Page 5 of The Dragon King's Pregnant Mate

A laugh tears from my throat, bitter as winter wind. Darian does not flinch—such is not in his nature—but I can tell I have startled him.

"Perhaps she truly curses my kingdom,” I murmur into the quiet. “Perhaps she curses me.”

We ascend into the castle in silence. Darian follows wordlessly as I step into the light above, two paces precisely behind me. Reliable as my shadow.

I move to the nearest window, very nearly pressing my forehead against the frozen glass like a child, though I resist the urge. Outside, snow falls into the black water in a steady curtain, blanketing the city in white silence. Somewhere out there, she's watching the same snow, feeling the same cold. Unless she's already—

No. I can't let myself think that way. She's alive. I would know if she weren't. Would feel it like a knife between my ribs.

"Her power is boundless,” I say after some time has passed.

Behind me, Darian says nothing. He simply watches.

“Say it is her doing this," I murmur, breath fogging the glass. "Say it is true. This winter. This endless cold. Why? What is she trying to accomplish?"

Darian is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful. "Perhaps she's not trying to accomplish anything, my king. Magic is mysterious. It is its own mover."

The implication sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the weather. I remember the raw power that roared from her that fateful and terrible night, the way it transformed her into something both awful and beautiful. I recall the sheer terror of witnessing her, how it was almost an apotheosis. If that power is truly beyond her control...

"Double the search parties," I order, turning from the window. "I want every forest, every mountain pass, every abandoned shack searched. She has to be somewhere. Has to need shelter, food, warmth."

My voice cracks slightly on the last word, remembering how she used to seek warmth in my arms during those cold castle nights. Unbidden, the thought occurs to me:she must be so cold.

"Yes, my king." Darian bows, but pauses before leaving. "And…your brother? Should we continue searching for him as well?"

Ulric. In the chaos of searching for Calliope, multiple times now I've almost forgotten about him. My only remaining family, and yet he has been the architect of so much suffering. I should be furious, I know. I think beneath my exhaustion and fear, I am. But I cannot feel the heat of my rage, not yet. The snow has dulled it into an ache.

I want him dead, though. And I want him dead slowly.

"He'll surface eventually," I growl, the words burning in my throat like dragon-fire. "Snakes always do. But she is the priority. Find her, Darian. Whatever it takes."

When his footsteps fade away, I'm left alone with the shadows and the falling snow. I retrieve my crown from my head, turning it in my hands. The metal is ice-cold to the touch.

"Where are you?" I whisper to the empty air. "Why did you run? I could have protected you. Could have given you everything."

But Calliope cannot answer me. I cannot hear the sorrowful and desperate and beautiful call of the caged bird now, not anymore.

Perhaps it was always going to end up this way.

The snow continues to fall outside my window.

Chapter 3 - Calliope

It was real. It wasn’t a hallucination.

The third village I’ve seen in as many days appears through the swirling snow like a mirage—a handful of sturdy wooden buildings huddled against the bitter wind, smoke rising from stone chimneys in thin, wavering columns.

My relief at the sight is so profound it brings tears to my eyes, though they freeze almost instantly on my cheeks.

***

I've been walking for three days since fleeing the house in the woods, after discovering my would-be benefactor was one of Arvoren's spies—I escaped the encounter alive and intact, but only just, after he cornered me in his cellar, the walls rattling with the harsh winds, swearing he’d deliver me to the King himself for the price on my head. He lies dead now, frozen by the storm as he tried to pursue me into the dark. Blood on my hands, and yet they are too numb to feel it. Three days of trudging through knee-deep snow, sleeping in hollow trees, and eating nothing but pine nuts and dried berries foraged from beneath the ice. My stolen boots are falling apart, my feet bloody and numb inside them.

The village seems abandoned at first glance—no people in the streets, no sound except the mournful howl of wind between buildings. But I can smell woodsmoke, hear the distant bleating of sheep. Someone still lives here, despite the brutal winter.

I hesitate at the edge of the tree line, one hand pressed against my stomach. I imagine my child pulsing with warmth, a hearth of safety and comfort, the only part of me that isn't freezing. I imagine them safe and unafraid, knowing they are protected.

A door creaks somewhere in the village. I duck behind a tree, heart pounding, as heavy boots crunch through snow. Two men pass nearby, their voices carrying clearly in the crystalline air.