Lira

Death has a scent. Lira Mornath finally came to realize this truth as she lay on her deathbed. She could smell the sickly sweet tang of blood, the bitter harshness of medicine, and something else—a cloying, nauseating odor laced in the milk she drank each night, a slow poison gnawing away at her life bit by bit. A violent coughing fit wracked her body. When she pulled the embroidered silk handkerchief from her lips, it bloomed with a vivid crimson stain of blood. A maid rushed forward with warm water, but Lira waved her away. She longed to see Kael—her husband, the father of her son. "His Lordship is engaged with guests." That was always their excuse. Engaged with guests. For two years running, that was all he ever seemed to do. Lira closed her eyes as searing pain burned through her lungs, an agony she had long since grown accustomed to. Outside the window, Gray Manor basked in late spring glory, roses bursting into full bloom. She had planted those roses herself, in the very first spring after she married into this household. Now the flowers still flourished, yet she was fading away to her end. Her mind drifted back to her debut ball at fourteen. Clad in a pale blue gown, she had stood alone in a corner, absorbed in a tattered copy of On Liberty she always kept by her side. It was then that Kael Gray first took notice of her—not for her looks, nor her grace on the dance floor, but for the book in her hands. "You read Harrington’s works as well?" he asked. From then on, they talked of freedom, of equality, of all those topics the proud nobility scorned to acknowledge. They began exchanging letters afterward, and in one of her notes, she had written: I have found the one who speaks to the very core of my soul. What foolish innocence. A meeting of souls? Kael Gray had never wanted her soul. All he craved was the immense fortune of the Mornath family. His earldom’s manor cried out for repairs, his mounting debts needed settling, and Rowan Mornath, though a merchant who had risen to wealth through his first wife, controlled the largest flow of capital across the entire North. Another coughing spell seized Lira, far more fierce and relentless than the last. The maid entered bearing her medicinal brew, but Lira shook her head. She trusted nothing that would ever pass her lips again. On the night her life ebbed away, she breathed out her sister’s name. "Liora." Silence was her only answer. She called again, and the maid hesitated before replying cautiously, "Lady Liora… is on her way here." On her way. Lira said no more. She heard nightingales trilling outside the window, their cries mournful and plaintive, as if singing a funeral lament. She recalled a distant memory from childhood, the year their mother died. She was four, Liora the same age. Their father brought home a new wife soon after. Their stepmother doted on Liora endlessly, yet treated Lira with cold, distant courtesy. "Sister," Liora would cling to her side back then, "hold me close." She always did. Liora was her twin sister, her closest kin in all the world. Their natures could not have been more different, yet they shared the same blood. Liora was like wild fire, lighting up every room she entered; she was like still water, flowing quietly in the quiet corners no one bothered to notice. Back then, it had never mattered to her. She had her sister, her books, her own peaceful little sanctuary. Then Kael walked into her life. The nightingales’ mournful song lingered on. Lira’s consciousness grew hazy and unmoored. Through the fog in her mind, she heard the door swing open. Footsteps fell soft and light, yet belonged to more than one person. She struggled to pry her eyes open, and there stood her husband, with Liora half a pace behind him. She studied their faces. There was no grief, no urgency—only an unreadable, quiet anticipation. Anticipation for what? For her death. The thought stabbed straight into Lira’s heart, far more agonizing than the fire burning in her lungs. She tried to speak, yet her throat had gone numb and silent. She watched Liora step to her bedside, a faint smile curving the features that mirrored her own perfectly. "Sister," Liora whispered gently, "you need your rest." In her hands was a cup of milk. Warm, warmed to just the right temperature. As Lira stared at the cup, everything suddenly clicked into place. The cloying stench that haunted her nights, the ever-worsening bouts of coughing up blood, the doctors always turned away at the manor gates. She had blamed her misfortune on cruel fate, never knowing every drop of poison had been slipped to her by her own twin sister. She wanted to scream, to accuse, to claw at that identical face in rage. But her body would not obey her. She could only watch helplessly as Liora set the milk down on the nightstand, then stepped back to stand beside Kael. Her husband bowed his head and pressed a soft kiss to Liora’s lips. "It will be over soon," Kael murmured. "Indeed it will," Liora laughed, her smile bright and brilliant as the warm spring sunshine of March. "After all, I’ve waited three years for him." Him. Not her. Not Lira. Lira’s heart shattered into dust in that instant. Summoning her last ounce of strength, she turned her head toward the cradle in the bedroom corner. Her son Elian lay fast asleep, his tiny cheeks flushed pink—the child she had risked everything to protect and bring into the world. "Elian…" "He’s perfectly well," Liora sauntered to the cradle, bent down, and lifted the sleeping infant into her arms. "Of course my son is." Her son? Lira’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief. "The day we went into labor was utter chaos," Liora murmured, patting the baby softly in her embrace. "I gave birth to a healthy child, while yours was stillborn. I thought, both are Kael’s flesh and blood—why not swap them? But if your child had lived, you would never have loved Elian wholeheartedly. It is far better that his birth mother cherish and raise him instead." Her smile was sweet and tender. "This past year, every time I came to ‘visit’ you, I got to spend more time with him. You have no idea how much he adores me." "You really are unbelievably oblivious, though. I’ve been your husband’s lover for years, and you never once suspected a thing. Dearest sister, you’ve read countless books, yet you could not see the truth right before your eyes?" Liora’s voice faded into a distant hum. Lira’s soul was slipping free from her mortal body, all sounds growing faint and blurred at the edges. She breathed her last.