Chapter 9: The Queen's Choice
The silence in the training yard was absolute, thicker than the dust kicked up by dying men. It lasted three heartbeats. Four. The only movement was the dark, relentless seep of Leonid’s blood into the thirsty earth between the cobblestones.
Then, a raw, guttural sound tore from the throat of the palace physician, who had been standing uselessly by the king’s order. He was already moving, his bag clutched to his chest like a shield. “The cut is shallow!” he barked, his voice cutting through the static haze that had descended over the spectators. “The blade caught the muscle, not the artery. He drowns in his own blood if we don’t turn him.”
Jennie did not realize she had been holding her breath until it left her in a sharp, silent exhale that fogged the cold air before her lips. Her hands remained fastened to the arms of her throne, the carved wood biting into her palms. She watched as guards, acting on the physician’s frantic gestures, rolled Leonid onto his side. A choked, wet cough erupted from him, a horrific sound followed by a spray of crimson onto the stone.
“A waste of good sport if he dies now,” King Kai murmured to the foreign emissary beside him, his tone one of mild disappointment, as if commenting on a spoiled vintage. “The southern dogs are harder to kill than they look.”
Taehyung leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, a bored expression dissolving into one of keen interest. “Look at him gasp. Like a fish on a riverbank.”
Jennie heard her son’s words, each one a tiny, precise needle inserting itself under her skin. She turned her head, slowly, to look at the king. “Will you have your men drag the corpse away, or shall we allow the physician to attempt to save your property?” Her voice was cool, measured, the practiced tone of a queen discussing logistics. Inside, a wild, screaming thing clawed at the walls of her ribs.
Kai waved a dismissive hand. “Take it to the infirmary. If he lives, he lives. If he dies, the kennels need feeding.”
It. The body. The corpse. Jennie’s vision sharpened, zeroing in on the scene below. Leonid was being hauled onto a stretcher, his head lolling, one pale hand trailing limply, fingers brushing the ground. The vivid red against his throat was a vulgar stain. She stood, the movement smooth and regal. “The audience is concluded. Jisoo, with me.”
She did not wait for the king’s permission. Her skirts swished as she descended the dais, Jisoo a silent shadow at her heels. They moved through the arched gateway, leaving the metallic stink of the yard behind, but it followed her, clung to the inside of her nose.
Once in the relative privacy of the west corridor, Jennie’s steps did not falter toward her chambers. She turned left, toward the lower halls.
“Your Majesty,” Jisoo whispered, a warning.
“I am inspecting the infirmary,” Jennie stated, her voice leaving no room for debate. “A valuable asset was damaged. It is prudent to assess the loss.”
The palace infirmary was a stark, whitewashed room smelling of vinegar, herbs, and the underlying tang of old blood. Leonid was on a central table, the physician and two apprentices working over him. His torso was bare, the old scars and new wounds a brutal map of his life. The gash on his shoulder was being stitched, the needle dipping in and out of the flesh with a terrible, practiced rhythm. But the focus was his throat. They had him propped, towels soaked and replaced beneath him, as they worked to clear the airway and stitch the superficial but messy slice across his neck.
He was conscious. His dark eyes, clouded with pain and shock, were open, staring at the beams of the ceiling. His breath came in ragged, wet pulls.
Jennie stopped just inside the doorway, a statue of cold elegance amidst the gore. The physician noticed her and bowed his head, but didn’t cease his work. “The bleeding slows, Your Majesty. The throat… he will speak again, but it will be scarred. The shoulder and thigh will heal clean.”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on Leonid’s profile. He did not look at her. A muscle feathered in his jaw.
“Will he fight again?” she asked.
The physician hesitated. “With time. The shoulder muscle is deeply compromised. His strength may not return fully to that arm.”
A slave whose value was his strength, now diminished. She saw the understanding dawn in Leonid’s eyes a moment before he squeezed them shut. A single tear traced a path through the dirt and blood on his temple.
“Ensure he does not die,” Jennie said, her final verdict. She turned to leave.
“Jennie.”
The name was a ruined thing, a hoarse, shattered whisper barely louder than the crackle of the fire in the hearth. It stopped her dead. No one used her name. Not here. Not him. Not ever.
She looked back. He had turned his head, his gaze finally finding hers. It wasn’t anger there. It was devastation. And a question.
She held that look for three long seconds, the queen and the slave, the omega and the alpha, the woman and the man whose scent she scrubbed from her skin. She remembered the laundry room, the damp lace, the rumor of the maid named Mira that had slithered through the servants’ halls. She remembered the extra suppressant she had applied that morning, the chemical bitterness that even now clung to her wrists.
Her expression did not soften. “You will address me as Your Majesty,” she said, her voice a silken whip in the quiet room. “Or you will not address me at all.”
She turned and walked out, her heels clicking a firm, retreating tempo on the stone floor. Only when she was around the corner, out of sight, did she lean against the cold wall, a tremor running through her so violently she felt her knees might give way. Jisoo was there, a steadying presence without touching.
“He lives,” Jisoo murmured.
“He betrayed me,” Jennie whispered back, the words venomous and hollow. “And then he looked at me as if I had betrayed him.”
She pushed off the wall, straightening her spine. The moment of weakness was folded up and locked away. “Have a bath drawn. And bring the strongest suppressant. I can still smell the yard on me.”
And him, she thought but did not say. I can still smell him, under all the blood and iron. And I cannot bear it.
Back in the infirmary, Leonid lay still as the physician finished his stitches. The physical pain was a distant inferno. The other pain, the one in the center of his chest, was a clean, cold kill. She had watched him fall. She had called him it. She had walked away.
As the needle pulled through his skin one last time, he made a silent promise to the rough-hewn beams above. He would heal. He would regain his strength. Not for her. Not for the king’s amusement. But because a fish on a riverbank still had fight in its gills, and he intended, one day, to find his way back to the water.