I exit the room with a weighed-down spirit. Mist’s death, the death of her innocent child, are tragedies. I’m shaken with the fault of them, because both lines lead back directly to me. Stopping in the corridor, my body slumps against the wall. I place my forehead against it, shoulders curled in, eyelids squeezed tight. I always wanted to be a mother. Not just because the kingdom expected it, not just to make an heir, but to have a love that could be mine. To love a child, the way my mother had loved me. Yet the Divine gods were right to deny me my wish. I would’ve failed at that too. Ice
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