Chapter 2
When I awoke the next morning, the burns on my body had already been treated.
In my haze, I realized I was no longer in the Forsaken Wing. This was the king’s own bedchamber.
Memories stirred. Back when my father was still alive, he would gather my brother and me here to read and write by candlelight.
My mother used to bring us her handmade almond tartlets.
I could no longer recall their taste.
“You’re awake”
Alaric approached expressionlessly, seized my chin, forced a bitter elixir down my throat.
His grip was strong. I choked and teared up from the bitterness.
“Don’t look at me with those pitiful eyes, Seraphina.”
A cold sneer tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Even if your hands are clean of my people’s blood, your birth into the royal house condemns you all the same.”
On the day my kingdom fell, he wiped out the entire Ravenshire bloodline.
Even the child in my womb–his own flesh and blood–he showed no mercy.
I was the only one he spared.
I couldn’t understand was this love, or hate?
It had to be hate.
That’s why he later made me soak night after night in the herb–laced freezing pools.
To ensure I would never bear another child. He didn’t want me carrying his seed.
He despised my blood. Called it tainted.
I wiped the corner of my mouth, still tasting the bitter medicine. Just as I opened my lips to speak, a servant’s voice echoed from outside.
“Your Majesty! The royal physician has confirmed–Her Grace the Queen Is with child!”
Alaric froze, then his voice rose, tense with anticipation. “Are you certain? Evelynk is pregnant?”
I stared at him, dazed, watching as joy lit his face at the thought of becoming a father.
The gnawing hexworms within me awakened. My hand instinctively clutched my chest. The pain there was blinding
I had planned to die quietly, alone in the Forsaken Win
But Alaric had other intentions. He chose this of all times to order me to serve Evelyne
He knew exactly how to break me.
Death would have been mercy. He wanted me alive. Wanted me to watch while another woman carried his child.
Our own child had been carved out of me with its own order, buried in a nameless grave behind the mausoleum–no marker, no memory
Evelyne greeted me with a sinile as soft as satin.
“My dear lady, His Majesty has asked you to assist me in my condition, but I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with anything too demanding. Why don’t you simply sweep the fallen petals from the front courtyard?”
Chapter 2
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I picked up a broom and stepped outside, where the courtyard lay buried in fallen roses.
The other maids didn’t bother hiding their contempt. Their eyes rolled; their voices dripped disdain.
“A princess from a fallen house… she should’ve rotted in the wing and counted herself lucky. Our queen is far too kind, still calling her ‘lady‘ as if she were someone.
“Noble blood,” they say? She’s not even fit to serve as a concubine. If I were her, I’d be too ashamed to cling to life.”
Slowly, red rashes bloomed across my skin
My breaths came in shallow gasps. Then, warmth trickled from my nose.
I reached up, stunned to feel blood.
“Aaah!”
Evelyne saw my face and screamed in shock.
Alaric arrived in seconds, and without a word, struck me across the tace.
The force sent me sprawling into a swirl of petals, coughing violently.
“Evelyne can’t bear the stench of blood! Did you mean to harm her deliberately?”
His gaze cut like winter steel. “Is this your twisted revenge? Because your own child is dead, you want others to suffer too? Seraphina, have you forgotten the price of defiance?”
How could I ever forget?
1 knelt on the stone path, skin itching, chest burning, voice trembling,
my
“It’s all my fault… I am begging Your Majesty for mercy…”
“Your Majesty has already desecrated my mother’s corpse beyond all semblance. My father and brother’s graves lie scattered as dust. L…I have nothing left”
Alaric crouched before me, lifting my chin with two fingers.
His smile was faint, almost cruel. “Who told you that?”
“Isn’t there still one buried behind the mausoleum?”
