JingYi looked at her, a touch surprised by the candour. “On the contrary. The prince offered me a choice. A kind one.”
“That sounds like him.” Reiyana’s smile deepened. “He rarely asks for anything lightly. But when he does ask, it’s hard not to follow.”
The affection in her voice was soft and unguarded. Not the reverence people used when speaking of powerful men, but something . . . true. JingYi watched the princess’s hands fold protectively over her stomach, the gentle light in her eyes. There was no mistaking the love Reiyana held for the unborn child, but JingYi wondered which of the two princes had fathered the babe, and how the other bore it.
From lineage alone, the answer was obvious. Prince Kaelendrin, the heir to Asadia’s crown, would be granted thehonour of fathering their first child. The future of a kingdom nestled safely beneath the quiet rise and fall of Reiyana’s belly.
Yet . . . Prince Alarik showed no trace of resentment, no shadow of discontent passing through his gaze, only tenderness.
JingYi looked away, throat tightening, that ache spreading through her chest again. Here was a woman beloved bytwoAlphas, when she couldn’t even get one to tolerate her.
The scent of herbs in the room turned cloying, and she forced herself to breathe through it, to steady the shaking behind her ribs. She looked up to find the princess watching her.
“Is there bergamot in that herb packet?”
She smiled. “Your Highness has a keen nose. Yes, a little, to lift the mood and ease the fret.”
Reiyana’s fingers curled in her skirt. For once, she bristled. “This smell always reminds me of him,” she said wryly.
“Of whom?”
The princess wavered, fidgeting on the seat. “Castiel Vaelmont. A childhood friend. For a time, I thought he might be my future.”
JingYi waited, letting the steam do its steady work. Foot baths had a way of loosening tongues. Heat drew blood to the surface, and with it, stories.
“We grew up together.” A ghost of a smile touched Reiyana’s lips. “We even ran away together once—an impulsive, foolish act of defiance. He promised me a life beyond the rules I thought an Omega must follow. But he wasn’t . . . who he seemed.”
“Wasn’t?”
“He died in the desert. Or that’s what they say.” Reiyana’s voice frayed. “By the time they found his body, the carrion birds had left little to recognize.” She swallowed hard. For a moment, JingYi feared the princess might retch into the basin.
“I never learned the full truth.” Reiyana’s eyes darted toward the door. “But we believe Castiel was connected to somethinglarger. Omegas across the Nine Kingdoms were disappearing. He tried to abduct me again—and failed.”
JingYi’s hands stilled over the basin.Disappearing.An Omega’s disappearance was often unremarked—most assumed they’d been stolen, forced into marriage, or vanished into some Alpha’s household.
But some ended up dead. Bodies found in random places. Pale and bloated. Tangled in reeds at the lake’s edge, eyes opened to the sky. The inside of their mouths and nail beds rotted from purple limyerite poisoning.
“I thought I’d left it all behind, but being here again—” Reiyana looked around the room and shook her head. “It brought it all back. And now his family is returning to court. The Vaelmonts.”
The name struck a distant chord.Vaelmont. It echoed like a bell muffled beneath snow.
Reiyana let out a breath that could pass for a mirthless laugh. “Tomorrow night, my parents are holding a ball to celebrate the wedding, late as it is.” She glanced down at her belly. “Despite the shadow Castiel left behind, my father insists we treat them according to their station. His father is the Duke of Caerelle. A powerful House, not just here, but across the Nine Kingdoms.”
No wonder JingYi recognized the name. She remembered the dry, incense-heavy air of the Salamander Throne room, the rustle of court silks as a fair-haired lord from the island kingdom bowed low before her father. The details of Xûen politics were not a physician’s attendant’s concern, but the aura of the moment had seeped into her bones: the tense performative dance of power.
That, JingYi understood. Power always remembered a slight, and a dead son was the deepest slight of all.
She patted Reiyana’s feet dry, her mind turning over the tangled grief. She didn’t know the right words, or how tountangle a court’s old secrets. But she knew this: Anxiety was a poison, and the princess needed calm—for herself, and for the child she carried.
“You are not alone here, Highness,” she reminded. “You are safe. You have your Alphas and your family with you.”
A cynical whisper in the back of her mind added: Foolishness and pride were often bedfellows, and powerful men rarely believed the rules applied to them.
She silenced it.This is not the Xûen court.
Reiyana huffed a laugh. “You make it sound like I’ve an army behind me.”
“Well, don’t you?” JingYi replied. “Whether soldiers or simply loyal hearts, they are both support. Power.”
