Silent Crown: The Masked Prince's Bride-Chapter 324: To Be Her Anchor

Since Sylvia was not moving, Lorraine looked at Emma. "Emma... ask him here..."

Aralyn held Lorraine’s hand, soothing and comforting her. But Lorraine was not getting comforted. She wanted him by her side. She wanted to die in his arms.

Sylvia froze, her eyes flicking toward the tent flap, torn between duty and truth. Her throat worked around the words she didn’t want to say. Emma blinked.

How could they tell her?

How could they admit that King Leroy... her steadfast, stubborn, fiercely loving husband, had refused to come?

Outside the tent, Leroy stood frozen, palms pressed to the canvas as if he could feel her through it... her breath, her pain, her fear. His own breath came in uneven, ragged bursts, and his eyes were wild, unfocused, like a man staring down the edge of a cliff he was about to fall from.

"How can I go in?" His voice cracked. "Aldric...tell me. How can I walk in there?"

Aldric, who had been a pillar his entire life, who had taught Leroy swordsmanship and discipline and the art of war, stood before him with eyes that were too bright, too red. Lorraine’s uncle. The man who loved her like his own daughter. He too was shaking, though he tried to hide it behind the straight line of his shoulders.

"You have to," Aldric said, his voice steady only because he forced it to be. "Leroy, listen to me. You must go in."

Leroy shook his head violently, stepping back as if Aldric’s words were blows. "No. No, I can’t. If I go in... if I see her like that... she’ll die. Something will happen. I know it. I can feel it." His breath stuttered. "If I step inside, I’ll lose her."

Aldric closed his eyes for a brief, painful moment. Memories... the ones he had buried deep, flashed behind them. Sylvia on the floor. Blood everywhere. His own legs refusing to move, terror chaining his body in place. The shame of helplessness. The horror of thinking he had lost her before he even reached her.

He swallowed hard.

"I know," he whispered. "I know exactly what that fear feels like."

Leroy’s knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the dirt, clutching handfuls of earth as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered. A king who had brought an empire to its knees was now breaking apart in the shadows outside a tent.

Aldric watched him, throat tight. This place had been cleared for privacy, yet soldiers lingered at a distance, watching their newly crowned king crumble. It was a sight that could shake morale, could plant doubt, could unravel everything they had just fought for.

But Aldric didn’t reach for politics or appearances. He reached for truth.

"You will regret it," Aldric said, kneeling beside him. "If you do not go in now, if you leave her to face this alone, you will spend the rest of your life haunted by it."

Leroy looked up, eyes swollen with terror and grief. "What if she dies?" he whispered. "What will I do without her?"

Aldric’s voice softened, though pain lined every word. "Then at least she will not die thinking you didn’t come."

Leroy’s breath hitched—once, twice—before he broke entirely, leaning forward, shoulders shaking. A man unmade.

"She’s calling for you, Leroy," Aldric said. "She wants you. Not the king. Not the warrior. You. The one she loves."

Silence stretched between them, heavy as fate.

And then...

Leroy dragged in a shuddering breath, wiped his face with trembling hands, and forced himself to stand.

Not because he was ready.

But because she needed him.

Leroy pushed through the tent flaps, breath still ragged from the sprint across the battlefield, only for the world to tilt beneath him as soon as his eyes landed on the basins.

Basins of blood.

Too much blood.

Far, far too much.

His hands trembled violently, fingers curling uselessly at his sides, because he had seen blood before, on battlefields, on training grounds, and on pages of history, but never like this, never hers, never so much that he felt the ground slipping from under his feet. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The metallic scent filled the entire tent, overwhelming, suffocating, and for one raw, terrifying heartbeat, he couldn’t breathe.

Had she lost all her blood? Had he come too late? Had fate stolen her while he was out contemplating?

Aralyn’s face only made it worse. His mother stood rigid, pale, and terrified in a way Leroy had never imagined she could be; the strongest woman he’d ever known looked like she had aged ten years in an hour. Emma was pressed against the far corner, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Sylvia—steady, loyal Sylvia—was swallowing her own sobs, gripping Lorraine’s finger like it was the only thing anchoring the world together.

And then he saw her.

His Lorraine.

His perfect, infuriating, breathtaking little porcupine. His sweet, fierce mouseling who had survived palaces, poisons, crowns, and curses... yet now... she looked so small beneath the dim lantern light, her face soaked with sweat, her breaths sharp and uneven, her lips drained of color.

She wasn’t screaming, though the pain must have been unbearable; she only clenched her teeth, low grunts escaping her throat in stubborn defiance, as if even agony had to earn the right to be acknowledged by her.

His chest cracked open.

He couldn’t move at first, not because he didn’t want to, but because his body simply refused to believe that this was real. That she had bled like this. That she was fighting alone. That he, who claimed he would protect her from the world, hadn’t been here when she needed him most.

But then her eyes lifted.

And she smiled at him.

That same small, soft, devastating smile she always gave him, the one she wore even when she wrongly believed he didn’t love her, the one she carried through storms and heartbreak and every reckless, stubborn leap toward him she had ever taken.

It was love.

It had always been love.

Her love, that was stronger than any force of nature.

"You’re here..." Lorraine breathed, her voice trembling but warm, reaching for him as if he were the only solid thing in a world collapsing beneath her. She looked at him as though she had been searching for him through every wave of pain, every shuddering breath, every moment she thought she wouldn’t make it through—and only now did she finally find him.

And Leroy’s heart shattered with a quietness that felt obscene.

He stepped closer, the sound of his boots lost beneath the frantic whispers of midwives and the rustling of linen. Sylvia moved aside without a word, her face tight with dread, and Leroy sank to Lorraine’s side. The midwives hovered near her, pressing her belly, murmuring instructions, doing everything they could to coax life into a world that seemed determined to take hers.

But all Leroy could see was her.

Her eyes, those icy-blue eyes that always glowed when they found him, lifted to meet his. Even now, when agony twisted her breath and blood drained the color from her lips, she smiled at him. That same smile she always wore just for him, the one that made him forget that she was hurting, that she was scared, that she was mortal.

And he hated it. He adored it. It was the cruelest mercy he had ever known.

"My love," he whispered, leaning close enough that his forehead nearly brushed hers. "I’m here..."

He forced a soft, steady smile, a lie he hoped looked real. He hid the way his chest felt carved open from the inside. He hid the desperate, selfish wish that he could die first so he wouldn’t have to watch the light fade from her eyes. He hid the terror clawing up his throat, because she needed him calm, and he would burn himself alive before giving her anything less.

Her fingers brushed his wrist, feather-light, trembling. She believed he could keep her safe. She believed he would not let her go.

And Leroy held her hand like it was the last anchor between life and a darkness that was already reaching for her.