JingYi looked up, a piece of flatbread paused halfway to her mouth. She set it down.
“You’ve done more than anyone expected these last few days,” he continued. “Tonight especially. You should rest. Let Yrenna stand in your place.”
He said it calmly, practically. The words still cleaved a space between them that hadn’t been there tonight.
“Yrenna led the rites,” JingYi said, keeping her tone neutral, “because the seat of Lady Wulfbane had been empty since your mother passed.”
A line appeared between his brows. “You spent the night bringing a child into the world. You’ve already earned the people’s trust. No one would think less of you for stepping back.”
Stepping back.The phrase was a spark to tinder. She looked down at her hands, and felt the old, familiar script settle over her:be small, be silent, be invisible.
Deep down, she knew he meant it as care. But all her life, she had been the girl asked to ‘stay back,’ to make room where she took up too much space. Now, even here, with a title and a ring and the weight of a new beginning, he was offering her a way out. A way to disappear again.
“I know what the ritual means to your people,” she said. “And I know what it would mean for me to be absent from it.”
He studied her, his gaze intent. “There is much to do tomorrow. That hill is steep, and you’re exhausted.”
Through him, she heard the echo of Wu Ma’s words: ‘An Omega’s body betrays her when pushed too far.’
Her body was a finely tuned instrument. Stress could trigger Heat; exhaustion could hasten it. With her ineffective substitute suppressant, she was risking both. Heat during the ritual would be a spectacle. It would unravel the composed facade she’d built. It might force a dependence on him she wasn’t ready for.
But the alternative carried a different risk. It would cement her as an observer in her own life. It would prove to Alexander, to herself, and to the people of Blackwood-Veyrde that she was too fragile to be Lady Wulfbane. It would relegate her to the shadows of Parandor, a political bride forever on the periphery.
It would make her lose her place.
“I’ll climb every step to the top of the hill,” she said, her voice turning fierce at the edges. “Properly. I promise.”
Brows drawn, lips slightly parted, Alexander looked as though he might speak, offer another warning–or worse, command her to stay behind. But the words never came.
Instead, he nodded once. “As you wish.”
They didn’t speak again as he went to bank the fire, bid her a good night, and made sure her door latched properly behind him.
Alone, his warmth remained—woven into the room, into her skin, into the certainty that this time, she wouldn’t step back.
She would stand.
CHAPTER 32
ALEXANDER
From the window in his study, Alexander watched the morning break golden over Parandor, gilding the hills in copper and flame. A breath of woodsmoke in the air. The fields glowed with autumn’s plenty: fat gourds, bundled wheat, apples red as rubies.
If there was ever a day the gods might bless, it would be this one.
He’d risen early, hoping the chill would quiet his thoughts, but it hadn’t. JingYi’s voice from the night before still echoed: ‘I will climb every step to the top of the hill. Properly.’
This wasn’t defiance—only that terrifying, absolute resolve of hers that sent a twin surge of pride and sickness to his heart.
‘I promise.’
He sighed. She thought he didn’t want her at the ritual. He’d meant only to spare her the strain. After the villagers, Annett’s labour, and too many long days carrying the weight of her role, she deserved rest. But she had looked at him like she already knew what he saw in her.
Duty. Distance. Pity. The old categories he’d first put her in. The lens through which she believed he still viewed her.
But never pride. Never change. Never the dawning, humbling realization rewriting his understanding: she wasn’t a responsibility to endure, but a partner whose strength made his own feel less solitary.
Never the truth of how steady she made him feel just by standing nearby.
