It had been months since the... incident... on the training grounds, and the extra bonus incident that had followed. Months since the abrupt and rather dissatisfying ending to said incident. Months since Rhosiris and Valys had been pulled out into the wilds to track down missing soldiers. Months since their return, and...
Approximately two weeks since Rhosiris first heard the initial, tiny, hopeful instances of a song.
It had been late, thankfully. Very late, way too late for him to still be awake, but the blasted southern winter weather had seen fit to gift him with the beginnings of a headache and the rolling stomach to go right with it. The sky was dark, though not entirely due to the time of the day— great black thunderclouds dominated the sky, and the constant pounding of distant thunder was doing his growing migraine no favors. If he had it in him to look out the window, he might have been witness to the imposing sight of flashes of lightning against the strong edifice of the Ketran castle's ramparts.
As it was, Rhosiris was entirely more focused on curling up on the very edge of his bed, to better contain his illness to the pan on the floor just beside him. He didn't even bother trying to sleep— sleep it seemed had long since abandoned him for greener pastures, leaving him with nothing but his own suffering.
He didn't even have anything left to give! Dinner had been hours ago, hours and hours, and even then he hadn't been feeling well enough to navigate the full length of a multi-course, entirely human-centric meal. He'd managed some soup, while Valys seemed to subsist entirely on wine and little else, and Ana had made an utterly stomach-churning attempt at being polite and eating whatever he was served. Either way, dealing with a loopy Valys while trying not to watch Ana chew had been entirely too much for Rhosiris to bear, and so he'd elected to retire early.
It had nothing, of course, to do with his months-long attempts to avoid Herostratus.
Their tryst had been a mistake, there was no doubt about it. How Rhosiris could even go through with it in the first place was a question that had dogged his steps ever since he'd left Hero's room. It hadn't been... bad. It could have been better, obviously, but it hadn't been bad. He'd enjoyed it, he'd enjoyed what they were doing— and if the thought didn't make him want to roll over the side of the bed to use the tin pot there, he wanted to do it again.
Not with Hero. ...Maybe not with Hero. Possibly not. He couldn't.
Rhosiris rolled, and proceeded to endure several seconds of rolling cramps as his stomach tried to empty what it didn't have.
What he really wanted to do was cry— between the agony of his head and the pain of being sick and the sinking feeling that there was something deeply, terribly, awfully wrong with him, it was just entirely too much. Once the newest wave of nausea subsided, Rhosiris rolled back over onto the bed proper and just... sobbed.
What if there really was something wrong with him?
He shouldn't have been able to do something like that.
This wasn't how his people worked.
He'd come so far.
He'd left his home, centuries of familiarity and family and belonging behind for the one thing that meant more than anything else in the world.
He'd given everything to get here.
And it had taken exactly ten minutes of flirting with a handsome human man to toss all that aside for a half-way decent romp.
And worst of all, Rho knew it wasn't Hero's fault. It would have been easy if he could blame it on him— but no, Hero had been... utterly gentle. Careful. Considerate. Maybe not particularly considerate of Rhosiris' apparent carnal interests, but everything else had been... sweet. Sweet enough that Rhosiris couldn't trust himself to resist any future attempts at a rematch.
What the hell was the matter with him?
He only had one person out there for him. They all did— Valys had found his resonance in the Regent, all the stars above help the drunk with that mess. Ana, too. And as much of a pain in the ass Valys was, at least he had been loyal to his one and only. Rhosiris hadn't even waited a week.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Rhosiris sniffled hard, and let out a soft sigh.
And something else answered.
It was faint, so faint, like listening to something underwater. But in the relative quiet of his room, the song was unmistakable. A soft lilt, up and down again, up and sustained, tiny and chaotic and...
New.
Rhosiris' eyes snapped open, and he held completely still. Took a breath. Hummed out a note. Waited.
He didn't have to wait long before the new sound responded in earnest. It was as if the first burst had been experimental, like stretching your foot out to test the solidity of river ice before adding your full weight. But now, with sure footing, the song returned with excitement: up and down and back and forth and fast and slow and soft and harsh and all over in the chaotic curiosity of
A child.
Stars all above, it was a child.
Rhosiris' eyes burned as he brought shaking hands up to clamp over his mouth, trying to stifle the sudden shaking sobs that fought so hard to escape him. Suddenly, it all made terrible, horrible sense— his sensitivity to the local cuisine. His lingering illness. The lethargy in his movements he'd previously attributed to lack of sleep and a surplus of self loathing.
He hummed again, and his baby responded. Hero's baby. Their baby.
Their out-of-resonance baby.
They were rare, back home, but everyone knew when it happened. It was unmistakable— no other House came into the world with such dark hair, with the void in their skin and the last glimmering remnants of fading stars in their eyes. There was no hiding who they were— and there was no hiding what Rhosiris had done.
He'd come so far, journeyed so long, only to bring a Horizon into the world and their kind one step closer to the inevitable oblivion that would consume them all. Even if he found his resonance now, how could he justify this? How could he look his soulmate in the eyes and explain that, yes, they were the most important person to him, but not enough to wait.
Not even a week.
Agony rippled through his chest, from his upper heart to the one in his abdomen, and his child chimed in alarm, which only made the pain worse. Rhosiris rolled onto his side as hot tears welled up in his eyes, spilling out over his cheeks and onto the pillow beneath his head. He wasn't even concerned about not causing a ruckus, not anymore. He couldn't help it— the sorrow that gripped him was too great, because he'd done the worst thing he could have ever done— and he knew in his hearts that he probably would have done it again.
He was a traitor. He was the worst kind of traitor. He was the worst, most awful kind of traitor and he had to spend the rest of eternity knowing he didn't deserve his other half.
The little life chimed again, still alarmed, and Rhosiris pressed a hand over his abdomen like that would somehow get the little voice to go quiet. Like that would somehow be enough to undo what had been done. Like somehow, that would be enough to grant him a second chance.
But that wasn't how fate worked. There were no second chances. And this was the song that High Prince Rhosiris Nyth had composed.
The voice chimed, and he answered in tears.
