Her eyes remained closed, her face completely still.
At first glance, she appeared to be sleeping, but there was something unsettling about the unnatural stillness of her body.
I leaned closer, listening carefully for any sign of breathing.
For several seconds, there was nothing, and doubt began to creep into my mind.
Then I heard it—a faint, uneven breath.
She was alive.
Relieved, I reached for her wrist and felt beneath her cold skin until I found a weak pulse.
I was about to straighten when something warm landed on her face.
I froze.
A small red droplet slid down her pale cheek, followed by another near her temple.
I immediately looked toward the ceiling, searching for the source, but there was nothing above us.
Before I could make sense of it, another drop landed on her forehead.
Where was the blood coming from?
I instinctively touched beneath my nose.
When I lowered my hand, my fingers were stained red.
My breath suddenly hitched.
I was bleeding.
Confused, I wiped the blood away and turned my attention back to the woman.
Something about her appearance had changed.
The unnatural pallor of her skin was beginning to fade, replaced by a faint flush spreading across her cheeks and down her neck.
For a brief moment, I wondered whether she was waking up.
Then I noticed the small, raised bumps appearing across her skin.
They had begun on her cheek and were slowly spreading toward her neck and arms, becoming more visible with every passing moment.
I stared at her, completely bewildered by the sudden change.
“What is happening?” She gave no response.
Her eyes remained closed, and her breathing was still weak and uneven as the strange bumps continued to appear.
I had never seen anything like it before.
I didn’t know what was causing it or whether I should try to help her, and with the door locked and no one else in the room, I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
I wiped the remaining blood from beneath my nose and stared at my fingers for a moment before looking back at the woman.
“I’m sick, right?
This shouldn’t be an infection, should it?” The question escaped me as I stared at the blood staining my fingers.
I took a step backward, but my leg suddenly struck the bedside table, throwing me off balance.
I stumbled and fell hard onto the floor, the wedding dress pooling around me as I struggled to push myself upright.
“What do I do?” Panic was beginning to take over, making it difficult to think clearly.
I forced myself to my feet and hurried toward the door, grabbing the handle and pulling at it with all the strength I could manage, but it remained firmly locked.
I tried again, harder this time, but nothing changed.
“What do I do?” The woman was already lying there in that terrible condition, and now I had somehow contaminated her.
I didn’t know what was happening to my own body, but the thought that I might have made her condition worse filled me with even more fear.
If she had been injured because of me, as everyone claimed, then the last thing I needed was to cause her further harm simply by being near her.
The bleeding from my nose still hadn’t stopped.
Warm blood continued to trickle down despite my attempts to wipe it away, and the more I thought about it, the more frightened I became.
The doctors had warned me about the symptoms I might experience as my condition progressed, but they had never mentioned sudden nosebleeds.
I had already been told that my illness would continue to worsen with time, yet standing there with blood running from my nose made that reality feel far more frightening than it had in the hospital.
I turned slowly toward the bed and looked at the unconscious woman again, my heart pounding against my chest as I wondered what I was supposed to do.
I couldn’t leave the room, there was no one I could call, and I didn’t even understand what was happening to either of us.
I had already been trapped in a situation I couldn’t explain.
Now I was terrified that, somehow, I had just made everything worse.
Before I could think of anything, the door suddenly clicked open, revealing a servant standing outside with a food trolley.
She pushed it into the room and secured the door behind her with a smart card before wheeling the trolley toward the bed.
“Miss, this is your dinner, and this is Young Miss’s medicine, along with everything else she needs,” she explained as she took a small bowl containing medicinal herbs from the trolley and carried it toward Sylvia’s bed.
However, the moment she noticed Sylvia’s condition, she stopped in surprise and turned toward me, clearly about to ask what had happened.
I couldn’t let her speak.
My gaze fell on the flower vase sitting on the bedside table, and before she had the chance to say another word, I grabbed it and struck her across the head.
She crumpled to the floor, stunned, and I immediately crouched beside her, my heart pounding as I made sure she hadn’t regained consciousness.
I hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but I couldn’t risk her screaming and bringing the guards stationed outside running into the room.
Once I was certain she was unconscious, I quickly removed her uniform and changed into it, leaving her in the black wedding dress I had been forced to wear.
I pulled the servant’s head covering over my hair and took the smart card from her uniform before standing in front of the door.
I took several slow breaths, trying to steady myself and calm the frantic beating of my heart as I reminded myself that staying inside that room was no longer an option.
I had no idea what was waiting for me beyond that door, but remaining trapped with the woman was even more frightening.
I unlocked the door and stepped into the dimly lit corridor, keeping my head lowered as I pulled the head covering farther over my face.
The servants were dressed similarly, and with the poor lighting around the corridor, I hoped no one would look closely enough to recognize me.
I had barely taken a few steps when one of the guards glanced in my direction.
“Don’t disturb them,” I said, forcing my voice into a clipped tone and praying that I sounded enough like the servant whose uniform I had stolen.
“They’re fine.” The guard studied me briefly before turning his attention elsewhere, and I didn’t wait for him to change his mind.
I continued down the corridor at a steady pace, keeping the smart card hidden in my hand as I tried to remember the path I had been brought through earlier, even though every corridor looked unfamiliar.
All I could do was keep walking and hope I found a way out before anyone discovered that the woman they had locked inside that room was no longer there.
I continued through the corridors without any clear idea of where I was going, relying only on the hope that I would eventually find a way out of the estate.
Every hallway seemed to lead into another, and the farther I went, the less familiar everything became.
I kept my head lowered and tried to maintain the steady pace of a servant, but the longer I wandered, the more certain I became that someone would eventually notice that I didn’t belong there.
I couldn’t keep walking around aimlessly.
If I crossed paths with the wrong person, my disguise would be useless, and I had no idea what would happen to me if Torren’s guards discovered that I had escaped.
I turned into another corridor, hoping it would lead somewhere I could hide or perhaps find an exit, but the moment I stepped inside, I stopped.
This side of the estate was completely dark.
There were no servants moving through the hallway, no guards stationed along the walls, and not even the dim lighting that had guided me through the other corridors.
Only darkness stretched ahead of me, making it impossible to see where the passage led.
I hesitated, wondering whether I should turn back.
Before I could decide, something suddenly moved behind me.
An arm wrapped tightly around my waist, pulling me backward so quickly that I barely had time to react.