Chapter 4
Mirelle's POV
Caspian froze.
His hands clamped into tight fists on his knees.
"Say that again."
His voice was dangerously low, vibrating with absolute fury.
Physician Barlow trembled violently on the floor. "My physical examination leaves absolutely no doubt, Sire! The High Consort is with child! I beg for your mercy!"
Lysette dropped to her knees beside the physician, tears instantly pooling in her eyes. "This is all my fault, Your Majesty."
"If it weren't for my past mistakes, my sister never would have been sent to the Border Garrison... where she was left unguarded to take a lover among the men. Please, punish me instead."
Caspian ignored Lysette entirely. Without a second thought for my grievous injuries, he hauled me up from the bed by my arm.
"You wretched woman," he snarled. "I sent you to the garrison to learn discipline and atone for your sins. Instead, you took men behind my back and got yourself pregnant with a bastard child."
I slumped against the bed, too weak to hold myself upright, and lowered my head.
He had no idea.
During my three years at the border garrison, my body had been pushed far beyond its breaking point.
The relentless physical abuse and the brutal, freezing winters had slowly destroyed me from the inside out.
Combined with the wild frostbane herb I had secretly consumed just to numb the agonizing pain, my body was entirely ruined.
The freezing toxin had stripped away any chance I ever had of becoming a mother again.
"I was wrong," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I will never do it again."
Three years of brutal breaking at the garrison had taught me one simple rule: only total, blind submission could spare me from more agony.
But looking at me now, Caspian seemed ready to strangle me himself.
He reached out and seized my chin in a bruising grip. "Acting obedient won't save you now. Tell me. Who is the man?"
I forced myself to endure his grip, though the room was spinning and my vision was blurring.
"I don't know who it was... Please, just let me go."
As I spoke, a sickening metallic taste flooded my mouth.
Dark, heavy blood spilled over my cracked lips.
Caspian scowled in disgust and shoved me aside. "Still faking it. The physician already assured me your body is fine. Don't think biting your lip will make me forgive you."
He wiped my blood from his fingers with a handkerchief, a thick vein throbbing at his temple.
"Force the medicine down her throat. That child will not live."
I didn't know what bitter concoction they poured down my throat.
I only felt a sudden, agonizing stabbing in my lower abdomen. The pain was unbearable, acting like crushed glass ripping through my insides.
It didn't stop until the bleeding finally began.
Only when a pool of red soaked the sheets did Caspian seem to let out a long breath of relief.
"If anyone breathes a single word of what happened today," Caspian warned the room, his eyes dark, "I will execute their entire household."
Once Caspian swept out of the room, Lysette stepped close to my bed.
"Mirelle Veren," she practically purred. "Did you honestly think you could come back here and claim the Queen's crown?"
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper. "You filthy thing. I don't even have to lift a finger, and you're already out of time."
"Just lay there and watch me take the throne that was supposed to be yours."
I couldn't respond.
The frostbane poison had finally seeped deep into the marrow of my bones.
Instead, a suffocating, icy numbness paralyzed my limbs.
The frostbane poison was finally shutting down my organs.
I lay on the blood-soaked bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Seeing that I wasn't responding to her taunts, Lysette assumed I was just stubbornly ignoring her.
She rolled her eyes and ordered all the servants out of the room. "No one is to tend to her without my explicit permission."
Outside my locked doors, rumors spread like wildfire.
Through the suffocating haze, I caught the cruel whispers of passing servants.
Everyone in the palace whispered that the High Consort was unclean and had carried a bastard.
In the Royal Court, the Lords of the Council relentlessly pressured Caspian to strip me of my titles.
Some even demanded I be publicly executed as a warning to all.
But to everyone's absolute shock, he shut them down.
Against the fury of his own council, Caspian chose to protect me.
Late that night, he came alone to the heavy doors of my chambers.
He reeked of strong liquor, his crown slightly askew.
"Mirelle," he muttered to the locked door, swaying slightly. "You have disappointed me so much."
He stared at the wood, his eyes bloodshot. "Why did you betray me? I treated you so well... why?"
He took another long gulp from his flask, shouting into the empty hallway. "I've made my decision! As long as you give me your heart again, I will let the past go. Tomorrow... tomorrow I will crown you my Queen."
Trapped in the frozen dark of my own dying body, I could only offer a bitter, silent smile in my mind.
They were nothing but the senseless, arrogant ramblings of a drunk man.
Besides, how could a dying woman ever wear a queen's crown?
With that final, exhausting thought, my pulse fluttered one last time.
The darkness rushed in, and it finally took me away forever.
Caspian's POV
The next morning, a royal herald practically stumbled into the my study, his face stark white with sheer terror.
"Sire! Terrible news! The Queen... she has passed away!"
