Chapter 53

Esther’s POV

The moon had already climbed past the roof when I finally closed the infirmary door behind me. Carl lay sleeping under a haze of sedatives, the thin sheet rising and falling with his fragile breath. Sofia had curled into the chair beside him, thumb tucked under her cheek, dreaming through the beeps and hushes of the medical wing.

For the first time in hours, I was alone.

I let my forehead rest against the cold wood of the door and forced a breath past my ribs. The image of Nicholas walking out earlier—silent, expressionless, leaving Dan behind with his quiet orders—looped in my head like an echo.

He had carried Carl as if the boy mattered. And Carl had hated it.

My stomach turned. When Carl had whispered later—“Mom, don’t let him touch me again”—I’d forced a smile and stroked his hair, but inside my heart had clenched like a fist.

Sofia, meanwhile, had asked a thousand questions: Was the Alpha King a superhero? Did he have wings? Was he going to save Carl?

Two children. Two opposite reactions. Both mine to protect.

I pushed off the door and moved down the quiet hallway toward my temporary quarters. My footsteps sounded too loud, bouncing off marble and whispering arches. The palace smelled of polish and incense, but underneath it, a current of tension. Rumors still smoldered from Amanda’s smear campaign.

Inside my room I shut the door and slid down the wall until I sat on the carpet. My healer’s coat puddled around me like a shed skin. My hands trembled, still remembering Carl’s pulse fluttering under my palms.

I’m losing control of the narrative, I thought bleakly. Losing control of everything.

I pressed my palms to my eyes. Sharon stirred faintly in my chest, a ripple of warmth that came and went like a failing radio signal. For one breath, the pulse steadied and I thought I felt claws flexing, eyes opening in the dark. But then, nothing.

“Please,” I whispered to the empty room. “Please wake up. I can’t do this alone.”

No answer but my own heartbeat.

I pushed to my feet and crossed to the desk where my journal lay open, pages crowded with cramped notes about mate-bond theory, healer’s energy, and treatments for ferality. I added another line automatically: Carl collapsed again. Power flicker lasted 2.8 seconds. Pattern?

Then I stared at the words until they blurred.

The secret I’d kept for six years—who the twins’ father truly was—felt like a live wire in my hands. Nicholas’s face tonight, the flash of recognition when he looked at Carl, made it plain: my window for secrecy was closing.

And yet… if I told him, what then? Would he rip them from me? Force me to stay under his thumb forever?

Sofia’s sleepy smile floated into my mind. Carl’s trembling shoulders.

I can’t lose them.

A soft rattle at the doorknob jolted me. I snapped the journal shut and crossed the room.

“Esther?” A whisper. Dan’s voice.

I cracked the door. “What?”

He glanced over his shoulder before leaning in. “Amanda’s spies are everywhere. Watch yourself.”

My stomach tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Palace staff. Gardeners. Kitchen girls. Half of them report to Amanda’s people.” His eyes darted toward the hall again. “They’re feeding her everything, like where you go, who you talk to. The children sneaking out today? She’ll know by morning.”

A chill crept up my spine.

“I’ll try to divert it where I can,” Dan murmured. “But be careful.”

He left without waiting for a reply, his boots clicking off the marble like a metronome of dread.

I shut the door and pressed my back against it, heart hammering. Amanda. Of course. The smear campaign had been only the beginning. Now she was watching, waiting for the smallest slip to gut me with it.

I went to the window and looked out over the courtyard. Moonlight silvered the koi pond where Nicholas had intervened days ago. How long before Amanda noticed Sharon stirring? Before she figured out my plan to save Carl?

“We’re running out of time,” I whispered to the glass.

That night I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Carl collapsing again, saw Nicholas’s expression as he picked him up.

I sat at the desk, journal open, and began another letter. I’d started dozens like it and never sent them: a confession to Nicholas, explaining everything. Tonight’s version began with Carl is your son.

The pen hovered after the words.

