Seven men walk out of my mother’s chamber that night, tightening their belts as they go. My father stands at the end of the hall with his new whore draped on his arm, watching Mother fall apart and enjoying every second of it. “You used to walk around like a true Wynne lady,” he says. “Too pure to share a roof with my Sera.” “Now half the town’s hands have been on you. Surely you can let me take Sera as my second wife.” Mother doesn’t scream. She doesn’t weep. She just walks to the hearth and drops his betrothal locket into the fire. The next morning, Father throws a wedding bigger than the one he gave Mother. Banners. Trumpets. Every lord and lady in the town is packed into our great hall. Seraphina glides down the aisle in white silk, smiling like she’s already won. I sit beside Mother, holding her cold hand under the table. Then it happens. A bundle of parchment comes raining down from the gallery above. Drawings. Dozens of them. My mother. Naked. On her knees. Strangers’ hands all over her. I lunge for them. I tear what I can reach. I throw my body over the ones I can’t. “Don’t look at her! Stop looking at her!” I scream until my throat tears. But everyone has already seen. The laughter starts low, then spreads like fire in dry hay. Father stands up. His face is purple. “If you love showing yourself off so much — then by God, I’ll let you show yourself off.” “Guards! Put her on the Wooden Horse!” I scream. I claw at the old nurse’s hands as she drags me from the hall. The Wooden Horse. I’ve heard the old nurse whisper about it before, “The cruelest thing they can do to a woman, my lady. That’s all you need to know.” Now, I see it: it’s a wooden beast, they make a woman ride, torn open between her legs — bleeding, ruined, no good for any man or any child, ever again. Their laughter follows me down the corridor. “A woman who’s ridden the Wooden Horse pisses herself the rest of her life. Might as well be dead.” “Generous of the Earl, sharing his own wife with us.” “Sweeter than any tavern girl, I’ll swear.” I go cold all over. The old nurse drags me back to my chamber. I’m not in my body anymore. I sit by the window all night. Mother doesn’t come. She doesn’t come at dawn either. It’s nearly noon when I’m finally allowed into her room. The smell hits me first. Blood and worse. She’s lying on the bed, eyes open, staring at nothing. Her nightgown is white, but under it she is every color a body shouldn’t be. Black. Purple. Yellow at the edges. “Mama —” My hand shakes too hard to touch her. I turn for the door, ready to scream for a physician — The curtain whips open. Father walks in with Seraphina painted up on his arm. He smells the room and recoils, pressing his sleeve over his nose. He looks down at Mother like she’s a stain on the floor. “Elinor. Stop performing.” “I told every man not to actually touch you. Must you put on this dying act?” I open my mouth to fight him. To tell him she’s broken in pieces. Mother grabs my wrist first. From under her pillow she pulls out a folded parchment. “Cedric.” Her voice is paper. “I want an annulment. I’ll take it to the bishop myself.” “I want nothing of this Keep. No gold. No land. No title.” “Only Pearl.” Father’s brow knots. Then he laughs, short and ugly. “Don’t be stupid, Elinor. Your father is dead. Your brother is dead. Your mother’s been dead since you were a girl. Where would you even go?” I freeze. So he remembers. He remembers that my uncle drew the heathen arrows off his back and died with a thousand of them in his chest, his body still lying somewhere in the wastelands without so much as a stone. He remembers my grandfather striking his own head against the throne room steps until the King granted him the seal that saved Father’s army. He remembers kneeling before the Wynne crest, sword in both hands, swearing on the blade: I, Cedric Thorne, will keep Elinor Wynne safe all my days. One wife. One love. No other. But “all my days” turned out to be three years. Three years before he came back from the northern wars with a woman on his saddle. Because she was an orphan, he said, Mother should be kind. Give Seraphina the best chambers. Because Seraphina sneezed at white roses, Mother’s garden — five years of her own hands in the soil — was ripped out by morning. And when Mother carried my baby brother, and Seraphina whispered the child’s stars would cross hers and shorten her life — Father held Mother down himself and forced a full cup of pennyroyal down her throat. She bled all night. I heard her scream through three walls. Father was in the great hall. Music. Wine. Seraphina on his lap. The drums drowned everything. That was the night the father who used to lift me onto his shoulders to watch the festival fires — died.
