma, because this future, this legacy, belonged to both of them.
And in the soft, fragrant hush of the evening garden, beneath the glow of two quietly growing families, the past and the future pressed gently into place.
-----
"I cannot believe it," Emma breathed, her voice bubbling with a happiness she couldn’t contain even if she tried. "We are going to be mothers... and only months apart. It feels unreal."
She had learned the truth only hours ago, the news still so new it trembled like a fragile miracle in her chest. It was far too early for public announcents; aside from Elias, she had confided in no one but Sylvia. Yet the joy refused to stay quiet, and it glowed on her face, bright and shalessly hopeful.
Sylvia wrapped her fingers around Emma’s hand, squeezing with the tender protectiveness of an older sister who had carried responsibility on her shoulders long before she carried a child. "You must be careful from now on," she reminded, her eyes soft with worry and warmth. "No strenuous work. If you need anything, absolutely anything, co to . I will not forgive you if you hesitate."
Emma nodded enthusiastically, the shimr in her eyes refusing to dim even under Sylvia’s mother-hen concern. "The princess is due in a month or two," she said, her voice drifting into breathless wonder. "You will give birth a few months after that... and mine will co four months after yours. Doesn’t it feel almost fated? As if our children will grow up just as we did, serving and protecting Princess Lorraine’s little prince or princess?"
Sylvia laughed, a sound that settled warmly into the cottage air. Emma’s excitent was a force of nature that was endearing, relentless, and untouched by the humble circumstances of their temporary ho.
Rather than dampening her spirit, the simpler life seed to make her bloom with even greater joy, especially when she imagined their children walking behind the child Lorraine would soon bring into the world.
Dinner that night was loud in the most comforting way. Their small cottage, once quiet and echoing with the absence of the mansion’s familiar bustle, now humd with laughter, clinking bowls, and the easy intimacy born from years of shared service and loyalty.
Aldric found himself smiling more than he ate, because Sylvia’s happiness spilled over the table like lantern light—warm, steady, and deeply infectious.
She had always thrived in a house full of voices. Back in Lorraine’s mansion, surrounded by maids, servants, and constant movent, she had lived with purpose in every gesture. Being with Emma again, laughing and trading stories, filled her with a brightness Aldric could feel just by sitting beside her.
And anything that brought that expression to her face, anything that made her reach for life with both hands, was enough to make his own heart quiet with gratitude.
Elias, anwhile, found himself in a losing battle with an emotion he rarely liked to acknowledge: jealousy, sly and childish, curling low in his stomach. He watched Emma...his Emma, chatting and laughing with Sylvia as though she wanted nothing more in the world than their conversation. Her eyes sparkled, her hands moved like fluttering wings, and her entire face lit up with excitent... excitent she had not once turned toward him that evening.
He loved her brightness. He loved her joy. But still... he wanted to be part of it.
He told himself he had grown. He spoke more now than he used to. He tried. He truly tried. And it wasn’t that he wanted her to talk less... he only wanted her to talk to him. Him alone.
He pouted, quietly and very earnestly. She wasn’t even glancing in his direction. She wasn’t noticing that he had gone still, that he was watching her with the wounded dignity of a man who wished to be adored with the sa enthusiasm she gave others.
After what felt like an eternity, long enough for his sulkiness to gain montum, Emma finally turned her head toward him.
Elias inhaled sharply and looked away with all the dramatic grace of a child pretending not to crave attention. She should see it. She should understand. She should co over and ask what was wrong. Right? She always noticed these things, didn’t she?
But Emma only blinked, entirely oblivious to his emotional spiral, and then...unforgivably, turned right back to Sylvia as if nothing were amiss at all.
Elias gaped at her, aghast. Truly? Not even a question? Not even a tiny, "Are you alright?"
She was supposed to care—deeply, fiercely, always. And yet here she was, abandoning him in his ti of quiet, invisible suffering.
Aldric, watching over the rim of his cup, pressed his fist to his lips to hide a smile. Ah, young love... raw and tender and a little ridiculous.
Elias had a long way to go before he mastered the art of loving fearlessly and being loved without insecurity. But watching him stumble his way through it, with such sincerity it almost hurt, was unexpectedly endearing.
Sotis, Aldric thought, happiness revealed itself in the smallest, silliest monts. And tonight, in a lantern-lit cottage echoing with laughter and the promise of growing families, happiness sat comfortably among them, warm as the fire and twice as bright.
And just as they finished dinner, just as the early spring sun hovered at that fragile edge between day and night—when the sky was still bright enough to pretend it was evening, yet dim enough for the birds to wing their way back to their nests—sothing happened. Sothing wondrous.
It began without warning, without on, without even the courtesy of a whisper to brace their hearts for what was coming. One mont the twilight stretched lazily across the sky, and the next, the world ignited.
Out of nowhere, all at once, the heavens blazed open. The sky lit up with a brilliance so sudden and so absolute it felt as though noon had been torn from its rightful place and slamd down upon the earth again.
It was like watching a thousand fireworks erupt at the sa ti, but without sound, without crackle or roar or even the faintest sizzle, only a vast, aching silence, as though the world itself was holding its breath.
The light shimred, rippled, expanded; it flooded the roofs, painted the trees gold, and cast long, trembling shadows across the earth, each one flickering like sothing alive. The air grew warr, the horizon glowed as if touched by the breath of so ancient, celestial being.
Aldric stepped forward, shielding Sylvia instinctively even as his own breath caught. Emma released a soft gasp, pressing closer to Elias. People from neighboring hos poured into the street, their silhouettes haloed by the strange luminescence.
And then... they saw it.
Far beyond the rooftops, in the cradle of the mountains where the Serathil river originated, a pillar of fire rose into the sky—a living, twisting column that moved not like fla but like sothing with a heartbeat. It pulsed, surged, and then...
The peak moved.
Not crumbling.
Not exploding.
Moving.
Elias felt Emma’s nails dig into his palm. Aldric’s eyes widened in dawning comprehension. Sylvia lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, the breath stolen clean out of her lungs.
"The mountains will breathe..." she whispered. Her voice wasn’t scared or surprised. It was reverent. "Princess Lorraine said that before... she saw this."
A single prophecy reawakened in the fading light.
Aldric turned to her, his expression breaking open with realization and sothing fierce, sothing triumphant.
Emma clasped her hands together at her chest, her smile trembling with joy that vibrated through her whole being. Elias stared in awe.
"It’s ti, isn’t it?" Emma breathed.
Sylvia nodded, tears gathering in her lashes, lit by falling fire like molten gold.
"Yes. It is ti."
Aldric wrapped an arm firmly around her shoulders, grounding her trembling form with quiet pride. Elias reached for Emma’s hand, and this ti she squeezed his so tightly he nearly lost his breath from sheer love.
And together, shoulder to shoulder, their faces alight with hope, the four of them watched the sky rain fire as if the heavens themselves were announcing a coronation.
Not one forged by politics.
Not one sealed by signatures or war.
But one written into the very bones of the world.
It was ti for Prince Leroy and Princess Lorraine, reborn in fla, chosen by prophecy, shaped by a love that had defied death, to return ho.
Not as fugitives.
Not as hostages.
But as the King and Queen, destiny had finally co to reclaim.
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