Chapter Text
They returned to the estate in the first weeks of September.
Cassandra slid back into her obligations with her usual attention to details, as though she had never left, as if her now twenty five weeks belly and the new, constant throb of pain in her lower back seemed powerless to disturb her composure.
For Tobias, the return was marked by triumph. Weeks of relentless studying ended in the long, grueling exam, followed by a week of nervous waiting before the letter finally arrived. Passed. He was no longer a resident, but a certified pediatric surgeon. He hadn’t asked her to, but Cassandra insisted on helping organize a celebration for his residency group.
And now, after the celebration and first week in his new role, when Cassandra had gone into the city for engineering meetup, leaving Tobias with a rare gap in his schedule, Cecelia summoned him.
He was enjoying his second coffee of the morning, reading through his notes, when a knock sounded at the library door. A servant bowed her head.
“Doctor, Lady Cecelia requests your presence in her study. At once.”
Tobias frowned, set his cup aside, and followed. Though it was strange, the Kiramman matriarch had never summoned him without Cassandra, well, except that one time.
But they were past that. Since the wedding things had shifted. Cecelia tolerated him now, sometimes even engaged him, but she had never summoned him in private without her daughter. For her to do so now meant one thing – whatever awaited him behind those carved oak doors was not a trivial matter.
When the servant opened the door to the study and bowed him inside, Tobias drew a slow breath, set his jaw, and stepped in.
“Tobias, please, take a seat,” Cecelia gestured to the desk.
The Kiramman matriarch calling him by his first name was also strange, but the word please in her sentence made Tobias tense even more as he crossed the room and lowered himself onto a cushioned chair before her desk. His eyes landed on the file resting neatly on the polished mahogany surface. A thick folder with the hospital logo in the corner left no question about its contents.
“I summoned you as a surgeon first,” Cecelia started evenly, “and as my daughter’s husband second.” Her voice carried no trace of softness now.
Tobias’ brow furrowed as he glanced at the file. Too many pages for something routine. His throat tightened.
“Read,” Cecelia instructed, shifting the folder closer to him.
He hesitated only a fraction of a second before obeying. With steady fingers, he drew the file toward him, and flipped the cover open. Scan after scan, reports with signatures, CT, MRI, neurological notes. His trained eyes picked out terms quickly, but his heart dropped into his stomach.
When he looked up, the woman was watching him with her usual stillness.
“I believe your expertise is enough to understand it,” she said with the same strange calmness in her voice.
“I’m not a neurosurgeon,” Tobias hesitated.
“You don’t need to be,” Cecelia replied. “Even with your specialty is children, your training is sufficient to know what this means.”
Tobias exhaled slowly through his nose. “This…” He tapped the scans with his index finger. “This is serious. More serious than I imagine you’ve admitted to anyone. And the surgery-”
“Is not an option,” Cecelia cut him off in a clipped, decisive tone.
Tobias’ jaw flexed, his brow furrowed. He wanted to argue, but Cecelia didn’t let him. Her blue eyes were pinned on him steady and unblinking.
“The tests confirmed it. A cavernous malformation in the brainstem. Not malignant, not genetic… But is inoperable in any meaningful sense. The surgeons tell me the same – I have at best a twenty percent chance of surviving whole. More likely…” Her fingers shifted faintly, betraying what her voice did not. “More likely, paralysis. And that I will not allow,” she exhaled. “Without surgery, I will die,” her tone was flat again, hiding her real emotions. “It won’t happen today or tomorrow, but within a handful of years. Two, perhaps four, if I am fortunate.”
Tobias shifted in the chair, pressing his knuckles against his knee under the table so she couldn't see his nerves.
“Cecelia… you realize what that means?” It was the tone he used only when a parent was about to make a decision that could harm their child, by refusing to sign the papers. He didn’t even notice how he automatically switched to her first name.
“That means Cassandra cannot know, not yet.”
“What?!”
“Cecelia, do you understand the pressure you’re putting her under? To keep this from her-”
“I understand perfectly,” she cut him off again, and this time her voice came colder. “This is not Cassandra’s burden yet,” the matriarch replied evenly, then folded her hands together on the desk. “It is yours to carry first.”
Tobias blinked.
“I want to remain myself.” Cecelia’s eyes sharpened on him.
“Cassandra is carrying a child. Do you think I would burden her with an invalid mother who cannot speak, cannot move, perhaps cannot even recognize her? Do you think she could endure that, with a newborn in her arms? When I die, she inherits everything. Not only the council seat but the weight of the Kiramman name, the responsibilities of this house, and the eyes of an entire city. She will be the matriarch, the councillor, and it will drown her if it comes too soon. And I will not allow that,” she took a long breath. “She must have her time with her child. She must be free to love her daughter, to raise her, to grow into herself before the responsibility strips it all away. Do you see?”
Her words rang like thunder, and Tobias flinched despite himself. “She will want you alive.”
“I choose to remain myself while I still can,” she answered. “I choose to give Cassandra a mother who is present whole, even if the time is limited. Better a few years of me as I am than a decade of me as an empty shell. That is no gift to her, it is torture.”
