The garden had grown quieter. Somewhere in the hedge, a bird rustled softly, but Beatrice didn't hear it. The world seemed to have receded inward, leaving only him.
Laer.
She slowly lowered her gaze. Her son was sleeping in her arms — warm, a little heavy, his tiny fist tucked up near his cheek. His fine, pale blond hair, nearly white in the morning light, stuck out in all directions like little feathers.
His skin was thin and delicate, with translucent blue veins at the temples. His eyelashes were long, light, casting barely-there shadows over his round cheeks.
Beatrice gently touched his cheek with the tip of her finger. The skin was warm. Alive. Not a dream, not a ghost, not a lie.
Alive. Mine.
A feeling swelled in her chest, heavy and searing at once. Love, hard-earned through dozens of deaths. For a moment, it felt like she had held him before.
Flashes of memory hit like a jolt of electricity, quick, blurred: a boy with dark eyes, a little older, loving a blanket that smelled of laundry detergent from their old apartment.
Fragments of a past life shattered like glass on concrete: an ambulance, a plastic bracelet on a child's wrist, a ragged woman's scream behind the reception window.
They faded, leaving behind only the bitter aftertaste of smoke and blood.
She pressed Laer closer, feeling the faint, stubborn thump of his heart beneath her palm. That sound drowned out the phantom voices, the hiss of steel that had once cut off her breath again and again.
He was here.
Not there, where she had been killed over and over. Not there, where the child had died in her arms. He was here. Her heart beat with painful, blinding clarity - she had to save him. Had to keep him. At any cost.
Laer stirred in his sleep, letting out a quiet, plaintive sound. Beatrice instinctively held him tighter, leaning down so that her hair nearly brushed his cheek.
-Sleep, my light…- she whispered, barely moving her lips.
She understood this child was not obligated to be her salvation.
But to her, he already was everything.
Footsteps on the gravel, cautious, nearly inaudible. Beatrice didn't turn, but she felt the change in Laer's breathing: someone was approaching.
-Your Majesty, forgive me,- wet nurse Adelina curtsied respectfully, clutching a folded woolen blanket to her chest. - Advisor Castel reminds you that in a quarter hour the audience with the temple healers is to begin. They await in the western gallery.
The words cut into the gentle rustle of leaves like a thread pulling her back toward courtly routine. Beatrice gently rocked her son, letting his warm weight calm the pounding of her own pulse.
-Leave the blanket on the bench. I will bring His Highness myself.
Her voice was steady, without a tremor, as if the exposed nerve from moments ago had been an illusion. Adelina obediently laid down the blanket. Her gaze swept over the sleeping Laer with familiar tenderness, then shifted to the queen's face, as if seeking permission to stay. But Beatrice had already straightened, looking beyond the blooming hedges toward the alleyway where a flash of blue had recently skimmed across the stone the king's cloak.
-His Majesty will return from council by noon,- Adelina ventured. - I've been instructed to remain close, in case you grow tired.
- I won't grow tired,- Beatrice cut off gently not harsh, but final. Adelina curtsied again and withdrew, vanishing into the morning light. Beatrice was alone again. The garden seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see if the delicate softness would return to her face.
She adjusted Laer's tiny hand, tucking his fingers into the fold of her sleeve as if sealing them together. She inhaled deeply. On the exhale, the world grew flat again — nearly faceless, the way a queen sees it when she puts on her expressionless mask.
With a quiet, soundless breath, she stepped toward the archway leading to the sunlit gallery. The cool shadow of marble vaults embraced them both.
Beatrice walked slowly down the gallery, carrying Laer wrapped in a light blanket. Her stride was smooth, almost like a dance: step, breath, gentle sway of the child. The air still smelled of jasmine, and that serenity only heightened the tension growing inside her as a new figure appeared ahead.
A woman. Tall. Elegant. Draped in heavy fabrics, her hair styled beneath a sheer veil.
Beatrice stopped.
And memory struck like a blow to the back of the head. The execution. A stone courtyard. Theodor with a sword in hand. And this woman standing beside him, looking down like a judge upon the condemned.
Calm. Unflinching.
Beatrice's fingers tightened on Laer's shoulder, hiding the reaction.
Back then, in that first life, she'd been confused, crushed by fear, unable to tell who was who, unable to distinguish the faces. But that face it had etched itself into her memory forever. The face that had not flinched when her life was cut away. And now it stood before her.
Beatrice forced herself to offer a polite nod, maintaining outward calm, though inside, an icy coil snapped taut.
The Dowager Queen Marianna dipped her head in return, but her eyes narrowed.
-Your Majesty,- her tone, honed by decades at court, was soft, enveloping but underneath, it seethed with impatience.-We've all watched your recovery with great concern. The joy of seeing you among us again... words can hardly express it.
Beatrice replied in an even voice:
-Thank you for your concern, madam. I strive to be worthy of it.- Not a single extra word or gesture yet Marianna, so used to the former Beatrice who once hung on her every breath, every glance, every emotion in desperate need of approval, noticed the change immediately.
Before her stood a woman. Not broken, not trembling, not begging.
Cold. Composed.
