# Chapter 36
That winter brought news that lifted the palace's grief, however briefly, into something resembling genuine celebration.
Elena was pregnant.
She told her father first, finding him in his study on a quiet afternoon, watching snow fall across the gardens he loved.
"Papa."
He turned, and something in her expression told him before her words did.
"Elena."
"I'm going to have a child," she said, tears already forming, though this time from joy rather than grief. "You're going to be a grandfather."
The King rose slowly from his chair, crossing the room to embrace her with a strength Angelo hadn't seen from him in months.
"Then I have something worth fighting to see," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "A reason to hold on a little longer, beyond simple duty."
Angelo, standing quietly in the doorway, felt something shift in his chest — a fierce, unfamiliar protectiveness for a child not yet born, layered over everything else this family had already taught him about love.
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The news spread through the palace, then the kingdom, with a warmth that seemed to ease, however temporarily, the weight of the past year's grief.
The King, against his doctors' careful objections, insisted on remaining as active as possible through the pregnancy, determined, he said plainly, to meet his grandchild before anything else claimed his remaining time.
"I made a promise to myself," he told Elena, late one evening, resting a hand gently on her growing belly. "The week you first met your Angelo. That I wished to see you safe and happy before I passed."
"You have," Elena said softly. "Many times over now."
"I know." The King's eyes were bright. "But I confess, I would very much like to see one more thing, before I'm finished keeping that particular promise to myself."