REBORN TO RULE

(Aria's POV)

I pushed myself upright before the sky outside turned gray, my breath puffing white in the freezing air. Every muscle in my back screamed.

My belly felt heavier than it had the night before, which I hadn't thought was possible. I sat on the edge of the flattened pile of rags I called a bed and waited for the dizziness to pass.

Across the room, Kira crouched by the fire pit, blowing on dying embers. Her own belly curved out beneath her threadbare jacket — seven months along, smaller than mine.

She glanced over when she heard me moving.

"You look like hell," she said.

"Good morning to you too."

She snorted and fed another stick into the fire. "When's the pup due?"

I pressed my hand to my stomach. The baby shifted. "Any day now."

"Any day now," she repeated flatly. "Aria. We got no midwife. No clean water unless we melt snow. Garret's got one knife between him and three other people, and Senna hasn't slept in two days."

"I know."

"You understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand." I reached for my boots. "Hand me that stick, would you? The one by your knee."

She stared at me for a second. Then she handed it over without another word. That was the thing about Kira. She knew when to push and when to let it go.

Garret was already awake by the door, skinning a scrawny rabbit. He didn't look up when I shuffled past.

"She-wolf's moving," he announced to no one. "Miracle."

"Don't start," Kira called from the fire.

He finally glanced at me. "Just saying. Most women her size would've stopped moving a week ago."

Senna was awake in the corner, melting snow in the dented pot. She gave me a tired wave. I waved back.

The morning routine was quiet and grim and strangely comfortable in the way only terrible things become after long enough.

I settled beside Kira near the fire and started chopping wild onions. My hands shook. The rusted knife kept slipping.

"Give it here," Kira said.

"I'm fine."

"You're going to lose a finger."

"Then I'll have nine left."

She took the knife anyway. "You're eight and a half months pregnant. Sit."

Garret called without looking up. "She-wolf's got pride. That'll get her killed faster than the cold."

"Better than lying down and waiting for it," I said.

He grinned, missing two teeth on the left side. "Fair enough. Just don't bleed out on my side of the floor. Blood stains."

Kira smacked his shoulder as she passed. He laughed. Senna pressed her lips together like she was trying not to smile.

It was the closest we got to normal.

We ate in silence, passing a single chipped bowl. Three sips each. The stew was mostly water — you could count the pieces of rabbit in it. But it was warm.

By mid-morning I found a torn blanket and needle and thread. Small, careful work that kept my hands busy and my mind quiet. Kira sat beside me, running a whetstone along her knife.

Then the pain hit.

It started low, a deep, dragging cramp that swept from my belly around to my spine. I gasped. The needle slipped and pricked my finger. Blood welled up bright against my pale skin.

Kira's whetstone stopped. "Contractions?"

I nodded. "It's too early."

"How early?"

"A few weeks. Maybe more. I lost track." My voice came out thin.

Her face went pale. "Aria. We don't have anything. No herbs, no way to slow it down—"

"It'll pass." I gripped her wrist. "It's probably false labor."

Another contraction came before I finished the sentence. Longer. Harder. My body bent around it without my permission.

It wasn't false.

Hours crawled. The contractions built, one on top of the next, each stealing more of my breath. Kira moved me to the back corner of the shelter and spread out the cleanest rags she could find. She knelt beside me, her face steady even though her hands weren't.

"Breathe," she kept saying. "In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Stay with me."

I was crying. The pain was getting worse.

My water broke in a rush. I heard Kira make a sound in her throat.

"Okay." Her voice cracked once, then steadied. "It's happening. When your body tells you to push, you push."

I pushed. I screamed. Kira talked the whole time, her voice a lifeline I kept grabbing for in the dark. I don't remember most of what she said. I remember her hands, shaking but there.

"I see the head. One more, Aria. One more."

The baby came.

Silence.

No cry. No sound at all.

Kira's face crumbled, just for a second, just enough for me to see it, and then she pressed it back together and worked frantically. She cleared his airway. She rubbed his tiny chest. She breathed for him.

Nothing.

He was small, blue-gray, perfect and completely still.

She laid him in my arms.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her tears fell onto my blanket. "I'm so sorry."

I looked at him. Tiny fingers, curled like he was holding onto something. Dark hair, damp and fine. His nose, already his father's nose, already unmistakable, and I hated myself for noticing.

I rocked him as I let out bitter moan. He couldn't feel it. But I rocked him anyway, and the sound coming out of me wasn't crying anymore. It was something much deeper than that.

The cold was getting worse. Or maybe it was just moving inward. I was bleeding. I could feel strength leaving me, slow and certain.

Kira was screaming for help. No one moved.

Garret stood in the middle of the room with his arms at his sides. Death was common here. A dead pup was bad luck. You didn't touch bad luck.

My vision narrowed at the edges, going dark.

I looked at my son's face one last time and memorized every part of it.

And then, against my will, against every wall I'd built in eight months of surviving alone, I thought of Caden.

His hands, cupping my face like I was something worth being careful with. His voice, rough and low: You're mine, Aria. Always.

Then his eyes. Cold and flat and final: You mean nothing to me.

I never understood what broke between us. I stopped trying to understand months ago.

But as the dark closed in and my son's face blurred and Kira's voice grew distant, something rose up in me, not peace, not acceptance. Something furious and desperate and clawing.

I want to live.

The thought cracked through me like lightning.

I want to live. I want to hold him and hear him cry and I want to go back and make Caden see what he did, what it cost, what he threw away. I want another chance. Please. Someone. Anyone.

Please let me try again.

Then the darkness took me.