-You carry His Highness in your arms?-Marianna asked, lifting her brows slightly, as if in passing.-Isn't such labor too strenuous for your… still-recovering health?
Beatrice looked at her calmly.
-Caring for my son is no labor. It is my duty and my honor.
She inclined her head slightly, exactly by protocol, and stepped past her gently, yet without the faintest trace of haste. Marianna remained standing in the gallery. The polite mask still held on her face, but a flicker of irritation smoldered in her dark eyes, like a wick about to touch flame.
And as Beatrice walked away, she could feel that burning gaze behind her and she knew: She was no friend here. She was the enemy. The one who had once been sent to die and had returned.
The days passed unhurriedly, almost deceptively calm. Beatrice endured, pressing deep into herself all the bitterness of loneliness. The only thing that brought her real relief was Laer. Every time the court ladies witnessed, with visible surprise, how she laid her son to sleep herself, how she sat by his cradle for long stretches, gently touching his tiny fingers, the room would fall into a strange, tense silence.
-Her Majesty... feeds His Highness herself?- one of the younger ladies-in-waiting whispered that evening, unable to hide her astonishment.
-And holds him in her arms for an hour or more…- another added. -Even princesses in the provinces rarely do such things.
-Wasn't it always like that?- asked a maid innocently.
The senior wet nurse, sighing, shook her head:-Queens are mothers of the people, not of children. Courtiers care for the infants. Mothers care for the legacy. But Beatrice, whether she didn't hear or simply chose to ignore them, stayed close to Laer in every moment, in every breath. She wanted to hold him, feel his warmth, to keep the memory from slipping away again, like before.She memorized every feature: the soft arch of his little brow, the slightly crooked dimple on his chin, the delicate fingernails, as translucent as petals. To her, Laer became everything.
Gradually, along with the duties of a mother, came the duties of a queen.
At the council's insistence, Beatrice began receiving reports from temple emissaries. Orders concerning the restoration of siege supplies. Petitions from nobles seeking patronage.
At first, it all seemed empty , almost unreal. The words flowed past her like water through fingers. But day by day, she learned. She listened. She memorized. She studied faces.
Adelina the nurse - loyal, but timid.Lady-in-waiting Linette - cunning, with quick eyes.Duke Sedron - too polite, too smiling.Madam Elisa - a matron obsessed with gossip.And Miren the maid - nervous, but diligent.And at the center of this intricate web - the Dowager Queen Marianna.
Beatrice didn't challenge her openly. She simply watched. Memorized how Marianna looked at her , like a hawk poorly trained. How during ceremonies, her circle fell silent whenever Beatrice made a single careless gesture. Little by little, the pattern became clearer. No one here is a friend. But not everyone is an enemy. Every glance - a challenge.
And if in the beginning Beatrice had felt like a guest in someone else's body, now, through pain, through fatigue, through fear, she was learning to be herself again. Not the Beatrice who once caught every flicker on the dowager's face with eager obedience. A new one.
By the end of the fourth week, when late afternoon cast the sky in pearly clouds, the debts of royal status began calling her back to duty.Laer was growing. The council demanded decisions. The temples, protection. The border outposts, funding. And Beatrice, clenching her will into a fist, began returning to her work.
Early garden mists dissolved into the palace's silver corridors. Maids moved silently across marble floors. Courtiers whispered in hushed tones by the frescos, and one by one, noble faces drifted through the reception halls.
Each time before stepping into the audience hall, she would pause beside Laer's cradle, softly touching his cheeks, as if drawing invisible strength from him.
First cautiously: short meetings in the small chamber. Then, reviewing petitions from nobles. Then, mandatory audiences with temple emissaries.
Beatrice lived inside these days like inside a thick glass dome. She was learning. First, to live among the palace walls. Then, to be Beatrice again.
Slowly, almost painfully, she was learning to be the Beatrice they expected: flawless queen, noble, composed, controlled in all things, from the tilt of her head to the phrasing of audience responses.She studied herself in the mirror.Practiced holding her chin high so the pain in her eyes wouldn't show.She rehearsed ceremonial bows. Revisited old court chronicles. Recalled names, habits, mannerisms.
Mistakes were inevitable.
At first, she interrupted conversations too sharply, forgetting that a queen was meant to be shadow, not the point of a blade.Once, she mistakenly addressed the young Duke of Aran by his grandfather's title, a mistake for which a lady-in-waiting might have been exiled without appeal.
Later, in a discussion on temple taxes, Beatrice voiced her opinion with cold precision, when only silent agreement had been expected.Every such slip echoed in whispers through the halls.
She recalled etiquette by fragments, half-phrases, blind groping. Sometimes, she slipped, involuntarily. She forgot the proper ending to a ceremonial phrase, saying "I request" instead of the firmer "I command." She paused without offering a bow in the right moment, leaving the courtiers nervously glancing around. She accepted a scroll with both hands, instead of with her left, as was tradition for a queen.The court chamberlain flinched, almost imperceptibly.
The mistakes weren't grave. Not fatal. But strange enough that the court noticed: something in the queen had changed. But no one dared say it aloud.