All Chapters of His Rejected Plus-Sized Secret Heir : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

CamilaDerrick's suggestion arrived nearly a week after our last conversation, delivered not through the passage but through a folded note left in the hollow of an old fountain we had used before, back when subtlety still mattered more than urgency.Meet me at midnight. The eastern archive. I've found something.I arrived to find him already waiting, a single candle burning low on the reading table, his expression carrying the particular satisfaction he wore only when he believed he'd solved something difficult."You said you found something.""I did." He slid a folded document across the table. "The King's declaration. Recognizing the child as legitimate heir, regardless of council objection."My stomach turned reading it, the finality of it, the way it closed off nearly every avenue I had once imagined using against her."He's protected the child completely," I said."He has. Which means our approach through doubt has already begun losing ground faster than I anticipated.""Then wha

ElmaI sat with the healer's explanation a long while after Xander and Marcus had gone, turning it over the way I had turned over so many other fears these past weeks, and found, to my own surprise, that naming the manipulation aloud had already begun loosening its grip on me."I'm sorry," I told the healer, once we were alone in the infirmary the following morning. "I should have come to you the moment I felt myself pulling back. Instead I let the doubt sit quietly and grow.""You have nothing to apologize for," he said. "Whoever is doing this understands exactly which fears to press. That isn't a failure on your part. It's a testament to how carefully they've studied you.""That's not comforting.""No," he agreed. "But it's true, and I've found the truth generally serves you better than comfort does, in the end."I smiled faintly, some of the old ease returning between us, and we worked through the morning's rounds together the way we always had, though I noticed myself watching him

XanderI returned to my study long after the interrogation had ended, the rogue spy's confession recorded and filed, her fate already decided through channels far more mundane than anything my own careless words in that room might have suggested to anyone listening from the wrong angle, and I did not yet know how thoroughly those words had traveled, twisted, through walls never meant to carry sound so far.I went looking for Elma the way I always did, eager to share the small, unremarkable news that the interrogation had turned up nothing further connecting the spy to Damien's death, that another thread of the investigation had simply come to a quiet, uneventful close.Her study stood empty.I told myself, at first, that she had simply retired early, that the child's demands on her body had finally caught up with the long hours she still insisted on keeping despite every warning from the healer. I made my way toward our chambers expecting to find her curled beneath the blankets, exhau

ElmaI did not run toward the rocks Harper had indicated. I ran instead in the opposite direction, back toward the faint impression of the path we'd already traveled, my heart hammering, my breath tearing ragged through the freezing air, every instinct screaming that whatever waited at those rocks had been arranged for reasons that had nothing to do with rest."Elma!" Harper's voice cracked through the dark behind me, sharp now, all pretense of gentle concern abandoned entirely. "Stop! You'll die out here alone!"I did not stop. I had died slowly once before, chained to a King's fury and a court's hatred, and I had survived that. I would rather face the wilderness on my own terms than whatever waited for me at the end of Harper's carefully chosen path.The ground beneath me had turned treacherous, uneven with roots and half-buried stone, and I stumbled twice, catching myself against the rough bark of trees I couldn't fully see, my hands scraping raw against the cold wood.Behind me, I

ElmaI woke to warmth I hadn't felt in what seemed like years, thick blankets pulled up to my chin, a fire crackling somewhere nearby, and for one disoriented moment I thought I had dreamed the entire flight through the snow, that I would open my eyes and find myself back in Xander's chambers with his arm heavy across my waist.Then the ache in my legs reminded me otherwise, and the strange ceiling above me, rough timber instead of carved stone, reminded me otherwise, and the memory of Harper's scream swallowed by dark water reminded me otherwise most of all."You're awake." The woman from the tree line sat in a chair beside the bed, a bowl of something steaming balanced on her knee. "Good. I was starting to worry.""How long?""Two days. You had us frightened, collapsing like that. Whatever you walked through to get here, it nearly finished you."I pushed myself upright, my hand flying immediately to my stomach, and the woman's expression softened before I could even ask the questio