Chapter 178

*Kaelen*

Hope was never something I was built for.

I could handle blood. Pain. Even death, if it came with clarity. But hope? That fragile, flickering thing that lived in other people’s prayers? It had always been dangerous to me. Slippery. Undependable. Like trying to hold fire in your bare hands and expecting not to bleed.

So when the nurse said the word—pregnant—and the air left the room like a