Episode Ten

Mira's POV:

My father blinked once, slowly, like the words had not yet reached him.

"In two days?” His eyes furrowed in shock “Mira! Are you sure about that?"

"You are the one who has wanted me to marry Alder all this while, Father. Why are you suddenly acting like you care?"

He opened his mouth but closed it. There was a flush of guilt on his face, but I had stopped waiting for him to feel things on my behalf a long time ago.

"If that is what you want, then fine. I will speak to the cartel and begin the preparations. As for your outfit, Elara can take you……"

"No need." I cut her off. "Elara is not my mother. And no matter how many times you push her into that role, it will never change what you did. You betrayed my mother. You caused her death and Elara is not my mother!"

I let that sit right where it landed, that way he would know that I haven’t forgotten. Not even once. what happened to my mother.

Then I walked out before he could form a single word in response.

By nine in the morning, breakfast had been laid out in the large dining room. I took the seat at the far end of the table, as far from the rest of them as the space allowed. Elara sat beside my father, Alina across from her. I kept my eyes down and my thoughts to myself.

"So, Mira." Elara broke the silence after a few minutes, her voice carrying that particular softness she used when she wanted to appear harmless in front of my father.

"Your father told me about the wedding date. Congratulations. Though I do wonder, why so soon? You have barely had time to know this man."

"Because I can’t wait to leave this house!"

I blurted out without looking up. I meant every word.

"Oh." A pause. "Well, if you need help selecting a dress, I do have a good eye for ……"

"Alder has a full fashion house," I said, finally lifting my gaze. "With professional designers on staff. I’ll be well taken care of. I don’t need help from an amateur like you."

I watched Alina's face tighten from across the table. Her jaw locked. Her eyes cut into me like she was calculating something behind them. If she could have reached across that table and taken everything from me at that moment, she would have.

I opened my mouth to say something else.

And then it hit me.

A sudden, deep pressure lodged itself just beneath my ribs like something had been shoved inside my chest. I pressed my hand to my stomach without thinking.

My throat tightened as the smell of the food on the table, the butter, the warm bread, the eggs, it all turned at once.

The food left my mouth before I could stop it.

"Is everything alright?" my father asked, his eyes landed on me with concern.

Everyone had gone still. All eyes on me.

"Food poisoning," I said quickly, pressing the back of my hand to my lips. "I am fine. I just need the bathroom." I explained knowing that there was no way I would tell them that it was the pregnancy hormones doing a number at me.

I did not wait for a response. I pushed back from the table and moved fast, cutting through the hallway toward the guest bathroom downstairs because going upstairs would cost me time I did not have.

I made it through the door and as soon as I did, I fell to my knees.

Pain tore through my abdomen without warning, it wasn’t a cramp or a nausea, something far deeper and far worse.

The pain was so intense like a twisting, wrenching force that moved through me like my body was being wrung from the inside. I gripped the edge of the toilet bowl, knuckles pale, arms shaking and body trembling.

My stomach heaved again and again, even when there was nothing left. The muscles seized, pulling tight, refusing to release.

I pressed my forehead against the cool porcelain

and tried to breathe.

I could not breathe.

My fingers slipped as I caught myself on my palms against the floor, my arms trembling under my weight. Sweat drenched my face and neck, soaking into the collar of my dress.

Get up! I told myself. Get up.

My body refused.

The pain was no longer coming in waves. It was constant now, a hard terrible pressure building low in my abdomen, spreading upward, filling my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs with each passing second.

I curled onto my side on the bathroom floor, knees drawn to my chest, hands pressed against my stomach as the pain tore through me.

This wasn’t morning sickness.

This wasn’t nerves, or grief, or the stress of the last few weeks catching up to me.

Something inside me was wrong seriously wrong. And with every second I lay on that floor, unable to move, unable to call for help, unable to do anything but endure it, I understood with cold, absolute certainty that whatever was happening to me was not going to stop on its own.

And if no one came through that door soon…

I wasn’t going to make it to my wedding day.