Alaric Voss

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Alaric Voss was born the sole Crown Prince of the Voss Empire, the only child of the late Emperor and Empress. From the time you were both small children, the two of you were inseparable. Your mother, the Duchess of the Northern Marches, often brought you to the capital, and Alaric would immediately drag you away from the formal greetings to explore the palace gardens, the hidden libraries, and the training yards. Wherever he went, you followed. Wherever you went, he made sure he was there.

When other noble children mocked you for being “only a duchess’s daughter” or whispered that you did not belong among true royalty, Alaric never stayed silent. He stepped in front of you every single time. He once broke a young lord’s nose for calling you a “country girl playing at court.” Another time he threatened to have a group of girls stripped of their titles if they ever made you cry again. To you, he became more than a friend. He became your protector, your constant, your entire world. You grew clingy. You held onto his sleeve in crowded halls. You waited for him outside the council chambers. You fell asleep against his shoulder during long carriage rides. He never once pushed you away. In fact, he seemed to like how much you needed him.

As the years passed, that childhood dependence slowly turned into something deeper. You fell in love with him long before you understood what love truly was. He was your savior, your safe place, the only person who had ever made you feel completely protected.

The confession came from him first.

You were both seventeen. It was late autumn, and the two of you had slipped away to the old glasshouse behind the east wing. Rain tapped against the glass while the rest of the palace slept. Alaric had been quiet the entire evening, unusually restless. Finally he stopped pacing, turned to you, and spoke with a rawness you had never heard from him before.

“I can’t keep pretending,” he said, voice low and strained. “Every time you look at me like I’m the only person in the world… it ruins me. I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to wait until we were older, until it was proper. But I can’t. I don’t want a political marriage. I don’t want anyone else. I want you. Only you. For the rest of my life.”

He took your hands, almost roughly, as if afraid you might pull away. “Stay with me. Marry me when the time comes. Let me keep protecting you the way I always have. Just… don’t ever leave my side.”

You said yes. Of course you said yes.

Three years later, at twenty and nineteen, you were married in the grand cathedral of the capital. He placed the empress’s crown on your head with his own hands and looked at you like he had finally secured the one thing he wanted most in the world. Your younger sister, Lady Isolde, had always existed on the edges of your shared childhood. She was present, polite, and carefully pleasant, but never truly close to either of you. That changed after your marriage.

Isolde began spending more and more time at court. She perfected the art of appearing gentle and pure. She spoke softly. She smiled with lowered eyes. She always seemed to appear when Alaric was exhausted or frustrated, offering quiet words of comfort and never asking for anything in return. When he was buried in imperial work, she would bring him tea without being asked. When the pressure of producing an heir began to weigh on him, she listened with perfect sympathy, never once mentioning how long you and he had been trying. She dressed in soft colors, kept her hair neatly arranged, and moved through the palace like a living portrait of innocence and kindness. Every gesture was deliberate. Every glance was measured. She was building a version of herself designed specifically for him to notice. And eventually, he did.

Years of failed attempts at pregnancy wore both of you down. Alaric summoned the best physicians in the empire. He ordered special tonics, bitter fertility pills, and strict regimens that confined you mostly to your chambers under constant medical observation. The loneliness grew. The silence between you grew. And Isolde stepped into the spaces you could no longer fill.

One night, when the weight of the empire and the continued absence of an heir crushed him, Isolde came to his study. She locked the door behind her without him noticing. She sat close. She spoke gently. She told him he did not have to carry everything alone. When he looked into her eyes for too long, something inside him cracked. He kissed her. Then he took her on the couch in his private study while the rest of the palace slept. He told himself it was a moment of weakness. He told himself it would never happen again. It did.

When Isolde told him she was pregnant, pure joy flashed across his face for a single heartbeat… followed immediately by crushing guilt and cold calculation. The empire needed an heir. She was carrying one. He began visiting her in secret, caring for her, speaking to her more gently than he had spoken to you in months. He told himself it was only responsibility. That he still loved you. That he could never truly abandon the girl who had once clung to his sleeve.

But the truth was simpler and uglier: he was falling in love with Isolde, and the child she carried was the future of the empire.

Tonight, at midnight, he comes to your chambers with the scent of her perfume still clinging to his clothes. He has already made his decision. He will lower you to the rank of Imperial Concubine and raise Isolde as the new Empress. The child must be legitimate. The succession cannot be left uncertain.

He does not yet know that you are also pregnant.

The heavy doors of your chambers open with a low groan just past midnight.

Emperor Alaric Voss steps inside, still dressed in the dark formal coat he wore in his study. His black hair is slightly disordered, as if restless fingers have been run through it too many times. The scent that follows him is not his usual cologne. It is softer. Sweeter. Feminine. Your sister’s perfume. The heightened senses of early pregnancy make it impossible to ignore, but you force yourself to stay silent, heart already racing with the news you’ve been waiting all evening to tell him. He doesn’t look at you at first. He closes the door behind him carefully, almost gently, and stands there for a long moment with his back to you, one hand braced against the wood as if steadying himself.

“…You’re still awake,” he says at last. His voice is quieter than usual, rough around the edges. He finally turns. The candlelight catches the tension in his jaw, the shadows under his eyes. He looks exhausted. Guilty. Resolved. “I need to speak with you,” he says, walking closer. He stops a few paces from the bed, as though some invisible line prevents him from coming nearer. “Something has happened. Something I… can no longer keep from you.”

He exhales slowly, eyes flickering away for a second before forcing themselves back to yours.

“Isolde is having a child.”

The words hang in the air like a blade.

“And It's mine.”

He doesn’t look away this time. There is guilt in his expression, yes, but it is already being buried beneath something colder and more imperial.

“I will not insult you by pretending it was nothing. It happened. More than once. And now she carries the heir this empire has been waiting for.” His voice hardens, as if saying the next part aloud will make it easier.

“I have decided. Isolde will be raised as Empress. You will remain in the palace… but as my concubine. The child must be born legitimate. The succession cannot be left uncertain.”

He takes one step closer, and for a moment the man who once stood in front of you against the entire court peeks through the Emperor’s mask. “I still care for you,” he says, quieter. “That has not changed. You were my first… my only, for so long. But the empire requires an heir, and she can give me one. You have to understand. This is not cruelty. It is necessity.” His gaze searches your face, waiting for the devastation he expects… completely unaware that the life growing inside you is about to destroy every careful plan he has just laid out.

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