"If I considered you my father?"

After the question was asked, the room disappeared. Not really.

But it felt like it did.

The attendants, the garden, the fountain, and even Silas’s small restless noises all seemed to fall away.

Goliath looked at her.

For once, Amara could not read him.

That frightened her more than she wanted to admit.

Then he shifted Silas carefully against one arm and extended his free hand toward her.

Just as he had done years ago in the garden with a gold coin and a flower crown.

Amara stood before she could overthink it and crossed the room.

His giant hand closed around hers.

"No," Goliath said.

Her chest sank.

Then his fingers tightened gently.

"I would be honored."

Amara stared at him disbelievingly once again. Her eyes burned.

This was unacceptable.

She was almost sixteen.

She had survived Pais, court tutors, imperial etiquette, Goliath’s map examinations, and the west fountain’s three-week shrieking campaign. She would not cry over one sentence.

Unfortunately, her body had other ideas.

Goliath said nothing about the tears.

That was also kind.

Silas made a small noise between them, as if objecting to being ignored during an important family arrangement.

Amara laughed once, wet and embarrassed.

Goliath looked down at him. "Yes. You are included."

Silas kicked.

"Demanding already," Amara muttered, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.

"He comes by it honestly."

"From you."

"Likely."

Amara looked at Goliath again.

"Does Mother know?"

Goliath’s mouth curved faintly. "Your mother knows most things before I do."

"That is true."

"She has considered me your father for some time."

Amara froze. "She has?"

"Yes."

"And she did not tell me?"

"She likely thought you would argue."

Amara opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Then frowned.

"I would have."

"I know."

"That is unfair."

"It is accurate."

The door opened softly before Amara could retaliate, and Seraphina stepped back into the room.

She stopped at the sight of them.

Goliath seated with Silas in one arm, Amara standing beside him with one hand still held in his, her eyes too bright and her chin lifted with too much dignity.

Seraphina’s expression softened at that sight.

"Oh," she said softly.

Amara immediately looked away. "He said yes."

Seraphina’s smile trembled.

"Of course he did."

Goliath looked at her. "Apparently I have been adopted."

Seraphina crossed the room, one hand resting briefly against Amara’s hair before she leaned down to look at Silas.

"No," she said. "You were late noticing."

Goliath’s gaze moved from Seraphina to Amara, then to the son sleeping against his chest.

For once, the most powerful man in the world had no answer ready.

Amara liked that.

Outside, the saint’s breath moved softly in the garden, pale flowers turning toward the light.

—

Silas was one year and eight months old, and Amara had spent more time with him than she ever thought she would.

She had expected to love him, of course.

He was her mother’s son. Goliath’s son. A golden-haired little terror with Seraphina’s blue eyes and the imperial ability to look personally offended when denied fruit.

But she had not expected how much of her days would quietly rearrange around him.

Silas liked her bracelets. He liked pulling at her sleeves. He liked throwing soft blocks from his nursery rug and then looking startled when gravity continued working against his interests. He laughed whenever Amara pretended to be scandalized by his behavior, and he screamed with outraged betrayal whenever she handed him back to the nurses before he had finished attempting to chew on her fingers.

Goliath claimed this was early political ambition.

Seraphina claimed he was a baby.

Amara privately thought both were true.

Time passed.

After Goliath officially adopted her, marriage proposals began arriving daily.

Not weekly.

Daily.

The court had apparently decided that if Amara Kaelen-Tor could not be ignored, she could at least be acquired.

Goliath developed a grim pleasure in burning them.

At first, Amara thought he was exaggerating. Then she saw him sit beside the brazier in his private study, dressed in black and gold, golden eyes flat with imperial disdain as he dropped one beautifully sealed proposal after another into the flames.

"This one offers seven estates," Amara said, reading from the top page.

"Insufficient."

"It says his son is accomplished."

"His son is twenty-nine and once lost a duel to a fountain."

Amara looked up. "How?"

"With dedication."

Into the fire it went.

She was eighteen, and Goliath did not want her married yet.

Not because he intended to cage her.

That had been the first question she asked him, sharp and frightened and half ashamed of needing the answer.

Goliath had looked offended.

"You are a dominant omega like your mother," he had said. "You may live long enough that decades become a beginning. Why should I hand away your youth to some ambitious creature with polished shoes and ancestral debt?"

"That is very specific."

"Most proposals are repetitive."

"So you do not want me married?"

"I want you free long enough to discover what you want before the world convinces you duty is the same thing."

That had shut her up for nearly an hour.

A record.

Then, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Amara learned that Lord Hugo had given birth to the Emperor’s second son.

Hugo was one of the consorts Amara liked.

He was an omega with soft brown eyes, an elegant temper, and a talent for saying terrifying things in a gentle voice. His palace smelled of ink, lavender, and expensive tea. He had once let Amara hide in his library for an entire afternoon after she insulted a visiting prince badly enough that three diplomats required wine.

The child was healthy.

Another son.

The court lost its collective mind with remarkable elegance.

The temples rang bells. The noble houses sent gifts. The succession scholars began producing memorandums so quickly that Goliath ordered half of them burned unread because, in his words, ’the child has been alive for six hours and already men with weak jaws are trying to make him useful.’

Amara went to see Hugo two days later.

She found Seraphina already there, holding Silas, who seemed deeply unimpressed by the existence of a younger imperial sibling.

The baby slept in a cradle beside Hugo’s bed, wrapped in pale fabric stitched with gold thread.

Small.

Red-faced.

Furious even in sleep.

Amara leaned over him.

"He looks angry."

Hugo, pale but radiant with exhaustion, smiled faintly. "He is Goliath’s son."

"That explains nothing. Silas looks offended. This one looks prepared to sue someone."

Seraphina laughed softly.

Silas slapped one hand against her shoulder as if contributing.

"What is his name?" Amara asked.

"Hugo wants Lucen," Seraphina said.

"Goliath said the child looked too irritated for anything involving light," Hugo added dryly. "So naturally I ignored him."

"Wise."

"He is not always right."

From the doorway, Goliath said, "Rarely spoken words in this empire."

Amara turned.

Goliath stood there in black and gold, one hand resting on the doorframe, his expression composed but softened in the way it only became in the private palaces of his household.

Silas saw him and immediately began squirming in Seraphina’s arms.

Goliath looked at him. "No."

Silas made a delighted sound.

"I said no."

Silas reached both hands toward him.

Amara crossed her arms. "You’re losing to someone who thinks curtains are enemies."

Goliath accepted Silas from Seraphina with the resignation of a man betrayed by blood. "He has persistence."

"He has you trained."

"Possibly."

For a while, the room was warm.

Seraphina sat near Hugo’s bed. Hugo complained with gentle venom about physicians. Silas attempted to steal one of Goliath’s rings. Lucen slept on, unaware that his existence had produced twelve political reports before lunch.

Amara stood near the cradle and looked at them.

Her family.

Strange, patched together through grief, politics, mercy, adoption, birth, and choices no court register knew how to properly name.

This was the safest she ever felt, because just two months later her entire world collapsed.