Chapter 147: The Unfolding Truth XXVII

Third Person POV

Six years later.

The morning light fell across the gardens in long golden streaks, the kind that made everything it touched look like it had been placed there on purpose.

The flowers along the courtyard path had opened early, their colors bright and unhurried against the green. The fountain in the center sent a small spray of water into the air that caught the sun and scattered it into pieces before falling back into the basin.

Helen stood at the edge of the courtyard with her hand resting on the swell of her belly.

She was heavy now in a way that had become familiar over the past months, a constant, shifting weight that reminded her at every turn that she was not alone in her own body.

The child was due any day. She could feel the pressure of it low in her hips, the firmness of it against her ribs when she breathed too deeply, the small rolls and pushes that came at unexpected moments and still surprised her every time.

She had stopped being surprised by how happy she was.

The pack had accepted her. Not all at once, not cleanly. There had been years of sideways glances from council members, of conversations that stopped when she entered a room, of the particular silence that said things louder than any words.

But that had changed, slowly, the way most things changed. The council had stopped raising objections at every meeting. The pack members who had whispered in the early days now nodded when she passed. Some of them smiled. A few had started leaving small things outside her door once her belly began to show... a folded blanket, a small carved toy, a bundle of dried herbs tied with string.

She was their Luna now. Not just the title. The actual thing.

The only one who had not come around was Kai’s father.

He had not been cruel about it. He had not confronted her or done anything she could name specifically as wrong. He simply was not there when she was.

When she walked into a room, she would notice the shift in the air that meant he had recently left it. When she sat down to dinner, someone would mention quietly that he was eating in his study tonight.

He had not looked directly at her since the ceremony. Had not said her name. Had not acknowledged with so much as a glance that she existed in the same building as him.

She had stopped trying to change it.

Kai said it would take time. Helen was not sure it would ever happen. But she had learned to set it down. To put it in a corner of herself where it could sit without taking up the rest of the space.

The rest of her life was too full to leave room for it.

****

The twin’s carriage was already waiting in the drive when she waddled out to find them.

She was trying not to waddle. Everyone was kind enough to pretend she was not waddling.

Two horses stood unhappily in their traces, steam rising from their nostrils in the cool morning air. The carriage was dark wood with silver trim, the Zanzia crest painted cleanly on the door... the wolf’s head.

The luggage had already been loaded and strapped to the back and the roof, and the coachman was sitting up in his seat pretending not to watch the scene unfolding on the steps.

Ellisa and Alisa stood side by side with their bags at their feet and their faces doing two very different versions of the same thing.

They were twenty-three now. No longer the teenagers who had first welcomed Helen into this family with their relentless questions and their casual chaos.

They were women, tall and sharp and confident in ways that had taken years to sharpen. But standing here, on the steps of the home they were about to leave, some of that sharpness had softened.

Alisa was crying. Not dramatically. Quietly, the kind of crying that happened when a person was trying very hard not to and losing steadily. Tears kept appearing on her cheeks and she kept wiping them away with the back of her hand and they kept coming back.

Ellisa was not crying. Her arms were crossed and her jaw was tight and she was staring at the carriage like she was memorizing it, like she needed to know every detail of it before it moved.

They were leaving for their advanced training. Two years, maybe three. The pack had rules about this... about heirs and succession and what young women of their position were required to learn before they could be trusted with the responsibilities that came with their name.

The basics they had learned at home. Now it was time for the deeper work. Training that could not be done in their own territory, with masters who did not answer to their family name.

The twins were old enough now. The time had come.

Helen looked at both of them and felt the weight of it land in her chest.

"I am going to miss you," Alisa said. Her voice wobbled in the middle of it.

Helen pulled her in without answering. Her arms went around Alisa’s back and Alisa’s went around hers, careful of the belly between them. Alisa held on too long and then a little longer than too long, and Helen let her.

When she finally pulled back, she looked at Alisa’s wet face. Then she turned to Ellisa.

"You too," she said. "You menace."

Ellisa’s face cracked at the corner. The tight jaw softened just slightly. "Yeah, well," she said. "Someone has to keep you from becoming boring."

Helen laughed. It was harder to laugh now with the baby taking up the space she used to use for breathing, but she managed. The sound of it made Alisa start crying again.

