Twins of the Broken Crown

[Seraphine’s POV]

I woke up screaming.

This sound scraped my throat raw, torning from the deep of my chest. Cold sweat broke out on my skin.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

I sat up, gasping for breath. My palms were trembling. A deep, unfamiliar heaviness in my lower abdomen was now lying curled up under my ribs. Then the nausea surged.

No, this wasn’t ordinary sickness. Gods! Had Aldric found another way to break me?

I needed Elowen. The only soul I could trust in this palace that wasn’t mine. To the rest of Blackthorn Castle, I was Lady Seraphine of Fallen Eryndale, the conquered princess turned political bride, the king’s unwilling trophy.

I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and stepped into the corridor. Two guards straightened as I approached. “Your Majesty,” one said. “Are you—”

“I require the healer,” I cut in, sharper than I intended. “Now.”

They exchanged glances, wary but unwilling to challenge me. I wasn’t a beloved queen, but I was still one of Aldric’s royal wives—the one he’d taken as spoils the night Eryndale burned. Every soldier knew better than to risk angering the king by inconveniencing the woman he claimed as part of his victory.

I walked on before they could offer an escort. I did not want their eyes on me.

Elowen’s chamber door appeared ahead, the carved mortar-and-pestle symbol barely visible in the dim light. I knocked once.

She opened immediately, as if waiting for me. Her eyes widened.

“Sera? What happened? Come in.”

“Something is wrong,” I whispered. “I feel… strange. Heavy. Sick.”

Elowen guided me to a cot, her hands gentle and steady. Her chamber smelled of lavender, dried mint, and wild mountain herbs from the homeland we’d both lost. The scent alone nearly brought me to tears.

“How long?” she asked, lighting a brighter lantern.

“Since before dawn. I could barely stand.”

She checked my pulse and noticed the tremors in my hands. Her frown deepened.

“Lie back.”

My heart pounded as she pressed her palm lightly to my abdomen. Something inside me fluttered faintly beneath her touch. Elowen froze.

“Elowen?” My voice cracked. “Please say something.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Your cycles. When was your last?”

“Two months ago,” I said quickly. “But that’s not unusual— stress, the cold—”

“Sera,” she said gently, “it has been longer than that.”

I blinked. Counted backwards. Three months.

“Impossible,” I whispered. “He hasn’t even… He hasn’t touched me since—”

Her expression softened with apology. “It only takes once.”

Once. That night, with Aldric’s hands bruising my hips. The heat of his breath at my throat. The look in his eyes—not desire, no, never that—but possession. Claiming me the same way he claimed Eryndale’s throne.

“Breathe,” Elowen murmured, gripping my hands. “Sera, breathe.”

A child. Aldric’s child. In my body.

For a moment, warmth flickered in my chest, something small, soft, and belonging. But terror smothered it instantly.

“A royal heir,” I rasped. “He’ll use it. You know he will.”

She knew. Elowen had seen the same things I had. Aldric won kingdoms with fire and steel, but he kept them with symbols—marriage alliances, hostage-children, bastards raised into soldiers loyal to him alone.

“My child will not be his trophy,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Elowen, he must never know.”

“Sera—”

“I mean it.” I leaned forward, gripping her wrists. “If he finds out, he’ll take the child from me and raise it to worship him. To forget Eryndale. To help him crush what little is left of my people.”

My throat closed. “I will not let that happen.”

Something flickered through Elowen’s eyes—pity, yes, but threaded with something sharper. A hesitation that shouldn’t have been there. She blinked it away too quickly.

“It is dangerous to keep such a secret from the king,” she said.

“More dangerous to tell him.” My voice trembled, but the truth in it did not. “This baby,” I whispered, a hand drifting to my abdomen, “is the first thing that is mine since Eryndale fell.”

Since his armies shattered my homeland in a single night and left its crown soaked in my parents’ blood. Since the smoke of my burning city became the veil I wore into this forced marriage.