Chapter 5 – The Birth That Shook Two Worlds

The palace never slept, but after Solaris vanished, it fell into a silence deeper than death.

No one dared speak above a whisper.

No one dared meet my eyes.

Valerian was carried back to our chambers on a stretcher of black silk, chest sealed by my impossible golden light, but still unconscious.

The royal physicians ancient vampires who had treated kings for a thousand years stood over him in stunned horror.

“He should be ash,” one whispered. “Sunlight in his veins… and he lives.”

I didn’t leave his side for four days.

I held his cold hand.

I sang the lullabies my mother used to sing to me.

I let our daughter kick against his palm so he would know we were still here.

On the fifth night, the pain began.

It started as a low ache in my lower back, the kind you ignore.

Then a tightening across my belly that stole my breath.

Livia was there in an instant.

“It is time, my lady.”

I laughed wild, terrified, delirious.

“Already? She’s early.”

“Prophecy children are never late,” Livia said grimly. “They arrive exactly when the stars demand.”

They moved me to the Birthing Chamber, an ancient circle of black marble beneath an open dome that showed the fractured sky.

Half the heavens were still eternal night.

The other half bled golden dawn where Solaris had torn the veil.

Midwives in silver robes surrounded me.

Elowen herself stood at the foot of the obsidian birthing throne, eyes glowing like twin moons.

Valerian woke the moment they laid me down.

He tore free of the healers, staggered across the chamber, and dropped to his knees beside me.

“I’m here,” he rasped, voice raw. “I’m here, little sun.”

The contractions came faster. Harder. Like the world itself was trying to rip me apart.

I screamed.

The sky screamed with me.

Lightning golden and black cracked between the torn halves of the heavens.

“Push!” Elowen commanded.

I bore down with everything I had.

Valerian held me, arms like steel bands, whispering ancient endearments against my ear.

Another contraction. Another scream.

The midwives gasped.

“She burns us!” one cried, jerking her hands away. “Her skin it’s sunlight!”

Golden light poured from my body, filling the chamber until every vampire shielded their eyes.

Valerian didn’t flinch.

He pressed his forehead to mine.

“I love you,” he said, over and over. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

I pushed one final time.

A cry split the night.

Not a newborn’s wail.

A roar.

The sound of dawn breaking over a world that had forgotten the sun.

Elowen lifted the child.

A girl.

Perfect.

Skin like moonlight on snow.

Hair already a soft silver-gold.

And when she opened her eyes One iris crimson like her father’s night.

One iris molten gold like the king who wanted to claim her.

The chamber fell silent.

Then the sky shattered completely.

The barrier between night and day exploded in a ring of pure white fire that raced across the heavens.

Real sunlight warm, golden, merciless poured down into Vampyria for the first time in a thousand years.

Every vampire in the palace screamed as their skin began to smoke.

Except Valerian.

He stood in the beam of raw sunlight holding our daughter, shirt burning away, skin glowing like a god forged from dawn itself.

Tears streamed down his face silver and gold mixing like liquid starlight.

“She’s perfect,” he whispered. “She’s everything.”

He turned to me, eyes no longer crimson, but pure, blazing gold.

And I saw it.

The change.

The sunlight in his veins had done something impossible.

Valerian Nocturne, Prince of Eternal Night, was becoming the first day walking vampire in history.

He walked through the burning light to my side, laid our daughter in my arms, and kissed me like a man who had just been given the universe.

The midwives fell to their knees.

Elowen’s voice shook as she spoke the words that would be carved into history:

“Behold the Dawn King and the Sun Child.

The prophecy is fulfilled.

The age of endless night is over.”

But outside the birthing chamber, in the great hall where thousands had gathered, a new shadow fell across the sunlight.

Solaris stood at the entrance.

No longer in armor.

Now he wore simple white linen, hair loose, barefoot like a man attending his own child’s birth.

Every vampire between him and the birthing chamber turned to ash at his passing.

He walked through the sunlight unharmed, golden eyes fixed on me.

On our daughter.

On Valerian, who now glowed with the same light.

Solaris stopped ten feet away.

His voice was soft. Sad. Ancient.

“You did it, my love,” he said to me. “You brought back the sun. Just as you promised five hundred years ago when you died in my arms.”

Valerian stepped in front of us, body radiating dawn-fire, fangs fully extended.

“She is mine,” he snarled. “The child is mine. Leave, brother, before I finish what we started in the crypts.”

Solaris smiled heartbreaking, beautiful, terrible.

“You still don’t understand, do you?”

He looked at me.

At the baby.

At the identical golden glow in Valerian’s eyes.

“The prophecy never said which king would walk in daylight.

It never said which king the Sun Child would call father.”

He took one step closer.

“Because the truth, little sun, is that both of us are her father.”

The chamber froze.

I stopped breathing.

Valerian went unnaturally still.

Solaris continued, voice gentle.

“Five hundred years ago, when you lay dying in my arms, you made me swear I would find you again.

You made Valerian swear to protect you until I returned.

You bound us both to you with blood and sunlight.”

He held up his left hand.

A scar circled his ring finger ancient, faded, but unmistakable.

Valerian looked down at his own left hand.

An identical scar.

I looked at mine.

The same mark.

A circle of sunlight burned into our flesh from a lifetime I couldn’t remember.

Solaris’s eyes filled with tears that shone like liquid gold.

“You married both of us, my love.

In another life.

Under a sun that no longer exists.

And you swore that when you returned, you would choose again.”

He knelt.

Slowly.

Gracefully.

The ancient king knelt before the Dawn King, before me, before our daughter.

“I have waited five centuries for this moment,” he whispered. “I will wait five more if I must.

But know this: I will never take her from you by force.

I will only take what you freely give.”

He looked at Valerian.

“Brother.”

Then at me.

“My sun.”

Then at the child in my arms.

“My star.”

He stood, turned, and walked back through the sunlight he had returned to the world.

At the threshold he paused.

“The war does not have to begin tonight.

But it will begin the day she chooses.”

He vanished into the dawn.

Leaving us bathed in impossible sunlight.

Leaving me holding a child with two fathers.

Leaving Valerian staring at me with gold eyes full of love and fear.

Because for the first time in five centuries, the Prince of Night was no longer sure he would be the one I chose when the final moment came.

And somewhere, deep in my soul, a memory stirred.

A memory of loving them both.

Of promising them both.

Of breaking both their hearts to save the world.

Our daughter cooed in my arms, tiny hand reaching up to touch Valerian’s cheek.

He leaned into it, tears falling like liquid sunlight.

And I knew, with a terror that went bone deep, that the real war hadn’t started yet.

It would start the day our daughter spoke her first word.

And whichever name she said first Daddy or Father—would decide the fate of two kingdoms.