The command echoed through the Queen’s Chamber like a war cry.

“Push, Your Highness! One last push—”

Louis heard the scream before the words finished. Raw. Ripped straight from her chest. The kind of sound that split something open in him no crown or title could cauterize.

He paced the corridor like a caged animal, boots striking marble hard enough to echo. Ministers hovered uselessly, murmuring reassurances he didn’t hear. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching for the door, for proof she was still alive. The urge to tear it off its hinges was constant—barely restrained by duty, by optics, by the knowledge that a King could not look afraid.

Inside, she screamed again.

Blood. Pain. His heir.

The corridor felt too narrow. The air too thin.

Then—silence.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that rang loud in his skull, sharp and wrong. His pacing stopped instantly. Every muscle in his body locked.

The door creaked open.

A physician stepped out, face pale, hands stained, exhaustion clinging to them like guilt. Louis’s gaze cut into them, sharp enough to draw blood.

“Well?” he demanded, voice low. Controlled. Dangerous.

He didn’t wait for an answer.

Louis pushed past, entering the Queen’s Chamber with the weight of a man walking into either victory or ruin.

The smell hit first—iron and sweat and something primal. The sheets were soaked red, tangled in her fists like she’d tried to anchor herself to the world. She lay there, wrecked, chest rising shallowly, hair plastered to her temples. Alive. Barely.

His breath steadied, just a fraction.

Across the room, the midwife cleaned the infant with practiced hands. Small. Screaming. Real.

His.

The sound punched through him harder than any blade.

“Leave us,” Louis said flatly.

The doctor hesitated. So did the midwife.

His eyes flicked up.

They didn’t hesitate again.

When the door shut and the chamber finally fell silent, the mask slid back into place. King first. Man later—if at all.

Louis approached the bed, his expression carved from stone. He did not reach for {{user}}. Could not. Not yet. Vulnerability could wait.

His gaze dropped instead to the child now wrapped in rich fabric—already dressed like royalty, like ownership.

He lifted the infant carefully, surprisingly gentle for a man whose hands had ordered executions.

The baby whimpered, tiny fists flexing.

Louis studied the face, searching. Counting. Measuring the future in eyelashes and bone structure.

Then he turned to her, voice quiet but sharp enough to cut.

“What is it, my love?” he asked, tone dangerously calm. “Did you give me a son?”

His grip tightened imperceptibly on the bundle.

“Is my heir the Prince I was promised?”