Chapter 3

Corinna's POV

I drag myself back to the present and push down the burn behind my eyes.

Aldric is already gone, taking the guards with him.

It's just Kalen now. He's done setting up. He lifts the surgical blade and walks toward me.

"Celia can't wait any longer," he says, looking down at me. "There's no time for anesthesia. The healing magic goes entirely to keeping the baby viable, so this is going to hurt. Just bear it."

No anesthesia. No healing magic for me.

I listen to my own brother sentence me to death like he's reading off a grocery list, and I can't even work up the anger to respond.

"Kalen." I open my eyes and look at him. "Do you remember what you promised me? When I was ten?"

His hand pauses. His brow pulls together. "What?"

I turn my head and work my fingers into the collar of my gown, pulling out a single dried, yellowed leaf.

Kalen climbed the cliffs to get it for me when I was ten years old. Said he wanted to cheer me up. He told me that as long as I held onto it, he'd grant me anything I asked for.

He sees it and goes still. Something complicated flickers through his eyes, so fast I almost miss it. Then it's gone, buried under the same cold expression he's been wearing all night.

"You're pulling that out now?" A short, humorless laugh. "You think that changes anything? Don't be naive."

"No." My voice is weak but steady. "I want to use it for one thing."

"If I die on this table, burn my body and scatter the ashes in the Sea of Sighs. Don't let anyone touch my remains. Especially not any of you. I don't want anything to do with any of you. Not in this life. Not in any life after this."

His expression darkens. "You're not going to die. We're pulling a pre-term baby and taking some heart's blood. The Institute has everything we need to keep you going. You'll walk out of here just like you always do."

"Promise me."

The look in my eyes cuts through something. He turns away. "Fine. Whatever."

Then footsteps in the hallway, fast and heavy.

My parents push through the door with a few guards behind them.

My mother walks straight to Kalen without so much as a glance at me. "Is everything ready? How much longer for the elixir?"

"We're starting now." Kalen's voice softens the moment he turns to her.

My father crosses to my bed, pulls a folded piece of parchment from his coat and slaps it down beside my face.

"Sign it."

I strain to read it. Voluntary Surrogacy and Child Adoption Contract.

"What is this?" My voice comes out raw.

"Celia can never have children because of the curse." My mother looks down at me like she's explaining something obvious. "People are already talking, saying she's useless, that she can't carry on the family line. Once the baby is born, we tell everyone you were carrying for her. The child goes on her registry. She raises it. This way we save her life and protect her reputation at the same time."

I stare at the two people who raised me and feel something close to a laugh rising in my throat.

Harvesting my child wasn't enough. Now they want to strip me of being his mother too. Turn the life I carried through every nightmare into a prop to salvage Celia's reputation.

"And if I don't sign?" I bite down hard. I can taste blood.

My mother's eyes go wide. "You're seriously saying no to us right now?"

"My child is not going to grow up calling a liar his mother."

"You don't have a choice." My father's hand comes across my face, hard.

My head snaps to the side. My ears ring.

"This family gave you your life! Celia has been suffering in your place for years. You can't do this one thing for her?"

That slap severs something. The last thread I had left.

My parents were the ones I used my first chance on. I was so naive — I actually thought blood would be enough, that they'd love me simply because I was theirs.

But Celia kept coughing up blood, kept saying in her sweet voice how much she admired me, and quietly took everything I had. Every time I tried to tell them the truth, that I was the one with the curse, their eyes just got colder. More distant each time.

Eventually they stopped seeing me at all. I became invisible in my own home. Family dinners, trips, clothes, jewelry — it was all Celia, always Celia.

I couldn't stand it. I started slipping out alone whenever I could. That's how I met Aldric.

The memory of our wedding surfaces before I can stop it.

It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. I was in my gown, waiting for him to come for me.

Then Celia started screaming in the next room. She wanted to wear a wedding dress too. She said she was running out of time and just wanted to know what it felt like.

My parents burst into my room and pulled the gown off my body. Put it on her instead.

I watched Celia take Aldric's arm and walk down the aisle, rose petals scattered at their feet.

That day, my mother locked me in my room and said, "Corinna, Celia has so little time left. You're healthy. You have your whole life ahead of you. Giving her this moment is the least you can do."