Sarisa could not breathe.
The words hung in the court chamber like a curse.
The test is positive.
For a single, impossible heartbeat, her mind simply refused to understand them. The room, the judges, the nobles leaning forward like carrion birds scenting blood, all of it blurred at the edges.
She stared at the silver basin, at the thread of light still binding Lara's blood to the child's, and the only thing in her head was a stunned, furious loop of disbelief.
What the fuck.
No.
No, that was not possible.
But the proof was right there, glowing and merciless, and at least to Sarisa's knowledge, Celestian paternity magic could not be faked. Not with glamour, not with blood tricks, not with a little bribery in a dark hall.
The ritual was old, terrible, absolute. People had lost titles over less. Had been disowned, exposed, shamed, buried under truths they'd hoped to keep quiet forever.
It was one of the few pieces of court magic her mother trusted because it was clean, cold, final.
And it had just declared that little boy Lara's child.
Sarisa's fingers went numb.
Across the chamber, Lara had gone very still.
That, more than the verdict itself, terrified her.
Lara did not look shocked in the loud, chaotic way anyone else might have. She did not shout. She did not laugh.
She did not deny it a second time. She stood there as if something had reached into her chest and squeezed every reaction down into one hard, bloodless line.
Sarisa hated that look.
Slowly, as if the motion might break something, she turned her head toward Malvoria.
The Demon Queen looked no better than she felt.
Malvoria's eyes were fixed on the child, wide in a way Sarisa had almost never seen.
Her mouth, usually so quick with mockery or violence, had gone slack for half a second before she caught herself. Then she swore under her breath, low and vicious.
"Fuck," she muttered. "I can feel some of Lara's power from him. What the hell?"
That made something drop through Sarisa's stomach.
Because if Malvoria felt it too, if even demon blood recognized that strange thread in the boy, then this was not just some court trick. Not just her mother's latest performance. Something in that child was real.
Sarisa looked back at him.
He had not moved much since the test completed. He still stood beside the woman—Selene—small and solemn and clearly overwhelmed.
But now that she was looking for it, now that the possibility had been shoved violently into the center of the room, she could see the similarities more sharply.
Not just the red-threaded hair or the tiny horn buds at his temples. The shape of the eyes. The stubborn set of the little jaw. The way he looked at the room like it might need to be bitten.
Gods.
A cold, ugly thought slid through her.
Old Lara could have done this.
Lara from years ago. Before Aliyah. Before all the edges between them sharpened into something dangerous and private.
Before the long years of almost and not quite and refusing to name what was there. Lara had been chaos wrapped in beautiful skin back then. She had laughed too loudly, drank too much, disappeared for nights, broken hearts as if it were a hobby and not a consequence.
Sarisa remembered the rumors. The women who looked at Lara too long at court functions. The messes. The flirtations. The stories of taverns and moonlit balconies and the kind of disaster that always seemed to find her.
And Sarisa herself—
Well.
It was not as if she had become pregnant with Aliyah under especially dignified circumstances.
Not planned. Not sober enough to deserve praise. Not after a careful engagement negotiation or some measured step toward family.
So yes, old Lara could have done this.
That thought made bile rise in her throat.
Not because of the child. Never because of him. He had done nothing except exist and be dragged into a room full of adults who wanted to turn him into a verdict.
No, what hollowed Sarisa out was the sudden, humiliating realization that perhaps there were parts of Lara she had never really gotten to keep.
That perhaps for all the fire and all the intimacy and all the dangerous things they had become to one another, there had still once been enough of Lara left for the rest of the world to touch.
And now that past had walked into the room holding a three-year-old by the hand.
She hated herself a little for how much that hurt.
The court was alive now, whispers rushing like water over stone. Some of the nobles looked delighted. Others scandalized.
A few, mostly older women, looked almost smug, as if they had expected exactly this from Lara and were pleased to be proven right.
The queen remained seated, every inch of her composed, cool triumph. Sarisa could have killed her for that.
One of the judges cleared her throat. "The result is plain."
Plain.
As if there were anything plain about the way Sarisa's whole world had just tilted.
Raveth had not sat back down. She stood at the side of the chamber with her hands braced on the back of her chair, knuckles white, expression carved in stone.
Veylira beside her looked even more dangerous, not because she had moved, but because she had not. Sarisa had seen that kind of stillness before. It belonged to killers and mothers and women deciding how much mercy remained in them.
Lara had still not spoken.
That frightened Sarisa more than shouting would have.
Because silence from Lara was never simple. Silence was what happened when she was trying to survive something.
The child flinched at the rising volume of the room.
Then, suddenly, his tiny face twisted in distress.
A pulse of yellow fire flickered in his hand.
Not bright, not controlled, not enough to hurt anyone—but unmistakable. It danced over his fingers in a trembling little flare before sputtering out again as he let out a frightened sound and grabbed at Selene's skirt.
The entire court gasped.
Malvoria swore again, louder this time. "Oh, that is absolutely Lara's fire."
Sarisa felt the words like another blow.
There it was.
Not just blood. Not just a ritual. Magic.
That bright yellow heat belonged to Lara in a way nothing else did. She had seen it in battle, in anger, in laughter, in bed, in all the moments Lara forgot to guard herself properly. It was part of her as surely as the scars on her hands.
And now it had sparked in that child.
Selene dropped to one knee immediately, gathering him close with theatrical tenderness. "It's all right," she whispered to him, though her voice carried perfectly well to the front rows. "It's all right, darling."
Then she looked up.
There were tears in her eyes now, or perhaps she was simply very good at producing them on command. Her voice trembled when she spoke, but not enough to ruin the clarity of it.
"There is no denying it now," she said.
She turned her face fully toward Lara.
And in the dead hush of the chamber, with the little boy pressed to her skirts and the last trace of yellow fire still glowing like a wound in everyone's memory, she said:
"Please, Lara. Assume your child."