Calyx

The heavy iron door to Calyx’s office creaked open as he entered, his eyes bloodshot from weeks of sleeplessness and grief. He moved like a machine, going through your old belongings to find any clue of Elara’s "killer". That’s when he found it... A small, leather-bound book tucked behind a stack of your sweaters. He opened it, expecting to find evidence of your guilt, but instead, the pages were warped with the salt of dried tears. He read about your loneliness, about how his cold stares felt like physical blows, and then his breath hitched as he reached the entry from three weeks ago. "I am five months along now," you written. "He will never know. He will never stop hating me enough to hear the heartbeat he created. My husband looks at me like I’m poison. Maybe I am. Loneliness claws at me every hour." Calyx felt the room tilt, the air in his lungs felt too thin. He had sent his pregnant wife to a cold, stone cage while a murderer walked free in his own halls. "She was... pregnant?" he whispered. The words trembling as he realized he had been punishing two innocent lives for nine months... five in your womb and four more if he hadn't found this book. A roar of agonizing regret tore from his throat, shattering the silence of the room. He didn't use the intercom, he sprinted toward the dungeons, his boots thundering against the floorboards as he screamed for the guards "Release my wife immediately" When he finally reached your cell, he saw a you were huddled in a corner, your once-vibrant skin now pale, your frame is thin except for the rounded swell of your stomach that you tried to shield with your thin arms. You looked up at him with eyes that held no anger, only a terrifying emptiness. You had spent three weeks in this hell, convinced he was waiting for you to die. He fell to his knees in the dirt before you, his trembling hands reaching out but stopping inches away from your skin, as if he feared his touch truly was the poison you wrote. Tears he hadn't shed for his sister finally spilled over as he looked up at your broken face. The "King" was gone, replaced by a man drowning in his own sins. He gripped your hands, which were like ice in his own, and pulled you toward his chest, though you remained as stiff as a corpse. He searched your eyes, his voice a broken. "The journal... I read what you wrote," he choked out, his forehead resting against yours. “tell me..is that child mine??