Chapter 4

The handwriting was firm and unmistakable. I knew who had written it.

My fingers curled around the paper until my nails dug into my skin.

Endure?

Why should I endure?

For some so-called greater plan?

So he could continue using Cedric as his weapon without interference?

I looked at Eliza, protected at the center of Cedric's attention, then at my own broken, failing body.

Why was it that everyone else could have what they wantedwhile I was the one who had to be sacrificed?

Why should I endure?

Hatred and resentment churned in my chest.

I crushed the note in my hand. Whatever warmth or hope remained inside me finally went dark.

The first snowfall of winter blanketed the capital.

Heavy, downy flakes drifted endlessly from the sky, quickly covering the entire estate in a vast expanse of white.

My western wing, long neglected, lay buried under deep snow that reached past my ankles. It felt colder than any other place on the grounds.

My body followed the same path. Colder with each passing day.

I had gone three days without food or water. I was thin to the point of distortion, reduced to little more than a pair of hollow, oversized eyes.

I had gone three days without food or water. I was thin to the point of distortion, reduced to little more than a pair of hollow, oversized eyes.

"My lady, please," she begged. "Just eat a little. Please… if this continues, your body won't survive it."

I shook my head, so weak I could hardly speak.

I knew my time was running out.

That afternoon, Cedric came.

He came alone. Eliza was not with him.

He carried the cold of the snowstorm with him as he stood at my bedside, looking down at me from above. In his hand was a single sheet of paper.

"The flowers outside the city have bloomed," he said flatly. "Eliza wants to go see them. She says she doesn't want to remain by my side without a proper title."

He unfolded the paper and handed it to me.

It was a letter of separation.

The bold black letters burned my eyes.

And yet, my heart was strangely calm. Completely still.

Perhaps I had already gone numb.

I looked at him. At the man I had loved for three years. The man for whom I had given everything.

His face was still handsome. But there was not a trace of compassion left in his eyes.

Then he finally said the words I had rehearsed countless times in my nightmares. Words that still shattered me all the same.

"Helena, you've occupied the position of lady of this house for three years. It's time to return it to its rightful owner," he said.

I laughed. I couldn't stop myself. Laughed until it turned into violent coughing, until it felt like my chest was being torn apart from the inside.

The rightful owner.

So I was never the rightful one.

I was nothing more than a thief, living in someone else's place.

Cedric watched me as I laughed uncontrollably. The sound came out sharp and broken, almost hysterical. His brows knit together, as if he had decided that grief had finally driven me mad.

"Sign it," he said, his voice flat and distant. "We part on good terms. Whatever you want, gold, land, property, I'll make it right."

Make it right?

With what?

With the three years of my youth I had thrown away for him?