Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Elara’s POV

For five whole years of dead silence, I had built a new life. Then, the bombardment began.

Frantic couriers cornered me outside the palace gates. Missives arrived at my apartment, sealed with that familiar crest—the twin serpents coiled around a silver chalice. The house of Valois. A symbol I had buried so deep in my memory it might as well have been a grave.

Why now?

Over the next several days, the missives came relentlessly. Morning. Afternoon. Evening. While I was filing dispatches. While I was walking Valerius home from the academy. While I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that the walls of my small apartment were thick enough to keep the world out.

They weren’t.

The latest missive held a single, terrifying threat: If you do not answer, I will present myself at the palace.

I pressed my back against the kitchen wall and slid to the floor, holding a communication crystal to finally answer her summons.

I activated the crystal. Her sigil flared instantly, as though she’d been waiting with her hand hovering over it. Hungry. Ready.

“Finally.” The Baroness’s voice crackled through the enchantment, sharp as broken glass. “Where have you been hiding, you ungrateful little bitch? Do you know how many couriers I sent? Do you have any idea the trouble I’ve gone through to track you down?”

I pressed the crystal so hard my knuckles whitened.

“Baroness.” I kept my voice level. Steady. I would not call her mother. I had not called her that since the night she threw me out. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” A laugh—brittle and joyless. “I want to know why my foster daughter disappeared like a thief in the night and never had the decency to send word. I want to know why I had to learn from a market gossip that you’ve been living in the capital like some common washerwoman—”

“You told me to leave.” The words came out harder than I intended. Good. “You chose Isolde. You told me to get rid of my child or get out of your house when I was eighteen and pregnant. I got out. I owe you nothing.”

Silence. Brief. Dangerous.

“You listen to me carefully, Elara.” The Baroness’s voice dropped. The shrill anger drained away, replaced by a calculated, dangerous calm. The voice she used when she was about to draw blood. “I know exactly where your little riverside district apartment is. And I know that your son—Valerius Frostfang, four years old—is enrolled at the Royal Primary Academy.”

My blood turned to ice water.

“You are a single commoner mother,” she continued. “I am the wife of Baron de Valois, seated member of the Imperial Elder Council. If I wished to use my status to file a petition questioning the welfare of a child being raised in such... precarious circumstances...” She let the pause stretch. “Well. You can imagine how that might end.”

I couldn’t breathe. The walls of my kitchen pressed inward. The crystal trembled in my grip.

“What do you want?” My voice cracked. I hated myself for it.

“Come home this Friday evening. We have matters to discuss.”

“And if I refuse?”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“If you do not come home this Friday evening, Elara, your little Valerius will lose his life. The capital is such a dangerous place for small children. Especially ones with no proper family to look after them.”

The threat wasn’t even veiled. It was naked. Exposed. A knife laid on the table between us.

I thought of Valerius. His dark curls bouncing as he ran ahead of me on the cobblestones. His gold eyes—his father’s eyes—lighting up when he spotted the bakery window.

My son. My whole world. The panic paralyzed me, but my protective instincts roared to life.

“I’ll be there,” I whispered in absolute terror.

I stepped inside. The foyer smelled of lavender and beeswax. Unchanged. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

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