~The Calm Before the Fall~

EIRA

It had been three months since Calista vanished, three whole months of quietness that almost felt like peace. The keep had stopped smelling like blood; now it smelled of pine, wet earth, and the faint sweetness of fresh paint from the nursery.

Elrich wouldn’t let me lift a single thing. I swear, if I so much as reached for a cup, he’d appear out of thin air.

"I’m pregnant, not dying," I grumbled one morning, trying to reach for a stack of papers on my ...