## The Choice
Claudel stood on the wooden platform extending from Kaian's boat, her red dress fluttering against the night sky. Oil lanterns created a constellation of light, and she looked like a delicate flower blooming impossibly on a thin branch.
The lake was calm. Deceptively so.
"Claudel!"
Kaian's voice broke with panic. He ran toward her, extending his hand. "What are you doing? Come down!"
She looked at him with tears streaming down her face.
"You said if I had a child, you would trust me. Even though I'm Vermont." Her voice was steady despite the tears. "I wanted to believe that. I wanted a baby who looked like you."
"Hold my hand. Please."
"I wish I wasn't Vermont."
"Claudel—"
But she was already stepping backward, and in that moment, Kaian understood the truth in her eyes: this wasn't a cry for help.
This was goodbye.
---
## The Fall
She launched herself into the air.
Time seemed to stop. Against the backdrop of colored lights, her red dress scattered like blood on water.
"Claudel!"
The plunge was terrible. Kaian didn't hesitate—he shoved past his crew and dove after her, fighting through the shock of cold water that grew deeper and colder with each stroke.
Below, he could see the edge of her red dress sinking into darkness.
*Claudel!*
He reached for her, but she sank deeper, pulled down by something. His lungs burned. His vision blurred. But he couldn't surface, couldn't leave her in that darkness.
Hands seized him from above, dragging him upward against his will.
"No! Claudel!" he screamed, fighting them with desperate strength.
They pulled him onto the boat, wrapped him in blankets, but he fought free and dove again.
Again.
Again.
Until finally, exhaustion claimed him and he collapsed, gasping, while around him people screamed about the Duchess, about rescue, about impossible hope.
The doctor's shocked voice cut through the chaos: "The Lady... was pregnant."
The words hit Kaian like a second drowning. She'd been carrying his child. And she'd chosen the water.
---
## The Truth
While Kaian thrashed in the lake searching for a ghost, something else happened.
On Valquiterre's royal ship, a rope was tugged twice. Workers hauled hard, and in seconds, a figure broke the surface—gasping, alive, pulling herself onto the deck.
Claudel lay on the wooden planks in thin undershirt and underclothes, hair streaming water, panting as though she'd just fought death itself.
Valquiterre wrapped her in a soft blanket immediately, then helped her to her feet.
"You did well," he murmured, guiding her into the cabin. "Rest now."
Once inside, away from watching eyes, she collapsed onto the bed, hands pressed to her stomach.
"Bark. It hurts. The baby—"
"The palace doctor is the finest in the kingdom. You're safe."
A doctor examined her carefully while Claudel endured the invasion of strange hands. Valquiterre watched from the shadows, a predator satisfied with his trap.
After the doctor left, Valquiterre sat beside her bed as she drifted into medicated sleep.
Through the cabin window, he could hear the chaos—Kaian's desperate shouts, the search continuing uselessly in the dark water.
Valquiterre smiled.
*It's finally mine.*
---
## The Plan Revealed
What Kaian didn't know, what no one on his boat understood, was that Claudel's jump had been calculated.
Valquiterre had given her a plan: - Wear clothing so thin and eye-catching it would be impossible to ignore - Sew fist-sized stones into the hem for weight - Tear the seams in advance
When she hit the water, the dress would sink visibly, drawing all eyes. She would strip free and swim hard toward Valquiterre's waiting ship.
The red dress became a beacon—a false tomb that every would-be rescuer followed into darkness.
By the time anyone realized what had happened, Claudel would be safely aboard the royal vessel, unconscious from the doctor's herbs, firmly in the king's care.
She had sacrificed her marriage, her reputation, her very identity as a wife.
But she had saved her baby.
And in doing so, she had given herself entirely to Valquiterre—the one person who'd "helped" her when she was desperate and alone.
---
## The Trap Closes
In the cabin, Claudel slept the sleep of the drugged, unaware that she'd escaped one threat only to fall into the arms of another.
Outside, Kaian collapsed from exhaustion, screaming a name the lake would never answer.
And Valquiterre sat watching her sleep, already planning how to use her gratitude, her desperation, her unborn child.
The water had taken nothing.
But it had taken everything.
---