Lyra’s POV
I watched Kaida carry my child with such tender care, and the realization struck me like a blow. For all the mistrust, all the resentment, and every guarded glance I’d thrown her way, there she was, holding a piece of me with nothing but love in her eyes.
Memories flared up unbidden—the scars I’d seen, the hollow look she’d once had, haunted by her time under Colin’s cruel control. The marks on her back from when she’d been flayed for defiance, the emptiness that must have been carved inside her from years of punishment and isolation. The shame of how I’d treated her, of the walls I’d put up, burned through me with a kind of pain I hadn’t felt in years.
The walls of the room closed in around me. Before I could let anyone see, I bolted, my heart pounding as I ran down the hal
