All Chapters of MATERD TO THE SON OF THE DEMON KING: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Mercy's POVI'd suspected for nearly two weeks before I let myself say it out loud, turning the possibility over privately the way I once turned over the crown's mark, cautious about trusting something that might simply dissolve the moment I examined it too closely.The physician confirmed it on a quiet Tuesday morning, the same physician who'd once testified at the trial about Corin's childhood fever, her expression carrying a professional calm that didn't quite mask her own evident pleasure at delivering the news."Congratulations, Your Majesty," she said. "Everything appears healthy and exactly as it should be."I sat with the words for a long moment after she'd gone, alone in the small examination room, feeling the particular vertigo of a fact too large to fully absorb in one sitting. A child. Ours. Something entirely new added to a family that had spent its recent history mostly reckoning with the damage of the old one.I found Timothee in the council chamber, deep in discussion

Mercy's POVI found Azrael in the archive late one evening, months into my pregnancy now, the kind of late where most of the palace had gone quiet except for the small, dedicated pocket of people who still treated the archive as something closer to home than workplace.He wasn't alone. Enid sat across from him, the two of them bent over a shared document, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and I hesitated in the doorway for a moment before either of them noticed me, not wanting to interrupt whatever quiet rhythm they'd settled into."You can come in," Azrael said, without looking up. "You're not interrupting anything urgent enough to warrant hovering.""I wasn't hovering.""You were absolutely hovering." He finally glanced up, something warm in his expression that had become more common over the past months, the careful guardedness I'd first met in the throne room slowly giving way to something easier. "How's the future heir treating you today?""Kicking. Constantly. I

Corin's POVI told nobody I was going until the morning I left, which was either cowardice or a kind of mercy toward everyone who would have talked me out of it, and I still haven't decided which.Timothee found me in the stable yard before dawn, already saddled, a single pack strapped behind the seat. He didn't ask where. He looked at the road I'd chosen, the one that ran north and then east toward the kingdom's emptiest stretch of land, and understood."You don't have to do this," he said."I know.""Do you want company?""No." I tightened a strap that didn't need tightening. "I think if you came, I'd spend the whole conversation watching how he treated you instead of finding out what I actually wanted to say to him."He nodded slowly. "Then I'll tell Mercy you've gone to look at the border villages. She'll know it's a lie, but she'll let it stand.""She's better at letting things stand than either of us.""She's better at most things than either of us."I almost laughed at that. It

Timothee's POVI don't remember the stairs. I remember the courtyard, Corin's voice, my own name for Mercy leaving my mouth before I'd even fully registered what the guard had said, and then I remember nothing at all until I was standing in the doorway of our chambers with my hand braced against the frame, breathing like I'd run the length of the kingdom instead of three corridors."You're here," Mercy said, from where she sat on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed flat to her stomach, the other gripping the bedpost hard enough to whiten her knuckles. "You didn't need to sprint.""I absolutely needed to sprint."The physician arrived moments after I did, brisk and unbothered in the way of someone who'd delivered enough royal children not to be rattled by a king arriving wild-eyed and out of breath. She took one look at Mercy and began issuing quiet, efficient instructions to the two attendants who'd followed her in, and I found myself shepherded gently but firmly toward the door."A

CHAPTER Corin's POVThe council chamber looked almost unrecognizable dressed for a celebration instead of a crisis, banners softened with ribbon rather than formal state colors, the long table pushed back against the wall to make room for something closer to a proper gathering than a governing body.One year. Exactly one year since the council had handed down its verdict, since Timothee and I had stood in this same room and promised a kind of rule this kingdom had never attempted before. The formal review the chair had mentioned that first day, the one meant to assess whether the arrangement was functioning, had quietly transformed somewhere along the way into something closer to an anniversary than an audit."You're doing the nervous jaw thing," Timothee said, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of something warm and spiced, echoing words Mercy had once used on him."I don't have a nervous jaw thing.""You've had it since this morning. What's actually wrong?"I took the glass, tu