Divorcing The Warlord: My Spectacular Royal Comeback

Alaina POV:

"Breathe, girl, and hold your spirit steady! By the World Tree, they've both drawn breath-a twin pair, male and female."

The midwife's voice was flat, smelling of bitter bark and stale grease, echoing off the damp, lichen-crusted stone of the lower-tier birthing cell.

I collapsed backward onto the wooden plank. Twenty brutal hours of soul-shearing labor had drained the final embers of my vitality, my fingers trembled so violently against the stained sheets that I couldn't even summon a flicker of warmth to my own skin.

Beside me, bundled in scratchy, unbleached burlap, lay my two newborn children. Their tiny faces were pinched, their breath so faint that the ambient light of the World Tree barely flickered across their brows.

The midwife pulled out a ledger bound in cracked hide, her cold, slate-colored eyes drifting down to my hands. Specifically, to my bare fingers.

"State your clan's name and your bonded male's signet mark," she said, her tone curdling into disgust. "The Great Council requires a registry before the dawn bells."

I pressed my pale, cracked lips together and said nothing.

Her sneer deepened. Dipping a quill into charcoal-black ink, she drew a thick, damning slash across the line reserved for a father's bloodline.

"Another Ringless stray," she muttered under her breath, loud enough to cut. "Spawning bastards in the dark without even a strip of dull iron to your name."

In this immortal elf court where an Oath Ring activated by one's own blood was the only legal proof of identity.

There was no Oath Ring on my fingers-not even a dull Cold Iron band, the toxic metal that scorched elf flesh and scattered our magic, worn only by the lowest sinners.

Legally, I did not exist.

I closed my eyes, letting the insult wash over the numbness in my chest.

Five years ago, Clan Buck-a third-tier house of weavers in the Middle Reaches-pulled me from the frozen timberline, taking me in under the guise of charity.

In truth, I was an unpaid beast of burden, a shadow meant to absorb every blow intended for their precious, spoiled daughter, Candida Buck.

When Warlord Jake Ellis-a noble-born commander of the second tier-was gutted by Abyssal demons on the southern perimeter, his tree spirit shattered, the realm declared him a broken cripple.

Candida, who had been betrothed to him for his rank, shrieked in horror and refused to touch him.

Clan Buck solved the problem by dragging me to the Great Council's registry, forging my consent, and forcing me into a binding Contract Union under her name.

For three agonized years in that drafty border stone keep, I poured my own pure life force into his rotting soul.

I bled over his wounds, whispering ancient soothing cantrips, letting my raw essence mend his torn spirit conduits night after sleepless night.

Yet the very morning his warlord strength roared back to life-the moment he stood whole, revered, and commanding the vanguard once more-Candida appeared at the keep's gates.

She held a vial of stolen herbs in her trembling hands, weeping delicate, rehearsed tears, and claimed she had been his secret savior all along.

And Jake? The blind, arrogant fool swallowed the lie whole.

He elevated Candida to his side, showering her with the finest estates, while banishing me to the servant quarters as an opportunistic wretch who had merely cleaned his bedpans and tried to trap him into marriage.

Through the thin wooden partition of the birthing cell, the sharp, spiteful gossip of two local weavers pierced the quiet.

"Did you hear the bells from the Upper Court this morning? Warlord Ellis booked the entire Crystal Apothecary for Lady Candida's prenatal blessing!"

"A match blessed by the roots! A true Warlord of House Ellis and a noble daughter of Buck. Not like the shameless trash dying down the hall, dropping nameless runts into the mud, hoping for a handout."

A humorless laugh scraped past my throat.

I dragged my arm upward, my muscles screaming in protest, and fished a battered, gray talis-shard from beneath the straw pillow-the sole conduit of communication Jake had ever tossed my way.

Gathering the last dregs of my spirit, I ignited the rune. "Jake," I whispered, my voice cracked like dry leaves. "The younglings are born. A boy and a girl. Their lifelines are fading fast... I need clean Silverdew to stabilize them."

Static hissed through the talisman, followed by the muffled laughter of courtiers, the clinking of crystal flutes, and finally, a voice like shaved ice.

"Alaina. Cease this pathetic pantomime."

My breath hitched. "Jake, please-"

"Today is the consecration of Candida's spirit-seed," Jake cut in, his words dripping with venomous Warlord authority. "You chose this exact hour to invent a phantom labor and demand an audience? Have you no shame left in your parasitic soul?"

"They are breathing right beside me!" Tears of fury finally burned behind my eyelids. "They are your blood! They are dying in this freezing cellar!"

"Enough of your filthy lies!" he snarled, his voice rising in savage impatience. "You do not wear an Oath Ring on your hand, woman. You are a nameless nobody I took pity on. Whatever crawled out of your belly has no claim to the Ellis bloodline, and neither do you!"

In the background, a soft, honeyed whimper drifted through the rune. "Jake... my head spins. The vintage Silverdew from the high wellspring is so very hot..."

Instantly, the murderous edge in Jake's tone melted into a tender, reverent murmur. "Hush, little bird. Sip slowly. The entire reserve belongs to you. No one will ever disturb your peace again."

He turned back to the talisman, his voice dropping into a lethal, merciless promise. "If you dare send another sigil to harass Candida while she carries my heir, Alaina, I will not wait for the council. I will drag you to the Low Marches myself and feed you to the wretches at the gate."

the Low Marches-the lowest, most wretched tier at the base of the World Tree kingdom, where Outcast Clans were left to bleed as the first line of defense against Abyssal demons.

Snap.

The connection was violently severed from his end. The backlash of spirit energy surged back through the cracked talisman, biting into my palm and forcing a copper mouthful of blood past my teeth.

Beyond the partition, the women snickered. Only the young apprentice midwife lingering by the basin looked at me with hollow pity, setting down a chipped wooden bowl of lukewarm bark-water before scurrying out.

I raised the bowl with trembling fingers and drank. The bitter broth burned down my throat, but it burned away the last vestige of softness in my heart.

The girl who had bled for him in the dark was dead.

From the crude basket, a faint, mewling cry broke the heavy silence. My son's tiny hand weakly flailed against the coarse burlap, reaching blindly into the freezing air for warmth.

Gritting my teeth against the fire tearing through my pelvis, I leaned down and gathered both fragile bundles against my chest.

"Listen to me," I whispered into their downy hair, my eyes turning as hard and cold as the iron nails buried in the floor. "He called you wild runts. He called me trash. But I swear on the World Tree, the day we sever his name from our flesh is the day his kingdom begins to burn."

Beneath the soft skin of their foreheads, a tiny, intricate crest of emerald light flashed for a split second before vanishing.

I pressed my cold cheek against their heads, severing Jake Ellis from my life forever.

Suddenly, the rotting wooden door of the ward was pushed open a crack, and a pair of eyes was fixed intently on us.