Elsa’s POV
Months had passed since the night Caleb nearly broke me. The bruises faded, the welts healed, but the scars beneath my skin the ones no one could see remained.
I told myself I was stronger now, that I wouldn’t cry or bend again. Every day, I forced myself to wake, to work, to push past the whispers that followed me. Pity. Scorn. Mockery. They had never seen me as anything else, and part of me wondered if they ever would.
Still, I survived. That had to mean something.
The morning began like any other. I was sweeping the steps outside the packhouse, trying to ignore the cold that bit into my fingers, when a shrill voice cut through the air like a blade.
“Well, if it isn’t the little orphan girl, pretending to be useful again.”
Crystal.
I stiffened but didn’t look up. I’d le
