Maria.
I honestly didn’t know whether I should break down into hysterical tears or just burst out laughing, because at this very point, what was laid out right before my eyes was something so utterly, terribly impossible that my mind completely refused to accept it.
How on earth could Patricia possibly be my twin sister?
The concept just didn’t add up in any conceivable universe. I mean, the girl was pure evil—a sadistic, brutal monster who had tormented me relentlessly on several occasions.
She had sneered at my pain, mocked my existence, and spat vile curses at the memory of my mother...who was apparently our mother.
Now tell me, how could someone like her ever accept a sickening reality like this?
It would have been infinitely better if Damien hadn’t been playing the ultimate busybody, poking his nose into forgotten corners and digging up secrets best left buried. Remaining completely in the dark, ignorant of this twisted bloodline, was actually far preferable to carrying a truth this heavy.
With trembling hands, I kept reading through the ancient, yellowed parchment. In it was the formal, written testimony of one of the midwives who had delivered the babies all those years ago. At the bottom, the document was signed in a dark, faded stain with something I could only suppose was her own dried blood.
****
WRITTEN TESTIMONY
I was heavily threatened to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to save my own life. But to ensure my complete silence and guarantee the secret would never pass my lips, they cut my tongue out anyway.
Nineteen years ago, on the fateful night my lady went into labor, she gave birth to a set of twins while a terrible storm raged outside, the heavy rain pounding violently against the roof. In the adjacent room, the Beta’s mistress was also in the middle of giving birth.
And then, as the storm reached its terrifying peak, the heavy door to my lady’s labor room was suddenly kicked wide open. The mistress’s personal midwife stepped across the threshold, carrying a pale, lifeless stillborn in her arms. At that precise moment, only the first of the twins had been delivered, as my poor lady was still screaming in active labor with the second.
The midwife, flanked by several ruthless men holding sharpened knives to our throats, viciously threatened everyone present in the room. They forcefully snatched away my lady’s healthy newborn baby, leaving the cold, lifeless stillborn in its place upon the blood-stained sheets...
We were all terrified and explicitly threatened never to speak a single word about what had just transpired. Paralyzed by fear, we could only nod in compliance.
The exact moment those violent men turned around and left the room, my lady pushed one final time and gave birth to yet another baby girl.
However, before I could even open my mouth to announce to the house that my lady had successfully given birth to another child, the Alpha barged into the room in a towering, blind rage.
’Why did you want to curse me?’ he had roared at my frail lady, his voice shaking the stone walls. ’Why did you give me a stillborn?!’
Everyone in the room panicked, trembling under his terrifying wrath. But I knew I had to brave his fury and speak up for my lady. I managed to choke out that she had actually given birth to twins, and that one of the sweet girls was still alive and breathing.
Hearing this revelation caused the Alpha to spare her life. But unfortunately, my poor lady did not survive the grueling ordeal, as she bled to death right there on the bed before the night was over.
Later on, in a desperate bid to permanently secure her own elevated position—because, by ancient law, any woman who births a stillborn is considered cursed and must be executed—the Beta’s ruthless mistress ordered for all of our tongues to be brutally cut off to guarantee our silence forever.
****
The exact moment I finished reading the horrific words of this written testimony, a flood of scalding hot tears welled in my eyes and began streaming uncontrollably down my pale face.
The parchment trembled violently in my hands as the crushing reality of my mother’s agonizing death and my stolen origin sank deep into my soul. My breath hitched in my throat, each exhale turning into a quiet, shuddering sob that echoed off the cold walls of the quiet stone corridor.
"Here, my lady," Beta Torin said softly, his gentle, weathered voice breaking through my drowning sorrow as he stepped forward and handed me a clean handkerchief.
I sniffed back my bitter tears, my hand shaking as I reached out to collect the soft cloth from him, immediately pressing it against my damp cheeks to wipe away the moisture blurring my vision.
"Thank you..." I managed to mutter in a broken whisper, my chest aching so intensely that every breath felt like swallowed glass.
Stepping back, I slowly allowed myself to get lost in the dark, suffocating sea of my own spiraling thoughts.
How on earth could life possibly be so utterly, unforgivably cruel?
Why did my father’s power-hungry mistress have to go to such sickening lengths?
Why did she feel the need to separate me from my twin sister in the first place?
Why would she deliberately tear two blood-bound infants apart at the very moment of our birth, when we had done nothing to deserve such cruelty?
We had entered this world together, connected by blood and bound by a bond that should have been impossible for anyone to break. Yet she had taken that bond away from us before we were even old enough to understand what it meant.
And it wasn’t just that she had stolen a child—She had gone much further than that, as she had crafted a horrific lie and carefully used it to turn us against each other, orchestrating years of relentless torment, hatred, and bloodshed between two sisters who should have shared a bond like no other.
She had made us enemies when we should have been family.
But why?
What exactly had she hoped to accomplish?
What was her grand, twisted plan in making us suffer like this?
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