The Villainess Wants To Retire

Chapter 585: The Emperor’s gratitude 2

Eris tried to say something, to reclaim her anger, to tell him he was being ridiculous, but his arms tightened around her, preventing the words from forming. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in."No one," he said, his voice muffled by her hair. "No one in this world, or any other, can understand... what you have just given me."

When he finally pulled back far enough to look her in the eye, Eris saw everything he had never been able to say.

She saw the specific, hollow loneliness of the child he had been, the boy who grew up in the shadow of a throne with no siblings, no warmth, and no one who belonged solely to him.

She saw the fantasy he had kept so privately that he’d barely admitted its existence to himself: the idea of a family. Not a political alliance, not a line of succession, but people who were his.

Tears were gathering at the corners of his eyes, shimmering in the firelight. This was Soren, the man who didn’t do this, the man who was made of iron and ice, and he was weeping.

His hands found her face again, holding her with a grip that was almost trembling. "I cannot believe," he said, his voice rough and thick with the weight of the realization. "I cannot believe you are carrying my children."

Eris looked at him, and the last of her feigned anger dissolved. She had been waiting to see this look, she realized. She had been waiting for him to see her not just as a queen or a weapon, but as the mother of his blood.

"Neither can I," she said quietly. The small, real smile finally arrived on her face, shy and genuine. "It feels... like something I invented in a fever dream. Like it shouldn’t be possible."

She reached up, brushing a stray tear from his cheek with her thumb. "You are adorable when you are shocked, Soren. Do you know that?"

Soren didn’t even try to summon an objection. He was too happy, too overwhelmed by the sheer, staggering scale of the news to care about his dignity. He simply leaned into her hand, closing his eyes.

The joy remained, but a shadow flickered across his face as the strategic part of his brain began to catch up. The other side of the coin was always there, waiting to be flipped.

"Is that why?" he asked carefully, his gaze dropping to her torso. "The seal... is that why it has cracked further?"

Eris felt the shift in him, the Emperor returning to the room. She nodded slowly. "Yes. I don’t think I’m carrying three ordinary babies, Soren. I don’t think I’m carrying humans who will need years to learn their power."

She let out a shaky breath. "I think I’m carrying three dragons."

Soren’s expression froze again, processing the enormity of it. It made a terrifying kind of sense. If he was a dragon, an ancient, primordial force wearing the shape of a man, then the children would be nothing less.

"Three dragons," he repeated. He looked at her, the logic landing with a thud. "Their father is apparently a dragon. Of course they are."

"Apparently the inheritance was thorough," Eris said dryly.

Soren let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, something that would have been one if the weight underneath it weren’t so heavy. He looked at her, his expression softening into something profoundly apologetic.

"I owe you an apology," he said, choosing his words with a sudden, sheepish care. "For my... thoroughness."

Eris leaned back slightly, a flicker of her usual spark returning. "You are forgiven, Soren. Simply because I suspect you didn’t have much of a choice in the matter." She paused, her eyes twinkling. "Mostly forgiven."

Slowly, deliberately, Soren lowered his head from her face. He moved down, his movements reverent, until his ear was resting against her abdomen, his cheek pressed to the fine silk of her dress.

He closed his eyes and reached out with his magic.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, the signatures were unmistakable. He felt the magic he had once thought was merely his own influence; it was actually three distinct, vibrant heartbeats of power.

They were pulsing in a chaotic, spiraling rhythm, signatures of pure ice, echoing his own, but already possessing a wild, untamed energy.

They were real. They were actually, tangibly real. Three of them, right there, sheltered beneath the cracking seal and the fire of the dragon inside her.

He wanted to say something to them, to the children he couldn’t yet see, but he found no words large enough to contain the feeling.

He settled for laying his hand flat against her skin. The warmth of her body and the heat of the fire dragon met the cold of his palm, creating a strange, buzzing equilibrium.

Automatically, his magic reached out to regulate the flow, the way it always did when he was near her.

Within her, the three signatures responded. The frantic, spiraling energy quieted slightly, the pulses settling toward the familiar, cooling touch of their father’s magic. They recognized him. Even now, they knew the source of their own frost.

Soren’s breath caught. It was the most surreal moment of his life, a communion of blood and magic that bypassed the physical world.

But with the recognition came the fear. It arrived alongside the joy, unbidden and cold. He wasn’t afraid of the dragons, or the triplets, or even the seal itself.

He was afraid for her.

He saw the path she was walking, and it was a narrow bridge over a burning abyss. She was walking toward death from every direction: the strain of the seal, the physical toll of carrying three magical predators, the political war she had been fighting in his absence, and the entity’s promise that everything would be "fixed." All of it was converging on her single, fragile body.

Is this going to be alright? the thought echoed in the chambers of his heart. Are you going to be alright? All four of you?

He didn’t have an answer yet. He only had the weight of her in his arms and the three tiny, icy heartbeats pulsing against his palm. He held her tighter, as if he could physically shield her from the destiny they had both set in motion.