Lira gently took her wrist. "Your Majesty… I think you are with child."
The words hit her like a blow.
"No." Athalia backed away. "No. I cannot be. I am not meant to…"
Her voice cracked.
Lira bowed her head. "I can fetch the physician…"
"No!" Athalia snapped. "Don't. No one must know."
Lira swallowed, understanding the gravity. "As you wish."
Athalia sank into a chair, her breath shallow, and her mind spinning.
A child. A life she had been forbidden to conceive.
And the nightmares…were signs and warnings she had broken the pact.
Soon, the dreams sharpened. Shadows became shapes. Shapes became clawed silhouettes. A child's voice that was thin and echoing, yet, cried or called her name from very far away.
Athalia had always been a woman of logic, ambition, and ritual. Nightmares should not have shaken her. Yet they did. They unnerved her so deeply that she began dismissing her attendants earlier and earlier, unwilling for anyone to see how shaken she was each dawn.
When the room emptied, Athalia pressed both hands to her stomach and whispered a trembling prayer she no longer believed in.
But fear had already settled into her bones.
They were no longer shadows. No longer distant whispers.
One night , she had a nightmare. But this time, it was different.
Now she saw a woman who was tall, thin and draped in tattered robes. She was standing at the edge of a cliff. Her face was shrouded in smoke, but Athalia knew her instantly.
The sorceress. That's me.
She stood motionless, yet Athalia felt watched, but observed closely, painfully, as if every heartbeat within her chest echoed in my hollow eyes.
She disguised herself in a thick gray cloak, leaving the palace before sunrise. The guards bowed, unaware of her trembling hands hidden beneath the cloth.
Her horse sped through the forest, hooves striking the frozen earth. The path twisted, darker and narrower as she approached the place she dreaded most.
Finally, she reached it.
My hut.
Athalia pushed the door open.
"Hello?" she called softly. "Are you here?"
Her voice echoed into emptiness.
She stepped inside, eyes sweeping the room. Her breath came faster.
"Where are you?" she demanded into the silence. "You made the pact with me! I need your help!"
The hut did not answer.
A sudden chill whipped past her ear. Athalia froze.
Then, in a voice that did not come from the room but from inside her own mind, a whisper drifted through her skull:
"You broke the pact. I cannot help a reneger."
Athalia clutched her head, staggering backwards. "I didn't! I would never…! I didn't know how.."
"You carry a life that should not exist. Now doom awaits Arrandelle."
Her pulse raced. The nightmare child's smile seemed to flicker in the corner of her sight.
"Tell me how to stop this," Athalia rasped. "Tell me what to do."
Silence.
Then, the faintest thread of a whisper:
"It is already growing."
Athalia spun, eyes wide. "Show yourself!"
But the hut was empty.
She fled the hut and rode back toward the palace, but the whisper lingered in her thoughts all the way:
"It grows… and it will feed…"
Returning to the palace brought no comfort.
The moment Athalia entered her chambers, Lira gasped.
"My queen, your face!"
Athalia rushed to the mirror.
Her reflection nearly stole her breath.
Her skin, once smooth as marble and glowing with the enchantment she had paid so dearly for, now appeared uneven in places with dull patches beneath her eyes and faint discolorations along her jawline.
Her lips looked paler.
Her beauty, which was her weapon, her shield and her identity was cracking.
"No…" she whispered.
"My queen," Lira said, voice trembling, "should I prepare a warm bath? Or…"
"Say nothing," Athalia snapped.
Lira fell silent.
Athalia pressed her fingers to her cheeks, horrified by the tiny shifts she hadn't noticed before.
She leaned closer, nose nearly touching the glass, searching, inspecting and desperate to find a way to deny what she saw.
But she couldn't deny it.
She was losing her beauty, losing the gift and the power she had bled herself dry to obtain.
Her breaths came faster.
"This cannot be happening," she whispered. "It cannot."
Lira hesitated at her side. "My queen… perhaps if you rested…"
Athalia rounded on her. "Rest? Rest? Do you think rest will fix this?"
"I…I only meant…"
"Leave. Now."
Lira dipped her head and hurried out, shutting the door softly behind her.
Athalia gripped the edges of her mirror, trembling.
Inside her womb, something shifted and almost too deliberate.
Too aware.
She froze.
For a moment, the room was utterly silent.
Then, soft as breath sliding over glass, a voice murmured against the inside of her skin:
"Mother…"
Athalia's scream filled the chamber.
As weeks passed, the nightmares worsened, and her pregnancy became harder to hide. Lira helped her dress in ways that concealed the change, but Athalia's face revealed what her clothing could not.
The people whispered again, quietly, yet uncertainly.
"The Queen has grown thin."
"I saw her walking as though in pain."
"She does not smile as she once did."
The charm that had once made the kingdom adore her was fading.
One evening, as Athalia sat alone beside the window of her private chamber and the lamps flickering around her, she whispered to the child she carried.
"I never wanted you," she said softly. "But now that you are here… I fear what you will make of me."
The room felt colder.
A knock came.
It was Adrain.
"May I enter?"
Athalia hesitated. "Yes."
He stepped inside, looking troubled.
"The council has noticed your consistent absence," he said gently. "They worry you are ill."
"I am managing," she answered.
Adrain stepped closer. "Athalia, look at me."
She lifted her chin.
"If you are struggling," he said quietly. "Do not bear it alone."
Her composure cracked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I cannot tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because some truths cannot be spoken."
Adrain's expression tightened with frustration and concern.
"Then let me guess," he said. "Are you frightened? In pain? Do you feel unsafe?"
Athalia looked into his eyes full of earnest belief, trust and devotion.
She had built a kingdom on the power of a charm and a beauty not entirely her own. But now the truth clawed at her, demanding to be seen.
Her voice trembled. "Yes."
He reached toward her, but she flinched.
"Athalia…"
"Please," she whispered. "Not tonight."
He lowered his hand. "Then I will wait. But you must speak to me soon."
When he left, Athalia collapsed into her chair, tears slipping down.
"You will not understand," she whispered to the empty room. "No one will."
Far beyond the palace, in the cold shadows of the forest, I sat before a still pool of water. Athalia's image trembled on the surface. It was pale, afraid and fragile.
"So," i, the sorceress murmured, "the seed has taken root."
I traced my finger across the water and distorted the reflection.
"And now the queen will learn what it is to plant what she cannot reap." I said.
The kingdom still believed itself strong. King Adrain remained admired for his leadership. The crops flourished. The economy held firm. But beneath the surface an unease crept in.
A Queen once adored now hid behind closed doors. A King once confident now troubled by his wife's slow unraveling.
A secret pregnancy forbidden by ancient, unspoken magic twisted fate ominously. And this was the silent beginning of Arrandelle's downfall.
The glory that had marked the first three years of Adrain's reign was fading, replaced by uncertainty that neither council nor crown could name. But Athalia knew.
In the quiet of her chamber, hand resting tremulously over her abdomen, she whispered the words she dared speak to no one else:
"Is this really my fall… and the birth of something unknown.?"
And for the kingdom, it was the beginning of something different.