Borgohain Vajradeha packed in silence.
His chamber, usually rigid and orderly, had exploded into a chaos of open trunks, half-rolled maps, sheaths of steel, travel bandages, and books torn from the shelves in desperate search of anything useful. The braziers hummed low, casting a copper glow across the dark walls, and the smell of leather and iron filled the room.
Aurun, small but stubborn, dragged a folded riding cloak across the floor with the determination of a man thrice his size. The fleece was twice his weight, and he pushed it using his entire body—shoulder, cheek, and knee—making tiny growls as he shoved it toward the trunk.
"See, my lord," Aurun puffed, cheeks red, "Bori says this one keeps warmth even in snow. So, I thought… maybe… maybe you will need it when you cross the Crimson Ground Forest. They say the fog freezes men's hair!"
"That is just tavern gossip," muttered Viren from across the room.
His twin brother Dheer snorted. "Aye. No one has ever crossed that forest. How would tavern men know anything except their mugs?"
Aurun puffed out his chest as if offended. "Well… maybe the forest told them!"
The line was absurd, but he said it with such seriousness that even Borgo's lips twitched.
Still, the prince shook his head.
"You three are helping me pack, not scaring each other."
Dheer lifted a jar of spice from the table. "My lord, since you are riding to unknown lands—should we not eat all the best dishes tonight? Who knows if you will ever taste upper-order royal curry again?"
Viren nodded dramatically. "We may die without proper food."
"We?" Borgo raised a brow.
The twins stiffened, exchanging a look.
Aurun froze too.
Then Borgo spoke plainly, firmly, with a tone that cut through their hopeful hearts.
"I go alone."
Their faces fell like stones thrown into deep wells.
Shock cracked across Viren's expression. Disbelief washed over Dheer. But Aurun—little Aurun—simply lowered his eyes, swallowing something heavy, as if he had always suspected this.
"I leave before midnight," Borgo said. "None of you will accompany me."
Viren shook his head, lips trembling. "But—my lord—after all we learned and—"
"You'll die on the first mile," Borgo interrupted.
Dheer opened his mouth but found nothing to say.
Their disappointment sat thick in the room.
Only Aurun did not protest.
He simply tugged another bundle closer, shoulders small, posture stiff.
Borgo noticed.
Aurun was always trying not to look like a child.
And failing beautifully.
"Borgo-lord," Aurun said, forcing maturity he did not yet own, "Aurun will fetch something useful. The healer keeps wound-potions. Good for… cuts. Bruises. Bad… bad hurts." He swallowed. "Aurun will bring that."
Borgo nodded, too focused on worry for Vyom to sense the trembling faintly present in Aurun's voice.
"Go. Quickly."
Aurun ran out of the chamber, cloak too large billowing behind him.
Dheer and Viren handed the last few items, bowed deeply with sadness carved into their faces, and left one after another.
The room was quiet again.
And Borgo's heart was heavy.
Tonight he would see Lira one last time.
If fate allowed.
He walked through the dim halls, the palace a body of shadows and forgotten warmth. Servants whispered. Torches crackled. Somewhere a lute sang softly.
He reached the corridor leading to Lira's chamber.
His chest tightened.
Her door glowed faintly from lamp light inside. A woman attendant stepped out, carrying a bowl of crushed herbs. She noticed Borgo and stiffened immediately, bowing low.
"My lord."
"Where is Lira?" Borgo asked, the words soft but burdened.
The attendant kept her eyes down. "I cannot say, my lord."
"What do you mean?"
"Lady Lira left instructions…" The woman stopped, choosing her words with care. "She does not wish anyone to enter."
No blade could have cut him deeper.
Borgo inhaled slowly, his face remaining stone while the world inside him cracked.
"She told you to say that?"
"Yes, my lord."
He nodded once, sharply, swallowing the ache pressing against his ribs.
He turned away.
Not a word more.
Not a plea.
Not a second glance.
The hallway seemed longer, colder, echoing each step he took.
No one stays.
No one ever stays with me.
The thought rattled like broken iron inside him.
Lovers leave.
Brothers suffer.
Kings betray.
And friends are bound by fear.
His heart felt like a vessel with a thousand cracks—water spilling through all of them—unable to hold warmth without losing some of itself.
Perhaps…
Perhaps he should never let himself love again.
Love was the hand that built him once—
—and the hammer that destroyed him tenfold.
His chest hollowed.
He walked like a thief slipping through his own palace. Quiet. Invisible. Unwanted.
His horse, Munic, neighed softly as Borgo approached the stables. The moon had risen fully, silvering the world in pale blue light. Armor strapped to the saddle, packs knotted tight. The animal sensed its master's urgency and stamped the ground.
