As if to prepare me.
“I need to tell you something.”
A pause.
A breath.
“You’re with child.”
The words hit me like a storm.
A gasp ripped through my throat, raw, ragged—leaving me breathless.
I yanked my hands from hers, pressing them to my eyes as if to block out the world.
But it was too late.
Tears spilled over, tracing silver paths down my cheeks.
Amir’s child.
But now he was gone.
Lost to the darkness that had claimed him—and now, part of him lived on within me.
My heart pounded a frantic rhythm of dread and helplessness.
“My father will kill me,” I whispered, the words barely audible above the thunder in my chest.
Mary’s face paled.
“Does he know?”
“No, my lady.”
Mary’s hand rested gently on my arm, her touch grounding.
“I convinced the doctor that his suspicions were due to your stress.He’s mistaken, I told him.No one knows but me.”
Relief warred with dread in my chest, a storm of contradictions I could barely contain.
Mary’s gaze searched mine, her voice barely a whisper.
“Could it be true?”
The question hovered, a ghost on her lips.
But she already knew.
We both did.
“Yes.”
The word scraped from my throat like a shard of glass.
“Amir and I… we fell in love.”
Mary’s eyes lit with wonder, a smile blooming across her face like sunlight after a storm.
