I look over my shoulder at the servant’s entrance cut into the wall, and see the door is slightly ajar. I walk over and pull it open, glancing inside the narrow corridor, and I hear the sound again. It’s a woman’s voice.
Perhaps not all the servants have been alerted that they’re safe? That the fae are no longer here?
I walk down the corridor, following the sound. When I get nearer, I push open a creaky door, finding one of the servants’ shared sleeping rooms. There are several beds inside, all of them built with two layers so one could sleep above the other. The window is open, no curtain in sight, and the room is empty, save for one woman lying on a bed.
She mutters something.
“Hello? Are you alright?”
I receive no clear answer, and my brow furrows as I walk further in. I stop at her bedside, and recognition comes instantly.
Mist.
The saddle woman whom Queen Kaila brought back to Highbell. The woman who…
I swallow hard and glance down at her stomach—at what should be a pregnant belly jutting up. Instead, bloodstains steal my sight. The blood coats the layers of bedding, taking up the expanse from one side to the other.
“Mist?” I call.
My eyes fly up to her face, and her closed eyes flicker, lips uttering something nonsensical. She looks so poorly, skin tone off, black hair limp.
I glance around the room and see bloodied rags on the floor and a tipped-over bowl. Horror washes through me and I latch onto her shoulder and shake. Her skin is searing hot beneath her clothes, nearly burning my icy fingers. “Mist?”
Her brown eyes snap open and she blinks several times, though the bleariness in her gaze doesn’t go away.
“Can you hear me?”
She settles her attention on me and frowns in confusion. “The cold queen’s in the saddle wing? But she never comes in here…”
“Mist, you’re not in the saddle wing. You’re in a servant’s room and you’re…” My words choke off, gaze flicking again to the blood. So much blood. “I’m going to get you help.”
The moment I say the last word, her eyes go from dazed to clear, and a wild desperation enters her face that’s as jarring as the way she suddenly lashes out and grips my arm. “They came!” she cries, terror bulging the words and making her voice burst with it. “The fae came in—we couldn’t keep them out. I hid but I started to bleed… Ithurt…”
I swallow hard, my skin pinching where she clutches me. “What happened?”
“My baby.” She starts sobbing in earnest, tears contorting her face. “I pushed and pushed. For so long. I was alone.” Teardrops fall from her eyes, soaking her shirt, landing on my hand. “I tried to be quiet, but then I finally got him out…”
My throat cinches. Him. Aboy.
Her eyes are so filled with tears it’s difficult to imagine them not having this depth of misery.
“He was born with sandy hair, just like the king. So beautiful…”
Her wails are torn, ripping right through her, and I’m utterly stricken.
“I tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t… He never breathed. And then the fae came and took him out.They took him.”
My hand covers my mouth, tears burning holes in the corners of my eyes as she starts to wail, and my heart breaks.
Devastatingly so.
When Tyndall wrote to me about impregnating his saddle, I seethed. I hated. Both him and her, and even the child who was innocent in it all. When he dared to demand that I pretend it was my heir, I wished every terrible thing on them. Wished for atrocious things becauseIam atrocious.
I wish I could take it all back.
Her sobs choke out with severed inhales, her frail body utterly spent. “I’m alone,” she whispers through exhausted misery. “Queen Kaila said I would get the best care, but she’s gone. I was alone the whole time, and I’m alone now.”
I sit down on the bed next to her and grip her hand tight. “You arenotalone.”
