I lifted my head slightly. The year’s first snow was drifting down in silent flakes, settling on my lashes and soaking into my hair. The world felt unreal, like I had already crossed halfway into another life.
The snowfall thickened until I could barely keep my eyes open. My limbs were heavy, distant, as though they no longer belonged to me. The cold finally dragged me under, and just before everything went dark, I heard a guard shout in alarm.
“Sir, she’s passed out!”
Stephen didn’t even glance my way.
“Wake her up,” he said flatly. “She’s not done kneeling.”
A bucket of freezing water slammed into my face. I choked violently, coughing until my chest felt like it was tearing apart. My heart was failing, my whole body screaming, yet all I did was count the seconds in my head, unwilling to waste the few I had left before the funeral home came for me.
Inside the ward, Seraphina was wrapped around Stephen, shaking like she might shatter.
“Our babies… they’re gone,” she whispered through sobs.
He stroked her hair tenderly, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.
“Don’t cry. We can try again. I won’t let this pain be for nothing.”
She stared down at her now-flat stomach and broke down again.
“I have nothing. No family, no child, no standing. What’s left for me? Maybe I should just—”
“Don’t say that,” he cut in sharply.
She pulled away, eyes red and swollen.
“Stephen… can I replace Amelia? Can I be your wife in this life?”
The room fell silent.
The guard knocked once more. “Sir, she’s fainted again. We can’t wake her this time.”
Stephen finally stepped out and stared at me sprawled in the snow. My skin was drained of color, my lips tinged blue, my soaked white dress clinging to me like a shroud.
“Call a doctor,” he snapped. “Just don’t let her die.”
Even now, punishment came first.
I was jolted awake by an injection, barely conscious before I was hauled onto a small boat. My fingers were frozen, useless, as someone pressed an urn into my hands. Stephen stood nearby, expression glacial. Seraphina, bundled in layers, leaned weakly against him.
When we reached open water, he said only, “Begin.”
I wobbled to the railing, the wind slicing through my bones. I looked at the urn and gave a hollow laugh. My life had been nothing but wounds — now even this final task was forced upon me.
Seraphina crept closer, her tone deceptively gentle.
“Amelia… how does it feel, scattering our babies by yourself?”
I ignored her and lifted the lid. At that moment, she shoved me. The urn slipped free and vanished into the sea.
“My children!” she screamed, pretending to lunge after it.
Stephen pulled her back at once.
“Seraphina, stop!”
Then he turned on me, eyes blazing.
“You did that deliberately!”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Just like she pushed me deliberately.”
Seraphina clung to him, sobbing. He wrapped her in his arms as though she were porcelain.
“Retrieve it,” he ordered me.
“It’s gone,” I replied.
“Then jump in and find it.”
I met his gaze, strangely peaceful.
“Alright.”
I stepped off the boat.
The water swallowed me whole, my white dress floating briefly before sinking into blackness. Stephen shouted something behind me, but it was distant, fading.
Seraphina cried out weakly, clutching her chest.
“Stephen, I don’t feel well…”
He stared at the sea for a moment, then said, “Send another boat. She can swim. Head back and call an ambulance.”
The water numbed everything. I stopped struggling. My thoughts blurred, darkness closing in.
The burial, the punishment, the pain — it was finally over.
At last, I was free.
