Page 151 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

It’s mine.

I’m the one screaming.

And then I’m back in the attic—in this version of the attic, in this space and time, except not all of it is real, because Nox is here with me, and he’s wrapped his arms around me from behind, and I can feel his body trembling against my back. Or maybe it’s my back trembling against his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Blaise. I’m so so sorry,” the ghost of his memory whispers into my ear.

Where is my baby?

I don’t realize I’ve said it aloud until Clarissa answers.

“The baby was stillborn.”

Stillborn. The word slices, like the thin edge of a dagger through the sinews between my ribs.

“It didn’t survive the womb, much like your several elder brothers and sisters,” Clarissa says. “You were already hysterical, making up names for the child and drawing pictures and pretending you would be the one to nurse it.”

“You lied.” It’s more of a whisper than anything.

Clarissa stares up at me from the floor, and there’s no mistaking the pity in her eyes, but it’s not the kind sort. It’s the sort that sparks resentment. Despising.

“You were not equipped for the truth.”

Dead. My baby was born dead.

Suddenly, the air ceases allowing my lungs to take from its supply.

Maybe it thinks that because my baby is dead, I should be too.

But my baby has been dead for six years, and I have gone on living.

A thousand hopes, a million whispered memories cascade from my mind, taking form before spilling from the spaces between my fingertips.

Rose learning to ride a horse. But Rose is dead.

Theo scraping his knee on the gravel. But Theo is dead, too.

A blue-eyed boy who never existed.

A brown-haired girl who never opened her eyes.

All those windows I peered through, all those nights I spent whispering to the stars, hoping the wind would carry my voice into my child’s ears and ward off the nightmares.

All unnecessary.

My child never had to worry over nightmares.

My child is dead.

Has always been dead.

Suddenly I can breathe again, and the only scent on the wind is that of Clarissa’s pulsing blood.

“You.”

The whisper of Nox’s hands tightens around me at the word.

Clarissa doesn’t cower, though. She’s too proud for that. “I granted you a gift, child. Peace you couldn’t have ever imagined.”

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