Content Warning:

Depictions of grief, postpartum depression.

Scroll down for the chapter.

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The kingdom held a funeral service for the stillborn prince, but it was all for show. The intricate marble coffin, sized for an adult, was the one Gwynnyth commissioned for herself in case she died in childbirth. Anders didn’t tell the mourners it was empty.

Nobody had even seen the child except for the King, the Queen, the midwife team, and several clergymen. Priests had tried and failed to stop the stillborn from crying. Whatever demon made it howl could not be exorcised. Plunging blades into its tiny form yielded no results. They suggested burning it, but Anders neither had the heart to try nor wanted the publicity of an open flame. At last, they sealed the child’s body in an iron box lined with silver, which muffled its cries and prevented its hellish vapors from escaping. 

Anders swore everyone who witnessed the incident to complete secrecy under threat of death. He ordered several miners to bury the box deep beneath the kingdom where it could never be found again, but did not tell them what was inside. As they carried the box away, he had to restrain himself from screaming. 

A fog of grief settled over the once merry kingdom. Those who had partied now mourned.

Gwynnyth would not leave the mausoleum. She knelt at the ceremonial coffin for hours a day, praying, tormenting herself over how the events transpired.

To bear a child. The one task a woman was expected to do. For nine months, she had felt him squirm and kick in her belly. The baby she bore was not alive, but not quite dead either. She could still feel the priests ripping him away from her. On each of her prayer beads, she begged for God’s mercy. Forgive me. Forgive me. Whatever I did to ruin this all, whatever I did to turn him into that thing, forgive me.

Anders held her tight, sobbing. “You’re not the one to blame for what happened. I am. This is all my fault.”

Gwynnyth barely even registered him. Her son’s cries rang through her head.