"I do not know what I am going to do without the two of you," Helen said. She was not performing it. The truth of it was sitting right there in her voice for anyone to hear. "Kai is gone half the time with pack business. The council still looks at me like I am a problem they have not finished solving. The servants are too careful with me to talk like normal people." She looked at them both. "You are the only ones who make me feel like an actual person instead of something decorative."

Alisa made a sound that was half sob and half hiccup.

Ellisa’s arms dropped from their crossed position to her sides. "We did not know we meant that much to you," she said. Quieter than usual. The version of Ellisa that appeared when the humor ran out and something real was left.

"Yeah," Alisa agreed, wiping her nose. "You never said."

Helen looked at both of them. At the identical faces that had become her family in the way that family actually meant something.

"Well," she said. "Now you know."

Ellisa stepped forward.

She placed her palm flat against Helen’s belly. The baby kicked immediately, a firm push right against the center of her hand, like it had been waiting for someone to knock.

Ellisa’s eyes went wide. Her whole face changed.

"When he comes into the world," she said, "I want you to name him Eric."

Alisa’s head turned so fast her hair moved. "What do you mean, Eric? Who told you it is going to be a boy?" She gestured toward Helen’s belly with a confidence that suggested she had been waiting to have this conversation. "Look at the shape."

Ellisa looked at the belly. Then back at Alisa. "What does the shape have to do with anything?"

"That is why you keep failing your lessons," Alisa said. Pleasantly. The pleasantness of someone delivering a verdict. "You do not pay attention. It is clearly a girl. Look at how she is carrying. High and round. That is a girl."

"I just see a round tummy," Ellisa said. "And inside the round tummy is a male child named Eric."

Alisa took a breath. Held it. Let it out through her nose. Very controlled.

"Fine," she said. "When she comes into the world... when she comes... I want you to name her Azura."

"What do you mean, Azura? It is a boy. His name is Eric."

"Azura."

"Eric."

"Azura."

"Eric."

Helen raised both hands between them. "Okay." She waited until they were both looking at her. "Here is what we will do. If it is a girl, her name is Azura." She watched Ellisa start to frown. "If it is a boy, his name is Eric."

The frown on Ellisa’s face flipped over entirely. "I can live with that."

Alisa narrowed her eyes at her sister. Then looked at Helen. "Fine. But it is a girl."

"Keep dreaming," Ellisa said. The smugness was back. Then it shifted into something more thoughtful, which was always a slightly dangerous sign with Ellisa. "What if it is both? A boy and a girl?"

Alisa stared at her.

"Twins," Ellisa said, helpfully. "What if there are twins? They run in our family." She spread her hands. "Look at us. Two horrible, completely unmanageable twins. It is in the blood."

Alisa opened her mouth. Closed it. Consider the statement with the visible reluctance of someone being forced to acknowledge a point they did not want to acknowledge. "That is," she said slowly, "actually not the worst thing you have ever said."

"Thank you."

"It was not a compliment."

"Sounded like one."

Helen pressed her hand over Ellisa’s, which was still resting on her belly. The baby shifted underneath them both, rolling slowly, settling into a new position.

"If there are two," she said, "one named Azura and one named Eric. One each."

The twins looked at each other. Then at her. Then back at each other.

"I like that," Ellisa said.

Alisa was quiet for a moment. Something soft moved across her face. "I like that too," she said.

They hugged her one last time on the steps.

Alisa held on in the way she always held on, with her whole body and too much feeling and more time than was technically necessary. Ellisa held on for a count of three, a slow three, and then released her and stepped back and cleared her throat at nothing.

"Okay," Ellisa said. "We need to go."

"We are going to miss you so much," Alisa said, already climbing into the carriage, already crying again.

"Take care of the little one." Ellisa was right behind her. "Tell them they have the coolest aunts in the world."

"The only aunts," Alisa corrected.

"Still the coolest."

Both their heads appeared in the windows at the same moment, one on each side of the carriage, the same face in two different frames.

"Bye!" Alisa, waving with both hands.

"Don’t forget us!" Ellisa, one arm out the window.

Then together, at the same time, in exactly the same voice: "We love you!"