As if afraid Mother will say the word annulment again, Cedric snatches the parchment and throws it into the hearth. The flames eat it in a breath. He sighs, soft. Reaches out to stroke her hair the way he used to. Mother turns her face away. His hand stops in midair. He pulls back like she’s burned him, and his face goes black. “Tonight I’m taking Sera to the Queen’s feast. Give her your bridal circlet. The gold one. With the sapphires.” “No!” I’m on my feet before Mother can speak. “That belonged to my grandmother. It’s the only piece of she has left. No one touches it.” Seraphina’s eyes flood on cue. “My lord. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m not worthy of Lady Elinor’s heirlooms.” “I have no mother to leave me jewels. Let them laugh at me at court. I deserve it.” Father’s face drops to ice. “Elinor. This is how you raise my daughter? Sharp-tongued. No respect. Maybe she should be handed over to Sera from now on. Let Sera teach her what obedience looks like.” Mother goes white. She drags herself off the bed and puts her body between us. “Take the circlet. Take all of it. Don’t touch my girl.” Seraphina smiles, just for a flicker. Then, sweetly, “My lord. I’m afraid I’ll embarrass myself at the Queen’s table. Why not let Lady Elinor come along as my handmaid? She can guide me. Keep me from shaming you.” A highborn wife. Serving the whore as her maid. That isn’t guidance. That’s the knife twisting. “Done.” he doesn’t even pause. By dusk, they throw a servant’s dress through the door. Mother stands up. Every step makes her flinch. She pulls the rough cloth over her bruises body slow. I can’t stop crying. She wipes my face with her thumb. Then she presses something cool into my palm. A white bone hairpin, carved like a feather. “Pearl. Listen. I may not have much time left with you.” “When I’m gone, take this north. Find Lord Rowan Ashford. The Border Marquess. He was your grandfather’s sworn ward. He will protect you with his life.” I clutch the hairpin so hard it cuts my palm. I know what she is. A candle burned down to nothing. She fought. God knows she fought. When Seraphina first arrived, Mother set her up in a small house just outside the town — quietly, so she wouldn’t ruin my fame living with us. The next morning, Father called Mother jealous, and made her crawl on her knees down the road, all ten miles, to beg Seraphina back. Six months ago, when Mother woke up from the pennyroyal, she took a knife and went straight for Seraphina’s room. Cedric caught her at the door. He dragged her back by her hair and told her if she ever crossed Seraphina’s threshold again, he’d dig up Grandmother’s bones from the family crypt and scatter them to the dogs. Three days ago, filthy drawings of Seraphina from her whoring days started showing up all over Thornhold Keep. Father decided Mother had done it. That same night, he drugged Mother and locked her in a room with seven beggars. That was when the last light went out of her eyes. I curl into her thin chest and feel every rib. “Mama —”
Seraphina isn’t finished with us. At the Queen’s feast, she makes a show of it. “Wynne, pour the wine.” “Wynne, on your knees with the cup.” “Wynne, hold my hem.” Every lady at court sees it. Elinor Wynne. Lord Cedric Thorne’s own wife. On her knees. Serving a whore. When she’s drunk on it, she leads us out to the gardens, to a quiet lake under the willows. She pulls a gold earring from her ear and flicks it into the water. “Pick it up.” Mother doesn’t move. “You’re my maid now, Wynne! You do what I say!” Mother’s voice is ice. “Dress a whore in silk. She’s still a whore.” Seraphina’s hand snaps back to strike. I throw myself in front of Mother. “Don’t you touch her!” “You little bitch —” She swings for me instead. Mother pulls me in fast and Seraphina’s nails rake down her throat. Four red lines. For one second, my mother looks like a Wynne again. Back straight. Chin up. Seraphina actually steps back. Then she laughs. “A cat with no teeth. All hiss, no