Flora sat on her bath stool, a wet towel knotted at her waist, her golden hair fanning down her naked back like a burned banner. Steam rose in thin ghosts off the water; the room smelled of soap and lemon rind and the faint iron tang she had come to recognize as the thinnest thread between life and want.
"haaaa….." she sighed. "I did not get pregnant…..again."
The words fell like small stones into a well. They made no sound beyond her own chest. The ache at the base of her belly was old and honest, an animal ache that demanded a name: failure.
It was not only the missed child—there was a social calculus behind that single syllable. A noblewoman's value often wore light and scent and rituals, but beneath all of it there was mana—an ember made visible in the way a noble body could shape magic and blood and lineage. Without an heir, you were paper in a storm.