Borgo mounted him in one fluid movement.
He guided the horse toward the royal pass—the narrow stone road leading out of the upper city.
Halfway through the pass, he saw a small figure sitting by the side of the path.
Aurun.
Bruised.
Shoulders trembling.
Arms wrapped around his knees.
Borgo pulled the reins immediately, stopping beside him.
"Aurun?" His voice broke sharper than intended. "Who did this?"
The boy wiped his face fast, as if ashamed of tears. "No one. It's nothing. Aurun falls sometimes. On stairs. On… floors. Hard."
"Aurun." Borgo's tone softened, dangerously close to worry. "Tell me."
The boy looked up.
A single tear slipped unwillingly down his cheek.
Then another.
"The healer's men… they thought Aurun stole the potions." His voice cracked. "Aurun told them it was for the prince. But they didn't believe. They said Aurun lies like his mother… and…"
He looked away.
"…and they hit Aurun for arguing back."
Heat flooded Borgo's blood. His jaw tightened, eyes blazing.
But Aurun kept speaking, trying so hard to sound grown.
"Aurun is not hurt. Not really. Aurun can run and carry things. Aurun is strong."
His tiny fists curled. "But Aurun doesn't want to stay here anymore."
Borgo's breath stilled.
"There is nothing here for Aurun. Nothing but… kitchens, shouts, and sleeping on floors. Aurun doesn't want to grow older just to die the same way." His lips trembled. "Aurun wants… a real life. Even if it's scary. Even if it ends fast."
Then, with a courage much bigger than his size, he stood and bowed deeply.
"My lord… take Aurun with you. Please."
Silence.
The night held its breath.
Munic snorted quietly.
Aurun's small figure, bruised and stubborn, stood waiting for judgment like a tiny warrior before a towering king.
Borgo exhaled.
Slowly.
Deeply.
He swung one leg over the saddle and extended a hand downward.
"Aurun," he said, voice steady as iron. "Climb."
The boy looked up, startled.
Then hope flooded his face so fast he nearly burst into tears again.
"A-Aurun may come?"
"Yes."
The child's hands shook as he grabbed Borgo's wrist. Borgo lifted him effortlessly, settling him in front of the saddle. Aurun wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, trying to look brave.
He failed.
And Borgo tightened an arm around him so he would not fall.
"No more beating," the prince said softly. "No more hunger. No more nights alone. If you ride with me, you ride under my protection."
Aurun nodded fiercely, eyes shining.
"Then Aurun will not leave your side."
Borgo nudged Munic with his heel.
The horse surged forward.
The kingdom gates loomed ahead.
Behind them, the palace slept in its golden arrogance.
Before them—
The world opened like a vast, terrifying, beautiful wound.
Borgo and Aurun rode into the night.
Two souls bound not by blood.
But by abandonment.
And the dangerous hope that perhaps, just perhaps—
broken hearts could still be carried forward.
Lira's Chamber – A Quiet Collapse
Night had settled over the citadel like a great, unmoving shroud. The moon rested against the window lattice, spreading pale bars of light across Lady Lira's chamber. Everything was still—the curtains, the carved bedposts, even the air itself—but silence rarely meant peace.
Lira stood in the centre of the room, fingers tightening and loosening as though they were searching for something to hold that wasn't there.
A soft knock broke the stillness.
"Enter," she said, her voice quiet, hollow.
Attendant Sarvani stepped in—formal, erect, expressionless. She carried a folded cloth and a sealed letter from the palace physician. She bowed only as courtesy demanded, not out of familiarity.
She did not speak immediately. She simply extended the sealed letter.
Lira took it with trembling fingers.
When she broke the seal, the words inside blurred before she finished the first line:
Confirmed. Gestation approximately five weeks…
The letter slipped from her hand, drifting to the floor as lightly as an autumn leaf.
Sarvani's eyes did not soften. Her training forbade such luxuries.
"No one else knows," the attendant said, tone measured like a court record. "The physician values his life."
Silence stretched between them.
Lira turned away from her, toward the window. The moonlight looked colder now. Harder.
So, it was true.
I carry his child.
The thought pulsed through her—slow, heavy, and unbearably real.
Sarvani spoke again, each word clipped, respectful yet edged like a small blade:
"My Lady…your engagement to Lord Laskin is known throughout the realm. Your union is not merely personal. It is political structure. Foundation. A pillar."
Lira's throat tightened. She kept her eyes on the moon.
Laskin… the man I am to marry. The one who stands beside the king. The one who believes I am his future.
