Roxy didn’t stay paralysed on the floorboards of the hallway. The absolute second she heard Little Fedor crying, maternal instinct violently overrode her hysterical panic. She scrambled to her bare feet, her vision still slightly blurry from the tears, and rushed back into the room.

Dena was gently bouncing the infant, trying to soothe him, but Fedor was entirely inconsolable. His tiny fists were clenched tightly in the fabric of the wolf helper’s tunic, his face flushed a blotchy red, and his white fox ears were pinned flat in pure distress.

"Give him to me, Dena," Roxy whispered, her voice cracking as she reached out.

Dena immediately transferred the thrashing baby into Roxy’s arms. The absolute second Fedor was pressed against his mother’s chest, enveloped in her familiar scent of vanilla and transmigrated warmth, his ear-splitting wails hitched into wet, dramatic, and incredibly pitiful sniffles. He buried his face directly into her collarbone, his tiny fingers digging into her tunic as if he were terrified she was going to vanish.

Roxy sank back down onto the plush, oversized fur rug, wrapping both of her arms securely around her son. She rocked him back and forth, her own tears silently tracking down her pale cheeks and soaking into his fiery red curls.

She knew exactly why he was crying. It wasn’t the sudden noise, and it wasn’t a standard infant tantrum.

Because of the anomaly of his birth and the raw, unfiltered transmigrated magic flowing through their tether, Fedor was incredibly, hyper-empathetically attuned to her emotional core. He could feel the massive, suffocating tidal wave of guilt that had just violently crashed over her soul.

It’s too soon, Roxy thought, her chest aching so fiercely she could barely draw a breath.

Her mind violently spiraled. The Trickster King had only been gone for a little over a month. Ren had sacrificed his entire cosmic existence, his very stardust, to ensure that she and Fedor survived the Demon King’s twisted game. The wound of his absence was still so incredibly raw, a phantom limb that ached every time she looked at the empty space at the feasting table or saw the chaotic, golden-eyed mischief reflected in her son’s face.

And yet, here she was. Pregnant. Harboring a brand new spark of life.

It made Roxy immensely sad. It felt like a betrayal of her grief. It felt as though the relentless, biological march of the Beastworld was forcefully erasing Ren’s memory, pushing her to move on and expand the pack before the Fox King’s ashes had even fully settled over the Iron-Wood.

She held Fedor tighter, squeezing her eyes shut as she desperately tried to fight the downward spiral. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to be sad. She wanted to be the unyielding Matriarch her family needed, but the hormones and the sheer, crushing weight of her transmigrated reality were dragging her directly into the dark.

A sudden, gentle weight settled against her side.

Roxy opened her tear-filled eyes. Tanith had knelt on the fur rug right beside her.

Tanith leaned in, wrapping her slender arms securely around her mother’s neck in a warm, grounding hug. She pressed a soft, incredibly sweet peck to Roxy’s tear-stained cheek.

"Don’t worry, Mum," Tanith whispered, her clear, resonant voice cutting flawlessly through the suffocating fog of Roxy’s guilt. Her golden-green eyes were bright with an ancient, profound sincerity. "Papa Ren won’t blame you. You are a nice mother, and he knows that."

The simple, beautifully unvarnished truth of the child’s words struck Roxy with the concussive force of a physical blow.

Roxy let out a wet, shuddering breath, completely beyond touched. She looked at Tanith, and then down at the sniffly, red-haired infant in her arms.

He wouldn’t want this, Roxy realized, a sudden, piercing clarity slicing through her sorrow.

Ren was the ultimate rebel. He was a creature of chaos, joy, and unadulterated defiance against the heavens. The absolute last thing the Fox King would want was for her to drown in misery over the creation of new life. He would want her to be happy. He would want the Iron-Wood Manor to be overflowing with loud, messy, and fiercely loved children, because every single heartbeat in this pack was a direct, unapologetic middle finger to Abaddon’s grand design.

No one could ever replace the space Ren held in this family. No one. His throne in her heart was eternal. But she didn’t have to punish herself for continuing to live.

The suffocating, heavy anchor that had been weighing her heart down for months slowly, miraculously lifted. Roxy managed a faint, watery smile, leaning over to kiss Tanith’s forehead. "Thank you, my sweet girl. You are absolutely right."

Just as the emotional storm in the nursery began to settle, the ambient magic in the room violently shifted. The air grew suddenly thick, heavily scented with the intoxicating, humid aroma of deep swamp moss and ancient power.

The children instantly turned their heads toward the open doorway.

Walking into the sunlit nursery was Syris.

