The moment the door shut behind Caveen, something shattered inside Lysandra.
She didn't scream.
She didn't move.
She just stared at the spot where he had stood—where his words had scorched her soul and left it barren.
The blood on the floor had dried.
But hers hadn't stopped bleeding.
Her hand trembled as she reached for her abdomen. Empty. Cold. Hollow.
The tiny fluttering heartbeat she once felt inside her… was gone.
And with it, every dream she had built.
Their child.
Their future.
Her love.
All gone—because of her choice.
A choice she made with her heart twisted in grief and desperation, thinking love would be enough to bring him back and hold them together.
But love wasn't enough.
It never was.
A strangled sob broke past her lips. Then another. Then another—until her whole body convulsed, until tears soaked her gown, until she couldn't breathe from crying too hard.
> "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
She clutched the pillow from the bed—the one that still held Caveen's scent—and curled into it like it might protect her from her own breaking.
The room blurred through her tears, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered now.
Her child would never open their eyes.
Would never cry. Never smile.
And Caveen would never hold them. Never forgive her. Never love her again.
Lady Moonwell stood at the door, her face unreadable as she watched the once-proud daughter of Moonwell fall into madness beneath the weight of her grief.
She stepped in and knelt beside her.
> "You were foolish, Lysandra," she whispered, brushing her daughter's bloodied hair back.
"But you loved him too deeply. Just like I once did..."
Lysandra gripped her mother's hand like a lifeline, her voice trembling.
> "Mama… he hates me…"
Lady Moonwell's lips quivered.
> "Maybe. But hate is the shadow of love. One day… he might remember that."
But Lysandra only shook her head.
> "He's gone."
Her gaze fell to her womb again, her arms wrapping around it instinctively, protectively—even though there was nothing left to protect.
Only emptiness.
Only silence.
> "I would've named her Elira…" Lysandra whispered.
And with that, she broke again.
The sobs that followed were the sound of a mother mourning a child the world would never meet… and the last ember of a love that had turned to ash.
The seasons changed. The flowers bloomed and withered. But time—time moved cruelly slow for a heart that had once been shattered.
For months after Caveen's departure, Lysandra lived like a shadow in the Moonwell estate. She was neither here nor there—just... existing.
No letters.
No messages.
No sign of him.
Only silence—an unbearable silence that grew louder with every passing day.
She walked the same halls where they'd once laughed, once held each other. Now they were ghosts. Echoes of a love that ended in ash.
But even grief couldn't chain her forever.
One morning, she stood by the silver pond behind the estate, the one where she used to feel her child's heartbeat, and whispered into the wind:
> "If life must go on, let me live it not for what I've lost, but for what I can still give…"
And so she left.
She packed her satchel with a few spellbooks, her Moonwell crystal, and a single photo she kept hidden—of a time Caveen didn't know she had taken, of him holding her while she slept.
Then, without saying goodbye to the estate, she stepped through the portal… and entered the human realm.
---
Two Years Later
The scent of antiseptic and faint lavender filled the air as Lysandra moved through the white halls of the small community clinic she now worked at in the human city of Halemore.
Her once luxurious robes were now replaced by a white coat. Her silver Moonwell pendant remained tucked beneath her blouse—close to her heart but no longer on display.
> "Doctor Lysandra?" a nurse peeked in.
"The child in bed six is running a fever again."
Lysandra stood, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Prepare the herbal infusion. I'll stabilize him first."
Her voice was calm. Gentle. Healing.
She was no longer the grieving noblewoman, nor the woman desperate for love.
Here, she had found her purpose—not in spellcraft or politics, not in prophecies or cursed love—but in the simple, sacred act of healing.
She rarely returned to Moonwell now. Only when summoned by the Council or by her mother, Lady Moonwell. And even then, she never stayed longer than three days.
> "You've changed," her mother once said during a visit.
"You smile now, even when you're tired."
Lysandra only nodded.
> "Because the pain doesn't own me anymore."
She still carried the memories. The scar of her child's loss. The wound Caveen left.
But she had learned to live with them. To breathe without suffocating.
Every time she held a life in her hands and healed them… she felt a piece of herself returning. Slowly. Quietly. Beautifully.
Love had broken her.
But purpose rebuilt her.