Chapter 12: The Corpse in the Chamber
The feast was an exercise in exquisite torture.
For three hours, Jennie had sat beside the frozen corpse of the man she loved. The cold from his skin seeped through her gown, a persistent chill that reached her bones. She ate the spiced venison, drank the honeyed wine, and laughed at the appropriate moments with lords whose faces blurred into a smear of beard and condescension. She felt their glances, quick and then away, darting from her composed face to the stark, pale shoulder pressed against hers.
Kai held court, booming with laughter, telling hunting stories. Taehyung preened, holding forth on southern battle tactics, his voice loud and wrong about everything. Minho picked at his food, his eyes occasionally meeting his mother’s with a flicker of something—pity, confusion—before looking down.
Every bite of food was ash. Every sip of wine was a threat to her composure. The scent suppressants made her head ache, a floral prison masking what she now wished she could smell one last time: him. The forest and steel and sun-warmed skin that was Leonid.
When the last platter was cleared, Kai rose. The hall fell silent.
“A memorable evening,” the king announced, his gaze sweeping the room before landing on Jennie. “The crown thanks you for your companionship. Remember the lessons of this day. Order is our strength. Sentiment is a luxury for the weak.”
His eyes pinned her. “My queen, you look weary. Retire. Your companion awaits you.”
A low murmur rippled through the court. Jennie’s hands, hidden in her lap, clenched so tight her nails bit half-moons into her palms. She stood smoothly, the movement graceful, automatic. She did not look at the body in her chair. She inclined her head to the room, a mere dip of the chin, and turned.
Her walk from the dais, across the long hall, through the arched doorway, was the longest of her life. She felt every stare like a physical touch. Jisoo materialized from the shadows of the corridor, falling into step beside her, a solid, silent presence.
They did not speak until they were in the winding stone passage that led to the royal chambers, the sounds of the feast fading behind them.
“Jisoo,” Jennie said, her voice flat.
“My queen.”
“See that it is done. Where he… where it is to be placed.”
Jisoo’s stride hitched for a half-step. “He has given the order to the guards already. They are to bring it to your bed.”
Jennie stopped. She pressed a hand against the cold stone wall. She focused on the rough texture, on the smell of damp mortar. She breathed in, out. The scream inside her chest rattled its bars.
“Then let them,” she said.
The two royal guards were already there when she arrived, their faces impassive. They had removed Leonid’s body from the throne and carried it on a litter. They were in the process of laying him out on the deep mahogany bed, atop the silken coverlet she had once shared with him in warmth and life. They positioned him stiffly, straight, his hands at his sides. The throat wound was a dark, ugly puncture in the candlelight.
“Leave,” Jennie said from the doorway.
They finished adjusting the body, then bowed and filed out, their eyes carefully averted. Jisoo lingered, her worried gaze moving from the bed to Jennie’s terrifyingly calm face.
“Shall I stay, my lady?”
“No. Bolt the door behind you. From the outside.”
“Jennie…”
“Do it, Jisoo.”
The handmaid hesitated, then bowed her head. She stepped out, pulling the heavy oak door shut. The sound of the iron bolt sliding home echoed in the still room.
Silence.
Jennie stood just inside, her back against the door. The single candle on the bedside table guttered, making the shadows on the ceiling leap and dance. The room was full of him, even now. The ghost of his scent in the rugs, the memory of his heat against her spine, his whispered southern ballads in the dark.
Her eyes traveled over the body on her bed. The defined muscles were slack. The beautiful, pale skin was grey. The black curls were still damp. He looked like a carved effigy on a tomb, not her Leonid.
She moved. First, she went to the window, throwing open the shutters. The brutal night air rushed in, carrying the scent of snow and pine. It swept through the room, cutting through the cloying perfume she wore. She breathed it in, letting the cold scald her lungs.
Then she began to undress.
Her fingers, usually so deft, fumbled with the lacings of her gown. She pulled the heavy fabric over her head, letting it pool on the floor. The jeweled pins came next, then the undersilk. She stood naked in the freezing draft, her skin pebbling, her small breasts tight against the cold. She did not look away from the bed.
She walked to the bedside, the fur rugs soft under her bare feet. She blew out the candle.
Moonlight from the window fell in a silver slab across the bed, illuminating Leonid’s profile, the line of his jaw, the dark fan of his lashes against his cheek.
She climbed onto the high mattress. The silk was icy. She moved carefully, arranging herself beside him. She turned onto her side, facing him. She reached out, her trembling fingers tracing the line of his arm from shoulder to wrist. The skin was marble-cold, unyielding.
Slowly, she shifted closer. She pressed her body against the rigid length of his side. She laid her head on his cold, silent chest, where no heart would ever beat again. Her ear pressed against the flesh. Nothing.
The cold was a shock, a pain, a punishment. She welcomed it. She curled her legs up, fitting herself against him as she had a hundred times before, seeking warmth. Now she gave her warmth to him, pouring it into the frozen flesh, a futile offering.
She stared at the moonlit wall. Her voice, when it came, was a raw scrape in the dark.
“I am sorry.”
The words hung in the air. The wind sighed at the window.
“I am so sorry, Leonid.” A tear traced a hot path from her eye, over the bridge of her nose, and onto his cold skin. “I was a coward. I hid you. I made you less. I wore this… this fucking perfume to wash you away.” Her whisper grew sharper, edged with a breaking fury. “You were never less. You were everything.”
She lifted her head, looking at his still face. She brought her hand up, cupping his cheek. It was like touching stone.
“He thinks this breaks me,” she hissed, her breath clouding between them. “He thinks this is the end. Putting you here, in my bed, as a joke.” Her fingers tightened, though he could not feel it. “It is not an end. It is a beginning.”
She laid her head back down, her voice dropping to a fevered, planning murmur against his chest.
“I will burn it for you. All of it. This kingdom of ice and cruelty. I will let the southern clans pour through the passes. I will open the gates myself. I will hand Kai his own knife and guide it to his heart.” A sob caught in her throat, but she swallowed it, continuing in a steely whisper. “Taehyung will kneel in the mud where you knelt. He will understand the weight of a collar. I swear it to you. On my life. On the life I should have given you.”
She closed her eyes, nuzzling against the unforgiving cold. “Sleep now, my love. My warrior. Rest. I have watch.”
Outside the door, Jisoo stood with her palm flat against the oak, her ear pressed to the grain. She heard the whispers, not the words, but the ferocious, aching tone of them. Her own tears fell silently, splashing onto the stone floor at her feet. She did not move. She listened, and she kept watch, as the long, cold hours of the night deepened around the queen and her king.