Chapter 140 Caelum

• I wake to someone calling my name, their voice heavy with urgency and warm hands shaking my shoulder insistently. It’s Aria. The room is steeped in the dim light of dawn, the timid moonlight slipping through the partially open curtains and illuminating her tense, pain-stricken face.
• “Caelum… the baby’s coming!” Her voice trembles, breathless, as if every word is a struggle. “My water broke.”
• In an instant, my mind snaps fully awake, sleep abandoned as though it had never existed. I leap out of bed, my heart pounding as if I were about to charge into battle. My first instinct is to help her sit in the nearby chair, my hands steadying her arms with care, though my entire being is on high alert, focused solely on her and the baby’s safety.