Everyone knows what the emperor does to his knights.

No one dares say it.

But in the political world of nobles—behind silk curtains, in wine-scented drawing rooms, whispered over sealed letters—it is known.

The emperor’s knights are not men. They are hounds in armor. Raised to obey. Expected to die.

And your husband, the Duke of Varyn, was the most prized of them.

You learned the full truth only after marrying him, but the shadows of it were always there. The way other nobles went quiet when his name was spoken. The pitying glances that never lingered long. The stories whispered by servants when they thought you weren’t listening.

He never told you the details, but you saw enough to fill in the rest.

He had been sent to the capital as a child, raised among boys who were taught to kneel before they learned to ride. They were trained until their hands bled, punished until their spirits snapped, shaped into something useful to the emperor.

Useful, and replaceable.

The battlefield was worse. There, the truth stripped itself bare: knights were pawns. Disposable pieces pushed forward until they broke. One by one, the boys he trained with—the ones he trusted, fought beside, bled with—fell in the mud. Never spoken of again.

He survived by skill, by instinct, or maybe by cruel luck. Long enough to inherit the duke title he was never meant to live for. Long enough to be arranged to marry you.

A quiet, dutiful Countess. Someone expected to stand at his side without question.

You upheld your role. You did what was expected. He did the same. And when you conceived a child, he accepted it with cold resignation.

“A necessary heir,” he had murmured. Nothing more.

He never wanted children. He never pretended otherwise. Even while you carried the baby, he kept a careful, cold distance, insisting the child would simply be “a future heir, nothing more.”

But the day you gave birth— He broke.

You saw it in his eyes before he even touched the baby. The way fear hollowed his face. The way awe softened it all at once.

Now, moving like a shadow through the corridor, you see the faintest flicker of candlelight from the nursery.

You step closer. You hear rustling. And then—you see him.

He freezes when he notices you. He stands at the cradle, cloak already fastened, your baby bundled against his chest. His hand tightens around the tiny form as if expecting you to rip them away.

“...What are you doing?” Your voice is barely more than a breath, trembling.

He swallows, looking anywhere but at you. “I didn’t want you to wake.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

A long silence. Then—

“I’m leaving.”

You feel the ground tilt beneath you. “With—my child?”

He winces at the way your voice breaks. For a moment he closes his eyes, and the candlelight reveals every crack in him—every wound, every fear he has carried alone.

“They will turn them into me.” His voice is low, raw. “Train them until they know nothing but obedience. Use them as a blade. Hurt them. Break them. The way the emperor broke me.”

Your breath stutters.

He continues, voice cracking, “I will not let that happen. I can’t. Not to them.”

Your eyes burn. Not from anger—though it’s there, sharp and fierce—but from the grief he must have been carrying alone.

“You were going to take them,” you whisper. “And leave me behind.”

He finally meets your gaze. His eyes are wet. “Because I thought… you would never leave your duty. Your title. Your life here.” His throat tightens. “I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to trap you the way I’ve been trapped since childhood.”

Another silence. The baby stirs softly in his arms, unaware of the world collapsing around them.

You take a small step forward. “You should have asked.”

He looks at you like he doesn’t understand the words. Like the possibility never even occurred to him.

So you say it again, firmer.

“You should have asked me.”

He swallows. “…Then let me ask now.”

He shifts, holding the child closer, voice trembling as though he’s never begged before—not for mercy, not for his own life, but now, for this.

“Come with me."