Sarvani continued with the neutrality of someone who had delivered far worse news in darker rooms:
"A child conceived outside that bond will not be seen as a private sin, but a threat. To your house. To the throne. To the kingdom."
Lira remained silent.
Threat. Sin. Disorder. Crown-breaking disgrace.
Every word echoed inside her, harsh and metallic.
Sarvani waited for a denial, an explanation—anything—but none came. So, she pressed on.
"I do not presume to ask how this happened, My Lady. Only to warn you of the consequences."
Still Lira did not turn. Her face remained angled toward the window, toward the uncaring moon.
In her mind, memory unfolded like a forbidden page:
The dark garden. His breath against my neck. The way the night closed around us as if the world wished to forget itself. His warmth—gods, that warmth—as if he had carried the sun beneath his skin.
Her heart clenched.
It was not reason. It was not intention. It was the way storms happen—sudden, absolute, impossible to stop once begun.
She felt the ghost of his hands on her waist, the tremble in her breath when he whispered her name. The moment the world fell away, leaving only him—raw, broken, and desperately alive.
She pressed a hand against her lips.
I didn't resist. I didn't want to.
And now this.
Sarvani's voice interrupted the memory.
"My Lady, I must ask—do you understand the severity of—"
A soft exhale escaped Lira, but no words followed. Her silence was answer enough.
The attendant continued, her tone firmer:
"If Lord Laskin learns of this, the consequences will be immediate. And irreversible."
Lira lowered her gaze to her stomach. Her fingers hesitated, hovering just above it.
Inside me…a heartbeat waiting to begin. His child. Borgo's child.
A life created in a moment that had no permission to exist.
A tear slipped quietly down her cheek.
Sarvani observed the gesture, and for the first time, the rigidity in her expression wavered—barely, but noticeably.
Duty remained, but judgment softened into analytical concern.
"You are young, My Lady," she said, voice low. "Women make mistakes. Some recover. Some…do not. I cannot tell you which fate awaits you."
Lira still did not speak.
Inside her mind, thoughts tumbled, raw and tangled:
I should feel shame.
I should feel fear.
I should want to undo it all—to press time backward until last night dissolves like smoke.
But when she closed her eyes, she saw only Borgo's face under moonlight.
The way he had breathed as though touching her was both a wound and a homecoming.
The way she felt seen—not as a noble, not as a political token, but as herself.
As someone living.
Her chest tightened painfully.
If this is sin…then it is the only moment I ever felt real.
Sarvani stepped forward, just slightly.
"My Lady…what do you intend to do?"
Lira swallowed hard. Her voice, when it came, was almost unhearably soft.
"I want the child."
Sarvani inhaled sharply. Not out of motherly sympathy—she was not that woman. But out of political horror.
"That will endanger everything," she said bluntly.
Lira let her eyes close.
Perhaps.
Perhaps I will be cast out. Perhaps I will die. Perhaps the court will tear me apart in whispers before tearing me apart in law.
But another image rose—the imagined face of a child: small, fragile, innocent.
A tiny life that had asked for none of this but had been created anyway, in a moment of forbidden truth.
How could I destroy it?
How could I deny it existence when it is the only pure thing I have left?
Her lips trembled.
Sarvani watched her carefully.
There was no softness in her stance—but behind her strict gaze lay a muted understanding only older women possess:
the quiet tragedy of choices that mothers make in silence.
At last Lira spoke again, barely above a whisper:
"I wish I could see him."
Sarvani stiffened. "Lord Borgohain?"
Lira nodded faintly.
Not to touch him.
Not to confess.
Not to beg.
Just to see him breathe once more before everything collapsed.
But she didn't say any of that aloud.
Some truths lived more safely inside the bones.
The attendant bowed—mechanically, formally.
"Very well, My Lady. I shall leave you to rest. You will need clarity of mind."
She turned and left the room.
The door closed behind her with a muted click.
The chamber fell into silence again—deeper this time, heavier, filled with the weight of the unspoken.
Lira stepped to the window.
The moon stared back at her, pale and distant.
She placed a hand on her belly—not firmly, not softly, but with a trembling tenderness that terrified her.
Borgo…
Whatever happens, let me hold onto this one truth. Just this one.
Let me protect what we created. Even if I lose everything else.
Her tears fell silently onto the marble floor.
Outside, the moon drifted through clouds.
Inside, a new fate beat quietly beneath her ribs—fragile, forbidden, and alive.
Borgo entered the Crimson Forest, feeling breath tighten and soil warm beneath his feet. Bloodlust curled through the air, ancient and patient. Something shifted ahead—heavy, deliberate, unseen. The trees closed around him like a held breath as the presence emerged from the dark.
"What are you?"...