Outside the room, the winter cold bit much harder.
The mont the door closed behind them, the warmth from the sleeping chamber stayed inside, and the stone passage outside felt colder in a way that could go straight into the bones. A narrow opening higher up in the wall let in pale morning light, and snow could be seen falling beyond it in soft white sheets. The air slled of stone, old smoke, winter wind, and that faint sharp scent that always ca after demonic power had been used too close to the body.
Cyrus stopped a few steps away from the door.
He did not turn at first.
He only stood there with his back half to Zyran, his red hair a little ssy from how quickly he had rushed in earlier, and his whole body looked too tight. Even in human form, there was still sothing serpent-like in the way he held himself now. His shoulders were drawn in, his hands had curled slightly at his sides, and his pink eyes, when he finally lifted them, looked darker than before.
Zyran stared at him.
To be honest, he was very angry.
Very, very angry.
And that anger was not the playful irritation he usually carried around when sobody annoyed him. This one had teeth in it. It was the kind of anger that ca from fear arriving too close to sothing precious. He already knew what he had sensed in Isabella. He knew where it ca from now. He knew the children inside her carried strong demonic blood. And the most infuriating part of all this was that Cyrus had known.
He had known.
So Zyran looked at him and said, in a voice colder than the winter air, "Why did you not tell anyone?"
Cyrus finally turned then.
His face looked terrible.
There was guilt there.
A lot of it.
Not the simple guilt of sobody who forgot sothing foolish, but the kind that had been quietly rotting inside him for a long ti and had finally been dragged into the light. He opened his mouth, but for one mont, nothing ca out.
That alone was answer enough for Zyran.
Because what could Cyrus even say?
That he hoped it would stay hidden forever?
That he wanted to protect her by lying to everyone?
That he thought he alone could hold it down with food and herbs and sheer will?
None of it would sound good. None of it would sound right. And both of them knew it.
So after a mont, Cyrus said quietly, "I had it under control."
Zyran’s red eyes sharpened so much that they almost looked like they would cut him.
"You call that under control?"
The way he asked it was so full of disbelief and fury that even the cold corridor seed to tighten around the words.
Cyrus looked away for one short second.
That second told the truth.
Because even he did not fully believe what he had just said anymore.
Still, he had to try to defend it sohow. He had to hold onto sothing. Otherwise, he would have to admit that Isabella had been lying there in pain because of him.
Because of him.
So he said, "It did stay controlled until now."
That only made Zyran angrier.
He stepped closer, his black hair falling near his face as he moved, and the underworld in him seed to wake more clearly in the cold. His shadow at his feet darkened strangely, and the little bits of black power that always liked him too much started moving near his fingers again.
"Until now?" Zyran repeated. "She was sweating in pain on the bed. She could barely call your na properly. And you want to stand here and tell until now?"
Cyrus’s jaw tightened.
He took the words like blows because part of him believed he deserved them. He truly had prayed it would not get this bad. He had watched the signs, changed the food, adjusted what he gave her, checked her body temperature when she slept, listened to her breathing, watched for any headache, any sudden weakness, any pressure in her stomach. He had been doing all of that quietly, every day, every al, every night.
He had truly thought he could keep it from reaching this point.
But underneath that hope, the deeper truth had always lived.
He knew what he was.
Or at least, he knew enough.
He never had the full story. He never got to. His mother died before she could tell him everything clearly, and the people around his old master had never spoken to him like he was a person worth explaining things to. Still, he rembered enough. He rembered whispers. He rembered the way so people looked at him. He rembered hearing the word monster before he was even old enough to understand why it followed him.
He rembered his usefulness. He rembered how certain people valued him more once they realized what kind of blood moved in him.
He did not know every detail.
He did know this much.
There was demon blood in him.
Ugly blood.
Powerful blood.
Useful blood.
And now that blood was in Isabella too, because she carried his children.
The thought made him feel sick.
Because if anything happened to her, if even one thing happened because of that blood, then he would never forgive himself. He would rather his own heart be torn out of his chest than let harm stay in her body because of what he had given her.
So when he finally spoke again, his voice was rougher.
"Nothing will happen to her."
He said it firmly.
Still, Zyran heard what sat under the words.
Fear.
Not certainty.
Cyrus wanted it to be true so badly that he was forcing the sentence into existence with his own mouth.
Zyran stared at him for one long breath.
Then he said, with a level of cold that made the corridor feel even darker, "Nothing better happen to her. If anything happens to Isabella, I will personally rip your heart out and feed it to the dogs in the underworld."
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