I imagined the chain reaction: Nicholas discovering the truth, taking control of Carl’s treatment, maybe saving him, but at the cost of my own autonomy.

I tore the page out and stuffed it in the bottom drawer with the others.

Morning broke with a brittle pink sky. Sofia woke first, rubbing her eyes, still half in a dream.

“Is the Alpha King coming back?” she asked.

“No,” I said gently. “Not today.”

She pouted. “He was nice.”

Carl turned his face to the wall, muttering something bitter I couldn’t catch.

I forced a smile. “Let’s get you both breakfast.”

Inside, my stomach knotted. Sofia’s attachment was blossoming fast. Carl’s hatred burned hotter. I was watching two seeds of truth germinate in opposite directions.

Sharon flickered again at the edge of my awareness, a silent witness to my unraveling.

I held the twins close, breathing in their scents, and whispered silently to the sleeping wolf inside me: Wake up before it’s too late. Please.

Later that day the palace felt like a theater where I was both actor and prop. Healers and guards nodded politely as I passed, but conversations stopped midstream. Every smile was a little too quick, a little too practiced.

In the infirmary Carl dozed fitfully. Sofia sat cross-legged on the windowsill, coloring wolves in a sketchpad Nicholas had given her. There were wolves in armor, wolves with crowns, wolves howling at moons. She hummed to herself while she drew, a soft counterpoint to the beeping monitors.

I sorted vials of medicine with numb fingers, my mind on Dan’s warning about spies. I could almost feel Amanda’s gaze like a sniper scope.

My phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

Tell the Alpha the truth before it’s too late.

I deleted it instantly but the dread clung like a cobweb.

The afternoon blurred into evening. A courier dropped off herbs from the outer provinces. The kitchen sent soup I couldn’t eat. I moved through it all like a ghost.

By sunset Carl’s fever had risen again. I pressed a cool cloth to his forehead and he whispered, eyes still shut, “Don’t let him take me.”

My chest hurt. “I won’t.”

Sofia peeked over the blanket. “Mama, he’s nice. Maybe he can help.”

I stroked her hair without answering.

As the sky darkened to indigo, I slipped out onto the balcony for a breath of air. The courtyard below had emptied except for a pair of guards. Somewhere in the east wing, Amanda’s attendants would be whispering tonight’s stories.

I leaned against the railing, staring at the moon. It felt like a coin tossed high, waiting to fall.

Sharon’s presence pulsed faintly. A paw shifting. A growl in sleep.

“Please,” I murmured. “Wake for Carl.”

A shudder of heat rippled through me, stronger than before. For an instant I swore I felt fur against the inside of my skin, a phantom tail lashing. Then it faded.

I pressed a fist to my sternum, tears springing to my eyes.

Night deepened, and I put the twins to bed. Sofia’s hand clutched mine until she slipped into sleep. Carl muttered restlessly, a warrior in a child’s body, still fighting ghosts even in dreams.

I went back to my room, locked the door, and knelt on the carpet. My journal lay open before me, blank page ready. Instead of writing, I closed my eyes.

I pictured Sharon, the wolf that had once been the heartbeat of my power. I saw clearly her silver-gray fur, eyes like coals, claws sharp enough to carve fate itself. In my mind she lay in a circle of stones, breathing shallowly, half-buried under snow.

“Sharon,” I whispered aloud, “if you’re still in there—if you can hear me—wake. Wake for Carl.”

A flicker of light moved behind my eyelids, like the moment before dawn. My pulse skipped. The wolf stirred—fur ruffling, an eye cracking open—but only for a heartbeat. Then gone.

I bowed my head, tears spotting the carpet.

Amanda’s spies. Nicholas’s suspicions. Sharon’s half-awake heartbeat. My children on the edge of discovery.

Seeds of truth, all of them, pushing up through the soil of my lies.

I didn’t know which would bloom first, or what kind of forest would grow once they did.