Tobias remind frozen in his chair.
Her gaze, sharp as glass, softened just enough, revealing the crack beneath. “You think I'm cold. You think I do not love her? I know, Cassandra does too. Because I have not given her the softness she craves. But everything I have done, Tobias, every decision, every cruel word, everything has been for her,” she paused, glanced sideways, then back at him. “The children we love most are the ones we make the hardest choices for,” she added softer. “You will learn that soon.”
He swallowed, but he didn’t speak.
“When I pressed her to choose a husband,” Cecelia continued, almost defensive. “It was not to shackle her, but to secure her future. Do you understand?” Her fingers tapped against the desk, then stilled. “I already knew then. About this,” she gestured faintly toward the folder. “I knew my time was limited, and I knew she would not be ready. She needed someone beside her. She needed a child… the House needed an heir,” she corrected herself, then lifted her chin up as if daring him to contradict her. “An heir. A future secured before the city circled like wolves. That is why I demanded it of her. That is why I was ruthless. Not because I did not care, but because I cared too much.”
“I have always known Cassandra liked girls.” Now her eyes were fixed on the opposite wall rather than his face. “That was never a secret to me. But I am not blind and I know my daughter well. I know that sometimes she looked at boys differently too, enough that I knew she wasn’t solely inclined one way.” She leaned back against her chair, meeting Tobias' eyes at last.
“And that was enough,” she continued. “Because if she could find even one man she could tolerate, then the line could continue without complication. That is why I pushed her. Not because I disapproved of who she loved, but because I didn’t know if she would ever make a choice on her own. If I had been certain Cassandra was solely drawn to women, I would never have pressed the issue. I would have found another way to secure an heir for the house.” Cecelia’s mouth pulled tight.
“And yet,” she took a long breath, “by choosing you, she broke every plan I laid… and then had the audacity to secretly fall pregnant… I was furious.” she admitted. “Because in that moment, I thought she had destroyed everything I had fought to give her.” Cecelia’s eyes flickered with ice for a brief moment, but then something in her expression cracked, letting the mask slip just enough for Tobias to see her real emotions beneath it.
“But also,” she looked away, composing herself, “I was shocked that she found something in you. Do you realize, Tobias? She rejected every noble man, and chose you,” her eyes returned to him, no longer cool, but rather amused.
Tobias opened his mouth, but she pressed on, leaving no room for interruption.
“You must understand how important you are now whether I like it or not. And that’s why you must protect her at all costs. She must not know yet. Not while she is vulnerable. Her health and her child’s health, those are my priorities now. She cannot bear this weight yet or else it would break her,” she looked down, then, quieter, almost as if the words slipped past her control, she added. “Not after what she went through after her father’s passing. I know it will break her.”
Silence stretched between them.
“If my time comes sooner than expected… if it comes, you must be there for her. Because when I am gone, Tobias. It will be you she leans on first. You who must steady her while she learns to carry what I can no longer. Do you understand me? Promise me you will protect her.”
His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away. The weight in her words was unmistakable. This wasn’t just an order, but a real burden she was passing to him. Was this exactly what Cassandra had warned him about when he married into House Kiramman?
Tobias swallowed, and forced his voice steady. “I promise.”
The matriarch studied him as if searching for the slightest falter, then gave him a short nod when she found none. “Then we understand each other,” she said simply. “You may go.”
Tobias rose, Cecelia returned her attention to the papers on her desk as if she had not just shifted the ground beneath his feet. The servant opened the door for him without a word, and Tobias stepped out into the quiet hall.
The oak door shut behind him with a sound way too loud in the silent corridor.
The walk back through the estate was a blur. All he could focus on was Cecelia’s voice, tangled with the weight of what she had shown him.
He stepped into the empty library, where the morning had begun so peacefully. Lowered himself onto a chair, then looked at his coffee on the table that now had gone cold. It was almost absurd, how easily a day full of peace and quiet could be replaced with a dark secret he had never asked for.
He knew exactly what the diagnosis meant. Cecelia Kiramman was dying. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe not next year, but sooner than anyone could expect. And now it was his secret. Tobias dragged a hand down his face. How was he supposed to look Cassandra in the eye now? How could he face his wife, knowing what he knew? Knowing her mother had sworn him to silence?
He pictured her face, the way she would glance at him expectantly when she returned home. How she would ask him how his morning had gone. And how her eyes would narrow if she sensed he was holding something back. Cassandra saw through him too easily, she always had.
And yet now he was meant to keep this from her. To lie, if it came to that.
The thought twisted his stomach. He hated lying, especially to her. Cassandra deserved his honesty above all others. And yet- His mind replayed Cecelia’s words once again. If she knew… if she learned her mother was dying, would it undo her? Would Cecelia be proven right?
Tobias pressed his palms together. He had sworn to protect Cassandra, and he meant it. But for the first time, he wasn’t sure if protection meant telling her the truth… or burying it until the day it inevitably broke her anyway.