bite.” “Fine. Don’t pick it up. But your daughter will pay for every minute you make me wait.” “You wouldn’t dare.” Mother’s eyes blaze. “Pearl is the heir of Thorne family. Touch her and I’ll come back from the grave for you.” “Oh, I know.” Seraphina smiles. “Half the families in the capital want a marriage contract with her. Should I tell Cedric to give her to Lord Coren’s son? Or the Chancellor’s boy?” Both of them are known monsters. One has buried three chambermaids. The other likes to share his women with his hunting hounds. Mother shakes. Then she nods, jaw locked. “I’ll pick it up.” The lake is autumn-cold. Mother wades in step by step. Her lips turn blue inside a minute. Her face goes grey. “Mama, come out! Please come out —” Seraphina backhands me across the mouth. Then again. “Shut up, you little bitch. One more sound and I’ll cut your tongue out.” I taste blood and I do not look away from her. Then a voice cuts through the willows. “What in God’s name is going on?” Cedric. Seraphina moves like a snake. She grabs my hand, presses it flat against her chest — and throws herself backwards over the railing. The splash sends water up the bank. Cedric doesn’t even look at the lake. He dives straight for her. He drags her up against his chest, white with terror, and doesn’t see — doesn’t see — Mother going under in the middle of the lake. It’s one of the Queen’s guards who runs for Mother. Pulls her out half-drowned. Seraphina is shaking in Cedric’s arms, soaked and beautiful. She sees me and screams. “No — please — my lady, I’m sorry — don’t strike me again —” “I never touched you!” I point at the marks on my own face. “She made my mother go into the lake! She hit me! She called me a bitch and shout at my mother —” Cedric finally looks at Mother. She is barely breathing. Something passes through his face. Something almost guilty. Seraphina sobs into his chest. “Lady Elinor hates me, I know. But to make her own child lie for her — to teach the girl such cruelty —” “Yes, I hit the child. She called me a thousand-man whore. She spat on my dead mother’s name —” “I’m low-born, but I have my pride. I’d rather die than bear this —” She lurches toward the lake again. Cedric catches her, of course. “Enough.” Cedric’s eyes go black. “Guards. Take Pearl to the chapel. Twenty lashes.” Mother throws herself in front of me. “I raised her. If anyone is to be whipped, whip me.” Father’s mouth twists. “Forty.” … The family chapel is cold as a tomb. Mother kneels on the flagstones. She is already swaying. The whip is leather, soaked in salt water. The first stroke opens her like wet parchment. Blood runs along the cracks between the stones and pools dark at her knees. I throw myself at Cedric’s feet. I claw at his boots. I press my face into the stone and beg until my voice gives out. “Please — please — I’ll do anything —” My tears run down my cheek. No one stops it. At forty, she coughs up a mouthful of blood and folds sideways onto the stone. I carry her back myself to her chambers. I send for the physician. I sit by her bed until my eyes won’t stay open. I slump against the edge of the bed and sleep takes me whether I want it or not. Sometime before dawn, someone comes in. Cedric. He kneels by her bed. His fingers shake as he lifts the cloth from her back. When he sees what’s under it, his whole body folds. A tear lands on her ruined skin. He starts dressing the wounds himself. His voice is wrecked. “Elinor. Why must you be so stubborn.” “Sera came from filth, yes, but her soul is good. She saved my life in the north. I’d be a corpse in the wastelands without her.” “Fine. If you truly hate her so much — I’ll send her away once she’s given me a child.” “And it’ll be the three of us again. The way it was.” I keep my eyes shut. There is no the three of us anymore.
Watch👉 https://cps-front.novelix.live/app-api/ext/new/20260709YUqM9RZFd5 🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “Novelix” app 🔍 search for “ni782160”, and watch the full series ✨! #Novelix
Leave a Reply