The King’s Two Daughters
The infirmary smelled of lavender, hot linen, and the bitter tonic Aurelia had been drinking since childhood.
She knew the smell well enough to dread it.
Azalea lay against the pillows while Professor Voss examined the silver-gray marks fading from her wrist.
“It was a ward in the west corridor,” Theo said.
His voice remained controlled, but blood stained the cuff of his sleeve.
“We were walking back from defensive theory. She touched the handrail.”
Aurelia stood at the other side of the bed.
She had felt the pain through their bond.
A sudden cold so intense that she had dropped her pen in the archive.
By the time she reached the corridor, Theo had pulled Azalea away from the rail, but something had remained attached.
Aurelia had recognized it.
The same hungry pull she had felt beneath the assessment platform.
Voss turned toward her.
“You separated the binding?”
“Enough to move her.”
“How?”
Aurelia looked at Azalea.
“Through our connection.”
Voss’s expression sharpened.
But before she could ask more, the doors opened.
“Azalea.”
Matteo crossed the room first.
Rafael followed, then Nico and Luca.
All four went directly to the bed.
Aurelia stepped back to make room.
No one asked her to stay.
“What happened?” Matteo demanded.
Theo answered.
Rafael examined the fading marks.
“Who authorized students in the west passage?”
“It’s an open corridor,” Aurelia said.
His gaze moved toward her.
“Not now.”
Azalea opened her eyes.
“She helped me.”
“We know,” Nico said, brushing curls from her forehead.
“No. You don’t.”
Aurelia wanted her to rest.
She also wanted, shamefully, for someone else to say it.
Then the pressure in the room changed.
The brothers straightened.
Theo stood.
Aurelia turned toward the doorway.
Her father stood there.
The Alpha King.
For sixteen years, he had existed at a distance: photographs, brief calls, a face above official announcements.
Now he crossed the infirmary with fear plainly visible.
“Azalea.”
His hand touched her cheek.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m getting better.”
His gaze moved over the blanket, the monitoring charm, the dressing at her wrist.
Then it reached Aurelia.
He stopped.
Not politely.
Not gradually.
His whole body went still.
His eyes moved between their faces.
“Aurelia?”
She had imagined hearing him say her name.
She had never imagined he would sound uncertain.
“Father.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“At Blackhawk.”
“Yes.”
Behind him, Luca looked down.
The King noticed.
His gaze shifted toward his sons.
Then back.
“When did you arrive?”
“Tuesday.”
“I wasn’t told.”
“I wrote.”
The words escaped before she could soften them.
His expression changed.
Aurelia remembered the letter precisely.
The acceptance notice enclosed. The paragraph explaining her course. The sentence saying she hoped he might visit.
His secretary had sent congratulations.
“You wrote,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
Azalea reached for Aurelia’s hand.
She took it.
Their father looked at their joined fingers.
Two daughters.
The realization moved across his face so plainly that Aurelia almost looked away.
“You should have told me,” he said to his sons.
Matteo straightened.
“We assumed—”
“No,” Aurelia said.
Everyone turned.
Her heart struck hard against her ribs.
“I told you. It was my letter.”
Her father’s mouth closed.
Silence settled.
He drew a chair closer, but remained standing behind it.
“How is your hand?”
“Better.”
“And your assessment?”
She looked at him.
“Is that why you’re asking?”
Pain crossed his face.
“No.”
Rafael shifted.
“Aurelia, Father came because your sister—”
“My sister,” Azalea said, “is standing beside you.”
The words carried a faint growl.
Their father lowered himself into the chair.
For the first time since entering, he looked uncertain of what to do.
Aurelia had waited years to have his full attention.
Now that she had it, anger crowded out every prepared sentence.
“Why did you leave me there?”
His eyes lifted.
“We believed your grandparents could provide the care—”
“For sixteen years?”
The room went still.
“We intended it to be temporary.”
“Then why didn’t you come?”
He had no immediate answer.
That frightened her more than any explanation might have.
There should have been a reason.
A danger.
A sacrifice.
Something that made the years mean more than everyone becoming accustomed to her absence.
“You were safe,” he said quietly.
“I was two.”
She looked at the family crest on his cuff. A gold wolf, circled by the names of their royal ancestors. Her grandmother kept a different record: a photograph of her own mother on the porch of an American church, another of three sisters laughing at a family reunion, a birth announcement with both twins’ names printed in the same size. Aurelia’s place had existed. People had made it small.
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
Her voice broke.
She hated it.
“You knew where I lived. You knew every year how old I was. Did you ever ask whether I wanted to stay?”
The King looked down at his hands.
“No.”
The honesty struck harder than an excuse.
Nico spoke.
“We thought you preferred—”
“When did you ask me?”
He stopped.
Aurelia looked at each brother.
None answered.
Her father drew a slow breath. Their joined hands rested on the white blanket, the same deep brown he knew from their mother, the same long fingers he remembered folded around his on the night of their birth. His gaze moved from Azalea’s loosened curls to Aurelia’s careful twists. Familiar features. Separate lives. He could see how little he knew of one of them.
“I have two daughters.”
It was barely audible.
Azalea’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
He looked between them again.
“I allowed myself to think that because you were cared for, I had done enough.”
Aurelia swallowed.
Her grandparents had loved her fiercely.
That had never been the missing part.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, “how you could see her every day and not wonder whether I missed you.”
His face tightened.
“I don’t have an answer that excuses it.”
At least he knew that.
He reached toward her, then stopped.
“Will you let me try?”
Aurelia stared at his hand.
“I don’t know.”
He accepted the words without arguing.
Professor Voss entered.
Her gaze moved over Aurelia’s pale face.
“Both young women need rest.”
Both.
The King flinched.
Then he stood.
At the door, he looked back.
“May I return tomorrow?”
Aurelia’s throat ached.
“You can ask tomorrow.”
After he left, she sat beside Azalea.
Her sister drew her close.
“He looked surprised,” Aurelia whispered.
“I know.”
“As though I’d appeared from nowhere.”
Azalea held her tighter. With her free hand, she eased a gold cuff away from Aurelia’s cheek before it could press into her skin, a small, practiced tenderness learned during years of sharing pillows.
Aurelia finally cried.