Felix never came near Seraphina’s palace.

That, at least, was one mercy.

For years, he remained in the northern moon palace, pale and polished and distant, appearing beside Goliath only when court ceremony demanded it. He was never rude, loud, or foolish enough to insult the staff or slight another consort where witnesses could carry the story.

He was decent. Perfectly decent.

That was perhaps what made Amara dislike him more.

Bad men were easier when they behaved badly. Then all knew in what form the danger came. Felix did nothing one could point to. He smiled softly, spoke with flawless courtesy, accepted his place, and moved through the imperial court like cold water beneath thin ice.

Amara saw him sometimes from balconies, across gardens, and through the shifting bodies of court functions. Pale hair. White and gold. Soft purple eyes that never looked hurried, never looked hungry, never looked angry.

Still, whenever he passed, some old part of her remembered Pais, but Felix did not come near her mother. So Amara kept her dislike to herself.

Years passed.

She turned eleven, then twelve, then thirteen. She learned three languages, two forms of court arithmetic, temple law, southern trade geography, and enough political history to understand that most royal bloodlines had survived through a combination of violence, luck, and enthusiastic lies.

Goliath still visited.

Not often enough for gossip to turn Seraphina into a favorite, but often enough for Amara to know he remembered them.

Sometimes he brought reports from Pais and gave them to Seraphina without ceremony. Sometimes he sat in the garden while Amara practiced maps on a slate and corrected her with the ruthless patience of a man who considered ignorance an enemy worth defeating carefully. Sometimes he stayed only long enough to ask Seraphina whether the saint’s breath needed new trellises, then left before either of them could pretend the question was not tenderness disguised as horticulture.

When Amara was fifteen, her mother became sick.

At first, it was small.

Seraphina refused honey cakes, though she had always liked them in the morning. Then she turned pale at the scent of roasted fish. Then she asked for the windows opened during breakfast even though the day was cool and rain-heavy. One afternoon, Amara found her standing in the garden with one hand pressed against a column, breathing slowly as if the world had tilted.

"Mother?"

Seraphina straightened too quickly.

"I am fine."

That was how Amara knew she was not.

Adults lied badly when they thought children were still young enough to be comforted by tone.

The sickness did not pass.

Seraphina grew tired more easily. She napped in the afternoons. She frowned at tea she had loved for years and asked for sour fruit instead. Her attendants became quiet. The physician began visiting more often, and although no one panicked, Amara knew the shape of concealed fear.

Pais had taught her that too.

The next time Goliath visited, Amara was waiting.

She heard the change in the palace before she saw him.

The guards straightened and servants began moving with the particular silence that meant the emperor had arrived and everyone had remembered, all at once, that their skeletons were optional.

Amara did not wait in the sitting room like she was supposed to.

She ran.

It was not dignified.

She knew that.

A fifteen-year-old girl raised in an imperial consort’s household should not run down a polished corridor toward the most powerful man in the world with her skirts gathered in both hands and panic undoing every lesson in posture she had ever endured.

She did it anyway.

Goliath had just stepped through the west archway when she reached him.

He looked exactly as he always did.

Tall. Golden-haired. Dressed in black and gold so heavily embroidered, he looked as if the empire had decided to wear a human body for convenience. His eyes moved to her at once, sharp enough to cut through her panic and find the fear underneath it.

"Amara."

"Mother is sick."

The words spilled out too fast.

One of the attendants behind him went very still.

Goliath looked at her, and then, very slowly, his mouth curved.

Amara stared at him, horrified.

"You are laughing?"

"I am considering it."

"Mother is sick."

"Yes," he said. "I heard you."

"This is not funny."

"No," Goliath agreed. "Your face, however, is quite distressed."

Amara’s outrage almost overtook the fear. "That is because I am distressed."

"I noticed."

"Then stop smiling."

At that, Goliath did laugh. A quiet, warm sound that made one of the younger attendants look startled enough to regret having ears.

Amara glared at him with all the force of fifteen years and several generations of royal resentment.

Goliath composed himself. Mostly.

"Did you ask Seraphina about it?"

Amara froze.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because she says she is fine."

"Ah."

"That means she is lying."

"Usually."

"And Mother is frightening when she is furious."

Goliath’s expression turned thoughtful. "Yes."

Amara blinked. "You agree?"

"I have no interest in lying to you."

"She is frightening to you too?"

"Seraphina is frightening to anyone with survival instincts."

That made Amara feel better for exactly one second.

Then she remembered the point.

"She is nauseous. She hates food she loves. She is tired. The physician keeps coming. The attendants whisper. No one tells me anything because they still think I am small enough to be distracted by embroidery lessons."

"You are very difficult to distract."

"I know."

"It is one of your better qualities."

"Do not flatter me while I am panicking."

Goliath smiled and held out his hand.

Amara stared at it.

"What?"

"We will ask her together."

She looked toward the sitting room at the end of the corridor, where her mother was probably resting and preparing to be terrifying if confronted.

Then she looked back at Goliath.

"You first."

His brows lifted.

"If she is angry," Amara said, with the firm logic of someone who had thought this through, "you are larger."

"I am also emperor."

"That too."

Goliath’s mouth curved again. "Useful at last."

Amara hesitated only a moment before placing her hand in his.

His fingers closed around hers with care.

They found Seraphina in the garden room.

She was seated near the open windows, wrapped in pale blue, sunlight thinning across her brown hair. Saint’s breath grew outside in soft clusters, their scent drifting through the room with the cool air. A cup of untouched tea sat beside her, along with a small plate of sliced sour plums.

She looked up when they entered.

Then looked at their joined hands.

Then at Goliath.

Then at Amara.

Her expression changed in a way Amara immediately identified as dangerous.

"Amara."

Amara stepped slightly behind Goliath.

Goliath glanced down at her. "Coward."

"Yes."

Seraphina’s eyes narrowed. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"That is broad."

"You are sick."

Seraphina closed her eyes briefly.

Goliath, traitor that he was, looked amused again.

Seraphina opened her eyes and directed the full force of her irritation at him.

"You find this entertaining?"

"A little."

"Goliath."

"She came running."

"I can see that."

"She looked ready to declare war on your physician."

"I still might," Amara said from behind him.

Seraphina sighed.

Goliath’s amusement softened. He released Amara’s hand and crossed the room, lowering himself into the chair across from Seraphina without waiting to be invited, because apparently emperors did not wait when they already belonged somewhere.

"Tell her," he said quietly.

Seraphina looked away.

Amara’s heartbeat became too loud.

"Mother?"

Seraphina looked at her.

Then her hand moved slowly to rest over her lower stomach.

Amara stared.

Goliath’s voice was calm, but there was something warm beneath it.

"She is not sick."

Amara did not understand, but a moment later something clicked. Her eyes widened.

Seraphina’s mouth trembled once, caught somewhere between amusement and tears.

"I am pregnant," she said.

Silence.

Amara looked at her mother’s hand, at Goliath, and back at Seraphina.

"With... his child?"

Goliath coughed once.

Seraphina’s expression sharpened immediately. "Amara."

"What? I am confirming."

Goliath turned his face slightly toward the window, and Amara was almost certain he was laughing again. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Seraphina looked mortified.