The King of the Swamps had shed his colossal, terrifying emerald serpent form. He was entirely back in his flawless, humanoid state. He wore flowing, impeccably tailored dark green robes that shimmered faintly with latent magic. His long, dark green hair cascaded smoothly over his broad shoulders, and his sharp, elegant features were set in an expression of intense, calculating focus.

The panic that had seized the Warlords in the hallway moments ago had seemingly vanished from his demeanor, replaced by his usual, aristocratic composure. But his vibrant, golden-green eyes were narrowed sharply, fixed entirely on Roxy as he glided across the floorboards.

He moved with the silent, fluid grace of an apex predator, completely ignoring Dena and the wide-eyed wolf pups as he approached the center of the rug.

Syris stopped right in front of Roxy. He didn’t speak immediately. He simply looked at her intently, his highly sensitive, cold-blooded magical senses completely sweeping over her transmigrated core, tasting the subtle, undeniable shift in her biology.

He tilted his head slightly, his elegant jaw clenching for a fraction of a second.

"You are with child..." Syris started, his rich, deep voice echoing softly in the quiet room. He didn’t ask it as a question; he stated it as an absolute, undeniable fact that his magic had just confirmed for him.

The sheer, dramatic intensity of the Snake King—staring down at her in his immaculate green robes, stating the obvious after she had literally just screamed it into the hallway—was simply too much for her frazzled, hormone-drenched brain to process.

Roxy coughed out a wet, exhausted laugh, the sound bubbling up from her chest filled with a strange, chaotic mixture of lingering sadness and sheer disbelief at her own life. "Yes, Syris. I am."

For a long, highly suspended moment, Syris simply stared at her. He looked at her tear-stained face, looked at the wailing Kitsune infant in her arms, and then looked at the faint, glowing resonance of the new life blooming in her core.

It was entirely impossible to tell if the Swamp King was furious, overjoyed, territorially jealous, or simply completely overwhelmed by the logistical nightmare of yet another Alpha pregnancy immediately following his hibernation.

Syris’s elegant nostrils flared. He let out a loud, deeply aristocratic, and profoundly exasperated harrumph.

Without uttering a single word of congratulations, comfort, or complaint, Syris simply turned on his heel. His dark green robes dramatically flared out behind him as he marched straight out of the nursery, leaving a trail of heavy swamp magic in his wake.

Tanith, who was still kneeling beside Roxy, blinked in sheer surprise.

The ten-year-old girl looked toward the empty doorway where her dramatic father had just vanished, and then looked back down at her mother, her golden-green eyes wide with profound confusion.

Roxy sniffled, wiping a tear from her cheek, and offered her daughter a helpless, incredibly fond shrug. "Your father is... processing."

The abrupt, dramatic exit of the Snake King seemed to break the tension for the rest of the room completely. The paralysed shock that had gripped the older children finally dissolved, replaced entirely by the chaotic, unscripted enthusiasm of the Vanguard youth.

Axel and Onyx immediately bounded forward, dropping onto their knees on the fur rug right beside Tanith.

"Congratulations, Mum!" Axel beamed, his blue eyes shining with absolute pride. "Another Warlord for the Vanguard! Or maybe a sister this time?"

"I hope it’s a wolf," Onyx chimed in, gently patting Roxy’s knee. "We need more pack members to run perimeter drills with. The snakes and the dragons are getting too numerous."

Iris shuffled forward, her tiny wolf tail wagging happily behind her. She reached out, gently stroking Fedor’s fiery red hair. "Don’t cry, Fedor. You’re going to be a big brother! You get to share your toys now."

But Baby Fedor was the one who absolutely didn’t like the sound of that.

The Kitsune infant, possessing all the arrogant, deeply possessive traits of his father, did not want to share his mother’s lap, his mother’s transmigrated magic, or his mother’s toys. He let out another loud, grumpy wail, burying his face deeper into Roxy’s tunic and refusing to look at his siblings.

Roxy let out another wet laugh, gently rubbing the infant’s back. The sheer volume of the nursery, combined with the lingering nausea and the emotional rollercoaster of the morning, was beginning to catch up to her. Her head throbbed, and she desperately needed a moment of quiet to feed Fedor and settle her own racing heart.

She looked at her chaotic, beautiful, and incredibly loud children.

"Alright, my loves," Roxy said, her voice soft but carrying that unyielding Matriarchal authority. She offered them a tired, genuine smile. "I need some space to calm your brother down, and I think we all need to eat something after that massive scare."

She gestured toward the open doorway, knowing exactly which Warlord would be the most capable of handling four hyperactive, hungry pre-teens in the wake of this absolute cosmic curveball.

"Go find Papa Kaelen for food, okay?"