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D aisy ended up in the garden, pacing frantic and unseeing down the familiar winding paths. She was pregnant. Pregnant . Pregnant .

Gods, she’d been so stupid. To again ignore all those doubts and whispers and warnings, all silently shouting and waving at her. So she could keep traipsing along into the darkness, into the forbidden dangerous ecstasy, the whirling dizzying dream.

Just like… just like with Lew .

Daisy’s breath choked out in a loud, broken groan, earning her a worried sidelong glance from a nearby bulky gardener — and she rubbed at her face, and lurched down another path. Gods , how had she done all this again? How had she fallen for it again? How had she been so damned stupid ?

She shook her head, dragged both hands down her wet cheeks. She should have known. She should have seen. She should have listened to all those warnings, all those hidden dangerous words. Sonur . Son .

But now — now it was too late. And she was trapped. Pregnant . Pregnant . Just like Filak had wanted. Just like he’d planned.

“Daisy?” came a familiar voice, a woman’s voice — and when Daisy whirled around, her heartbeat lurching, it was… Gwyn . The midwife.

“Is something wrong?” Gwyn asked, searching Daisy’s face with worried eyes. “ Is there anything I can help you with?”

A shrill laugh escaped Daisy’s mouth, and she again wiped at her wet face, dragged in a deep breath. “ Did you tell me?” she demanded, before she could stop it. “ Back in the sickroom? That I might be pregnant? With — with Filak’s son ?”

Her voice cracked on the word, on the impossible swaying weight of it, and Gwyn blinked at her, and then nodded. “ I did tell you that the likelihood of pregnancy was high, without any further precautions,” she replied, as if she was carefully weighing each word. “ Orc -seed is very strong, and beyond physical interventions from a healer like Efterar , we currently don’t have any reliable protections against it.”

Gods curse it, curse Daisy and her gods-damned stupidity, and she hauled in another breath, let out something too close to a sob. “ But my ex was one of the best botanists in the realm,” she gulped. “ The herbs he gave me worked for years, and he said they could even terminate pregnancies, too. They were the best available, the latest science from the city, known only to acclaimed botanists like him!”

It sounded so pleading, so pathetic, and gods, it sounded just like something Lew would say, too. All of it scraping horribly up Daisy’s back, no, no, she wanted to forget Lew , escape Lew , forever, two days…

But Gwyn’s expression was regretful now, her head shaking. “ I’m sorry, Daisy ,” she said. “ But whatever those herbs were, they still weren’t likely to have any effect on a pregnancy with an orc, especially with regular ongoing intercourse. At best, those herbs might have gained you a little extra time.”

A little extra time . As if maybe Daisy could have escaped unscathed after that first night with Filak in the cave… and then she’d gone and agreed to two more weeks. Two full weeks, bedding Filak every day and maybe more, without any kind of protection whatsoever. Fuck . Fuck .

Daisy couldn’t choke back her sob this time, and she dug her palms painfully into her eyes. “ So that’s it, then?” she demanded, too harsh. “ I’m just trapped, forever? Just like Filak wanted? Just like he planned ?!”

There was an instant’s silence, an audible intake of breath — but when Daisy blinked her wet eyes open, Gwyn still looked perfectly calm, her gaze steady. “ Of course not,” she said firmly. “ If you’d rather not proceed with the pregnancy, Efterar can certainly still help you. Or if you’d like to explore other options, or maybe a safe place to stay while you decide, we’ll gladly help you with that, too.”

Oh. Daisy stared at Gwyn , at the cool certainty in her eyes, while something flipped deep in her belly. She could still — choose not to be pregnant? She could still — walk away, and forget Filak , forever?

A sudden taste of bile burned in her throat, and Daisy took a swaying step backwards, twisting her clammy hands tightly together. No , no, she couldn’t walk away from here, because there was still Lew , and still — the bile churned higher — still that awful regiment Lew had sent after her. And she’d fought so hard to ignore it, to lose it in Filak’s whirling darkness, but it was still there, still real, still closing in like a chain around her neck, trapping her in a dungeon…

Daisy rapidly shook her head, and mumbled a hoarse unintelligible apology as she stumbled away from Gwyn , off into the garden again. Just needing to be alone, to escape, to forget. To forget about chains and dungeons, about Lew and regiments, about Filak and his son. The son who was here, now, with her, inside her.

She kept shaking her head as she staggered further and further, shoving it all away. Burying it in the same place she’d buried her dead mother, her unknown father, all the years she’d spent scrimping and striving, sleeping on friends’ couches and floors, scraping by on underpaid art. Until that magical day Lew had come, but now that was all tainted too, Lew using her for her art, giving her fake jewelry, fucking other women in her bed. Hiring regiments and planning secret attacks, feeding belladonna to children, two days, two days…

No. No . Daisy didn’t want it. She couldn’t bear it. She needed it to go away, away, please, please…

But it still kept clamouring closer, no matter how fast she ran through the garden, no matter how she scrubbed the tears from her eyes. The fear, the terror, the danger, the son, Lew , Sybil …

Sybil . Daisy’s breath choked, and she jolted to a juddering stop, gaping at the path up ahead. At the…

The woman, standing there beneath a tree. The tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman. A woman Daisy would recognize anywhere, even with those shabby homespun clothes, the simple unassuming braid in her hair…

Sybil. Sybil ? The woman Lew had fucked in Daisy’s bed? Was here ? At Orc Mountain ?

Daisy blinked, twitched, shook her head. No . No . It wasn’t possible, she was seeing things, she was so lost in the darkness and the chaos that she was — she was —

“Kalfr!” she gasped, in shaky desperate relief, because he was there too, walking out from behind the tree. “ What are you…”

But her voice faded, broke, as Sybil reached out, and… took Kalfr’s hand in hers. And then she drew him over beside her, as if she had every right to do that, to touch him like that…

And Kalfr … wasn’t fighting it. Wasn’t protesting. And instead he turned toward Daisy , and… smiled .

“Please come, sister,” he said toward her. “ And meet my new mate.”