The air was thick with tension. It clung to the stone walls like a ghostly breath, curling around the torches that flickered dimly in the chamber. But all tension broke when the Jaka'ar woman screamed—one long, piercing cry that split the silence like a sword through silk.
King Daemar did not flinch.
He stood beside Amiria, silent and tall, his eyes fixed on the woman writhing in labor. Her pain was raw, primal—yet there was something holy in it. Something beyond blood and bone. The kind of moment no crown could command.
The king had seen war. He had watched men gutted on the battlefield and heard the last sighs of dying lords. But this… this was different. This was creation in its most vulnerable, most powerful form. The child, born of conquered blood, pushed into the world with a force no army could resist.
Behind the thick wooden door, down the narrow corridor, stood the other Jaka'ar captives—men who had once thundered across fields with axes high and roared chants of death beneath blackened skies. Men who had bled the king's soldiers and scorched his villages. Yet now… they stood unmoving. Shoulder to shoulder, bare-chested, heads high.
They beat their chests in perfect rhythm.
Not a war chant. Not a challenge.
A salute.
One by one, their fists slammed against their chests, echoing through the corridor in deep, measured thuds, like drums of old. No tears. No smiles. Just pride. Raw, unwavering, defiant pride. Their eyes were fixed on the chamber door, as though their will alone would see their fallen commander's seed survive.
And then, the cry.
The newborn's wail tore through the room, sharp and sudden, like a bolt of lightning on a quiet hill. The Jaka'ar woman gasped, collapsing into Amiria's arms as the midwife cradled the slick, red child. His limbs was weak, lungs expanding to scream his defiance into the world he was born into—a world that already hated his blood.
But it was life. It was hope.
Daemar exhaled, a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. A faint, weary smile brushed his lips. Something had been born—not just a child, but a moment. A fracture in the world's expected path.
And then—
Purrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!
A long trumpet echoed from above, outside the stone chambers, from the east wing of the palace. A royal call. A sound every nobleman, every servant, every knight knew by heart.
The king froze.
He knew what it meant.
Another child had been born.
His child.
A boy—or so it was proclaimed.It didn't matter.
His heir is now breathing the world's air.
His flame.
He turned slowly, as if balancing the weight of both births in his mind. His eyes flicked to Diego, who had entered moments before and stood now at the edge of the chamber, watching with silent awe.
Daemar stepped to him and grasped his shoulder.
"She lives," he said softly. "And the child breathes. That is enough."
Diego nodded once.
"See to them," the king commanded. "Watch Amiria. Watch the baby. Let no hand touch them without your word."
"I will slit the throat of anyone who tries," Diego answered, without a shred of jest.
The king clasped his arm tightly, then turned toward the door. His pace quickened. Then faster. Then he ran.
Down the corridor, past the Jaka'ar men who stopped beating their chests only long enough to watch him. Some glared. Some nodded. One knelt.
The king did not speak. He had no time for speeches or explanations.
Two children had been born.
One of the kingdom.
One of its enemy.
And both bore his protection—though only one bore his name.
He reached the eastern women chamber, where silk and perfume floated in the air like incense. The cries of a newborn echoed even here—louder, stronger.
All the king's wives were present to witness such miracle.
The guards stepped aside the moment they saw him.
Inside, his queen lay pale and exhausted, but alive. Her hands curled weakly as she cradled a swaddled bundle. A midwife and the oldest queen stepped away with silent deference, giving the king space.
King Daemar approached slowly.
Opening her eyes—just barely.
"A boy," she whispered.
He looked down.
The baby's cheeks were flushed with life. His tiny fingers curled around nothing, already grasping at fate. And his cry—loud, persistent—was the voice of royalty in its first form.
Daemar smiled.
He had no words.
Only the strange warmth rising inside his chest—part joy, part fear.
He kissed his queen's forehead.
"You've done well," he said.
Then he sat, holding the baby in silence.
But as the cries of his heir filled the chamber, somewhere in the depths of the palace, in the dim firelight of a hidden room, Diego stood watching the Jaka'ar woman breathe in the scent of her newborn son.
And he saw something he had never seen in the eyes of a Jaka'ar warrior.
Peace.
For all their savagery—for all the blood they spilled—these people did not wail or rebel or curse the gods in this moment. They simply listened to the newborn's cry as though it were a song.
Diego turned his gaze toward the hallway, where the other Jaka'ar captives still stood, their fists now lowered, their eyes calm. These were men who had torn soldiers apart with their bare hands. Who spat in chains. Who mocked every threat given by their captors.
But not now.
Now, they stood like sentinels before a sacred fire.
For all their fury, for all the rage that burned in their hearts, the birth of this child had done what no blade could: it had stilled them.
And in that stillness, Diego felt something he hadn't in years.
Possibility.
Not peace. Not yet.
But perhaps… the beginning of something like it.
The cry of the Jaka'ar child rang out again, softer this time. As if already learning the weight of the world he'd been born into.
And somewhere, above stone and blood, another cry answered.
Two heirs.
Two legacies.
Born in the same hour.
What fate wove such threads?
Only time would answer.