[Lavinia's POV—Imperial Palace—Weeks Later]
Time stopped obeying me.
Days blurred into nights, and nights into something hazy and endless. The world I once commanded with a single word now moved around my bed—quiet, careful, afraid.
I hated that most of all.
My strength bled away in fragments.
Some mornings I woke with fire in my veins, magic surging so violently that the healers backed away in fear. Other days, I could barely lift my fingers without my vision darkening at the edges.
The twins were growing.
And they were hungry.
Not for food.
For me.
"She's burning too much life force," one healer whispered behind a veil. "The divine contract… the bond with Marshi… the crown's magic—it's all reacting."
Haldor never left my side.
Not once.
He slept in the chair beside my bed, armor discarded, sword leaning uselessly against the wall. When I woke screaming from pain, he was there. When I faded, his voice anchored me back.
