Waiting in the Dark

𝓉𝓌𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓎 𝓈𝒾𝓍

I woke the next morning to Cirillo brushing hair out of my face. He broke into a grin when he noticed I was awake. He pulled me to him and whispered "I missed this. I missed it so much."

"Cirillo. I have something important to tell you." I sat up, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders in the chilly morning air. He sat up, worry creasing his brow.

"What is it?"

I looked him in the eye. "I'm pregnant." My voice was almost inaudible. I didn't think he heard me until he jumped out of bed and pulled me out with him.

He put his hand to my stomach and stared into my eyes. "This isn't a cruel joke is it?Are you really?"

I nodded and he smiled. He let out a whoop of joy and spun me around.

"This is the second best day of my life!"

"What's the first?" I asked him, laughing at his antics.

"Our linking day." He gave me a look that said duh, you should know this.

He knelt to the ground and put his head against my stomach. "Hey there, I'm your father."

I ran my hands through his hair as he whispered sentiments to our child. He stood and clasped my hands to his chest. "I'm so excited for us. I promise I'll do the best I can to raise this child well."

I squeezed his hands. "I know you will. We'll do it together."

𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝓁𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓇

Today was Cirillo's first council meeting since he got back. He was excited to be leading them again. "As much as I hated them and as good as a job as you did, I'm glad to see those old buzzards and hear their bickering back and forth." That warranted a laugh from me.

All the council members congratulated him and slapped him jovially on the back. News of the pregnancy had broken across Javaid. Now people were treating me as if I was a porcelain doll.

Abel came up to us and pulled Cirillo into a hug. "Good to see you brother. How's the leg?"

"Good, good. No pain yet today. The rest and relaxation I've gotten the last few days has helped tremendously. Staying off it has helped a lot." The last couple days, he had tried to stay off his leg as much as he could to let it heal further. "How did my wife do at running a country?"

Abel winked at me. "She was better than you, that's for sure." He said with a smirk. "Did she tell you that she was the one who killed the king of Bagara, essentially saving your sorry hide?"

Cirillo spun around to face me, shock written over his features. "No, oshe didn't tell me."

I gave him a shy smile. "Surprise!" I said.

"Well, I guess I can just hand you my crown now." Cirillo joked, pulling his crown off his head and placing it on mine.

"Yeah," Abel continued. "She slipped a poison into his wine to slow him down then stabbed him in the heart."

Cirillo let out a low whistle. "Remind me to never get on your bad side. And I knew my lessons to teach you how to use a knife would pay off."

"I couldn't have done it without your ring. Otherwise, we'd both have bum legs."

He held up his left hand and showed me the simple gold band. I still had the small ruby ring on my hand too. He grabbed my hand and we led our kingdom together.