Chapter 3

3.

The guards threw me into the servants' quarters.

Alaric had ordered them to starve me and deny me medical care. He wanted me to break. He wanted me to crawl to him and beg for forgiveness.

But he didn't understand how cruel servants could be to someone who had fallen from grace.

They threw my blankets into the snow and refused to give me even a cup of hot water. They even piled snow onto my thin mattress.

I clutched my aching stomach and begged for a drink, but they only rolled their eyes.

I spent days in a delirious haze. When I still didn't beg for mercy, Alaric finally decided to visit.

By then, I was burning up with a fever.

My untreated wounds had turned into a festering mess. He roared at the maids, "She is severely injured! Why hasn't a doctor seen her?"

I started trembling with laughter, tears streaming down my face.

He was the one who ordered the doctors to stay with Celine. In this entire estate, I couldn't even get a bandage.

With the Prince's command, a doctor finally hurried in to check my pulse.

The doctor's face grew more serious by the second.

"Miss Lyra has suffered severe internal damage. Because it wasn't treated... she will never be able to have children again..."

I gripped the fabric over my stomach and smiled. "Good. That's for the best."

If I had no children, I would never have to feel the pain of losing one again.

Thinking about how the baby died, even the cold-hearted Prince Alaric choked up with guilt.

That night, I had begged every passerby to save my child. They had all said the same thing: "Miss Celine wants him dead. Who would dare to save him?"

It turns out the horse that crushed me was wearing the Sterling family crest.

And not far away, on a balcony, Alaric and Celine had been standing together. He was gently placing a hairpin in her hair while the crowd cheered.

The noise of the street had drowned out my screams for help.

Nobody remembered that it was my birthday, too.