(Vladford POV)
The cup trembled in my hand.
Not because it was cold.
Not because I was weak.
But because the words would not leave my head.
—pregnant.
The camp was loud tonight. Too loud. Laughter cracked through the tents like sparks over dry grass, rough and careless. Someone had won a card game. Someone else had returned from patrol without losses. Someone had found a barrel of wine buried beneath an old granary and decided that was reason enough to drink.
Victory, they called it.
I raised the cup to my lips.
The liquor burned on the way down—cheap, bitter, distilled from whatever grain could be spared. It tasted like smoke and regret and something old that should have been buried deeper.
I welcomed the burn.
It gave me something to focus on other than the image my mind insisted on conjuring.
Rose.
In the imperial palace.
In the Crown Prince's chambers.
Hands over her waist.
Murmurs behind fans and council benches.
They have been too close these days.
