CHAPTER 74: CAGE

The east wing of Solmire Palace was drenched in a hush too heavy for its gilded walls. The storm of gossip from the ballroom had long ebbed into whispers, leaving only the faint scent of worry and wine lingering in the air. And there, in the center of a room woven from lace and lamplight, lay Lady Ophelia.

Half-awake. Half-aware. Entirely disoriented.

Her lashes fluttered weakly, pale against the bruised crescents beneath her eyes. The moment her gaze found him, she rasped the name that had driven kingdoms mad.

"Caelen...?"

Soren, Emperor of Nevareth, self-proclaimed master of composure, softened instantly. The sharpness in him melted away, replaced by a quiet gentleness that few ever witnessed.

"He’s been summoned," he told her, voice low, careful. "He’s on his way."

And as if conjured by her worry alone, the door burst open.

Caelen entered like a storm breaking through glass, all fear, fury, and desperate devotion tangled into one man. His expression, frantic and unguarded, belonged not to a king but to a lover stripped bare. He reached her bedside in an instant, falling to his knees beside her, hands trembling as they touched her face.

"Ophelia. Love—how do you feel?"

Her answer was a ghost of a smile, fragile and fleeting.

From across the room, Soren watched. Silent. Studious.

A peculiar calm sat upon him as his gaze drifted, not to the tenderness between them, but to Caelen’s hand that caught his attention almost instantly.

A blister.

Fresh. Red. Angry.

Ah.

The emperor’s brow arched, slow and deliberate. A detail to file away, for later.

He said nothing. Not yet.

Instead, he stood, his movements smooth as glass. "The collapse... any idea what caused it?"

Caelen shook his head, too focused on the woman in his arms to notice the ice in Soren’s tone.

"I’ll send for some herbs from Nevareth," Soren offered lightly. "They’ve been known to stabilize fainting spells. Especially for those under stress."

But then the scent reached him.

Jasmine. Smoke. A whisper of fire and ruin.

The same he had the pleasure of being intoxicated with moments ago.

Eris.

It clung to Caelen like a confession, winding through the air until even the curtains seemed to shiver from the weight of it.

Soren’s fingers twitched behind his back, an old habit, restraint disguised as poise. He said nothing. Smiled faintly. And waited.

The door opened again, ushering in the royal physician, a frail man with hands that trembled only when they weren’t performing miracles. He bowed hastily, his robes whispering against the floor before he approached the bedside.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

"She collapsed," Caelen murmured. "Out of nowhere."

The physician nodded, placing his fingertips against Ophelia’s wrist. "Do you feel any pain, my lady? Nausea? Dizziness?"

She managed a faint nod. "A little."

A flicker of magic shimmered in the air, pale gold, warm and steady, as the physician murmured his spell. The light washed over Ophelia’s body, illuminating her like dawn through stained glass. Soren watched it closely. He knew diagnostic enchantments. He also knew when one didn’t go as expected.

Because the physician’s face changed.

First confusion. Then surprise. Then... oh, the most delicate of revelations, certainty.

The kind that stole air from the room.

Caelen noticed it immediately. His voice cut through the tension, sharp as a blade.

"Speak."

The physician hesitated. His eyes flicked between the two rulers, and then, with the kind of courage only fools and healers possessed, he said it.

"Lady Ophelia might be carrying a child."

Silence.

The word child hung between them like incense, fragrant, heavy, impossible to ignore.

The physician continued cautiously, "Further examinations are needed, but the signs are there."

Ah.

And with that, the world shifted.

Soren was the first to breathe again, his lips curling into something that might have been amusement, or perhaps irony wearing the mask of kindness.

"Well," he murmured, "that’s... remarkable timing."

Ophelia’s hands flew to her stomach, trembling as though she feared the touch might make the miracle vanish. Her lips parted, eyes bright with tears that glittered like pearls. For a heartbeat, she looked radiant, the kind of joy that makes even sorrow jealous.

"A child..." she whispered, as though the word itself were fragile, sacred. Tears welled in her eyes, trembling on her lashes. "Caelen...

Caelen, however, was another story entirely.

He froze, as though struck by a blow no one else could see. His face flickered, joy, fear, disbelief, before settling into something far darker. His eyes darted from the physician to Ophelia, and for a moment, just a moment, Soren could swear he saw terror there.

Ah yes, terror. The quiet kind. The kind that doesn’t scream, only stares.

He should have looked like a man receiving a blessing.

Instead, he looked like one realizing he’d just been bound by it.

Soren watched it all unfold with the expression of a man studying a chessboard mid-game, intrigued, slightly amused, quietly calculating.

He said nothing as the faintest ghost of a smile touched his lips.

Because this, he thought, was not the face of a man celebrating life.

It was the face of a man who had just discovered a new kind of cage.

"How fortunate," Soren murmured, so softly it could almost be mistaken for sincerity.

And oh, how poetic that seemed,

when somewhere, on the other side of the palace, the woman who’d once built Caelen’s first cage one was setting herself aflame.

The room had fractured into two separate realities. In one, Ophelia was cradling the dawn of a new life, her tears those of bewildered hope. In the other, Caelen was staring into an abyss of his own making. And Soren stood precisely at the fault line, the only one who could see both sides.

The physician had barely finished gathering his instruments when the air shifted. The door opened without ceremony, and a guard stepped inside, one of Eris’s own, if the crimson insignia burned into his shoulder was any indication. His face was pale, his expression carved from panic and dread.

He bowed low, voice trembling. "A message, Your Majesty. From the former Queen Eris. For Emperor Soren."