Chapter 9
ALEXANDER
The fragrance reached him first—floral and smoky, earthy, like roasted tea and sandalwood and anise—threading through the crisp bite of autumn woods.
It was alluring, but he didn’t believe it was her true scent.
That part remained a mystery. Next was the sound of water rippling, the soft crunch of gravel underfoot, and the rustle of fabric against skin.
Her soft voice reached him. “You may turn now, my lord.”
He turned.
She stood a few paces from the shore, dressed in a much humbler garb than before: a sand-coloured tunic cinched with a plain brown belt, a darker skirt brushing her ankles. The stitches were worn, the colours muted—practical, even plain to the point of seeming shabby.
Clever, he thought. If she feared another ambush, plainer attire was no fool’s choice.
Still, she wore the half-veil—drawn like a curtain between them.
“My lord.” She shifted her weight. “There is . . . something you should see.”
Her tone made him straighten. Gone was the tentativeness, and in its place, something calm and grave.
He followed her to a narrow curve in the lake, where stones jutted out from the bank and reeds swayed. Moonlight flickered over the water’s edge.
Then, he saw it.
A woman’s body lay half-shrouded in the reeds, dark hair streaming over the pebbles like wet silk. Her skin was the colour of old wax, eyes open and fixed on a sky they’d no longer see. She looked as though the lake had tried to claim her, then changed its mind.
The air left Alexander’s lung. Death was no stranger to him. He had seen its work on battlefields and in winter-starved villages, but this was different. This was a violation, a sinister loss of life happening on the threshold of his home. A cold anger began to coil beneath his ribs.
“I found her in the water,” the princess said softly. “She drifted toward me.”
The silence between them thickened, filled with the unasked questions: How did she die? Why was she left here?
He spoke at last, his voice low, each word measured, “I was told you were born in the Year of the Raven.”
She looked at him, a flicker of wariness in her dark eyes.
“And I,” he said, his gaze returning to the pallid form on the shore, “the Year of the Wolf.” The old tale surfaced in his mind, a stark, bloody truth of the wild. “They say ravens and wolves hunt together. The bird leads the wolf to the carcass.”
He met her eyes, his words grim, “I never thought the old fable would turn quite so literal.”
The words hung for a moment before he approached the corpse and knelt. Her dress was torn, generic in style but dyed in colours that weren’t commonly worn in Tremore. There were no obvious wounds, but the pallor of the skin told him she had been dead for some time.
Princess JingYi stood beside him, eyes studying the corpse with intensity.
“You’re not unsettled by the sight,” he remarked.
She blinked and looked at him. “What use is fear and shock when they bring no comfort to the dead?”
Alexander didn’t know how to respond. He was a man of action, but her quiet pragmatism was its own form of action. In that moment, he understood the treaty hadn’t sent him a fragile ornament, but a potential ally with steel for a spine.
The thought was somehow more arresting than the corpse.
He exhaled, gaze sweeping the tree line and the still water beyond. “We’ll bring her back to camp. Examine her closely. Determine if her death was natural.”
JingYi gave a small nod.
“I’ll walk you back,” he said, “then return with a few of my men.”
“Do you wish me to assist with the assessment, my lord?”
He stared at her—this woman who continued to surprise him. He couldn’t name a single noblewoman, let alone a princess, who’d so readily offer to examine a corpse.
“You’re the only healer here,” he said. “I need your help, but only if you’re willing.”
Her tone did not waver. “I am.”
They walked back without a word. In front of her tent, she paused and inclined her head in silent thanks. He bowed and turned to find Darion and Tedric by the firepit, overseeing the night guards.
“Arm yourselves,” he told them. “The princess found a corpse in the lake.”
A moment of silence followed, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Darion and Tedric exchanged a look.
“Your bride’s got a stronger stomach than most,” Darion said at last.
Tedric was already moving. “Where?”
The body lay as he’d left it, half-submerged in reeds. They wrapped her in canvas and bore her back to camp. By the time they returned, a stir had already spread.
As they laid the shrouded body on cleared ground, a sharp shriek split the night. One of the X?en women clutched her shawl and stumbled back.
“Is that—what is that?!” she cried in Isseric.
“You brought a corpse into camp?” another sneered, lifting her skirt as if death might stain her hem.
The third pressed a kerchief to her nose, calmer than the other two, but no more sympathetic. “Lord Wulfbane, have we not suffered enough indignities?”
Alexander’s gaze snapped to them, their shrill voices grating in his ears. These women, who had cowered in the carriage while their mistress was trapped outside, now dared to wrinkle their noses at the dead.
His voice cut low and clear through the camp. “This woman was someone’s daughter. Someone’s kin. Show her respect”—his jaw hardened—“or hold your tongues.”
Silence fell at once. None dared meet his eyes.
The princess emerged from her tent a heartbeat later, her medicine chest in hand, a breath of fresh air from her hysterical companions. When she reached the body, she looked to Alexander for permission.
He nodded. “If you haven’t changed your mind.”
“I haven’t.”
She glanced at the gathering crowd, then leaned toward him, her voice low. “If I may . . . I would prefer to examine her in the privacy of my tent. Even in death, she deserves dignity.”
Alexander’s brows lifted at the request. Sensible. Compassionate. She thought of shielding the woman from prying eyes and gossiping tongues.
“Of course,” he said, turning to Darion and Tedric. “Take her to my tent.”
He’d slept often enough beneath the open sky, his cloak the only thing between his back and the hard ground. One more night would hardly matter.
With care, his men carried the corpse into his tent and laid her on the woven mat.
The princess knelt beside the body while Alexander motioned the others out.
She peeled back the canvas. Torchlights traced shadows across her veiled face as she examined the still form.
She cautiously turned the woman’s head, inspecting the jaw, the neck.
“The water complicates the judgment, but she has been dead for perhaps a day, a little more. The cold of the lake has slowed everything. Her limbs are still stiff, but the rigidity is uneven. It will soon pass.” Her fingers rested on the woman’s cool, mottled skin.
“The water also bleaches the flesh and masks bruising. It can hide the truth as well as any lie.”
Her fingers hovered above the wrists. “You see the bruising here. Old restraints. Possibly hemp. But they were removed without force. I see no evidence of blood or chafing.”
Alexander watched her closely, struck by the reverence in every movement.
She was no cold physician. Her hands moved with care, as though the cold body before her still deserved gentleness.
Each tear in the fabric she smoothed, each fold she arranged, as if modesty might still matter to the dead.
When her fingers hovered at the hem of the woman’s skirt, she lifted her eyes to him—silent, waiting.
He caught her meaning at once. Clearing his throat, he turned away.
“I am checking for signs of . . . forced intimacy,” she said behind him. “Bruising. Tearing. Bleeding. Sometimes there are marks left behind.”
After a moment, she murmured, “There are none here. No signs of forced entry. No injury to the soft tissue. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Not everything leaves visible traces after death, especially after time spent in water.”
Alexander went very still. He hadn’t expected her to speak of such barbarity so plainly.
The detachment in her words was a dissonance that struck his chest. This wasn’t theoretical knowledge from a book; this was the language of someone who had done this grim inventory before.
The image flashed, unbidden: a younger version of her in some palace sickroom, examining another broken woman. How many?
She cleared her throat. “You may turn around again, my lord.”
Alexander turned back and studied her in silence.
“How do you know these things?” he asked at last.
She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze dropped to the woman’s lifeless hand, which lay curled and open, as if still waiting for help that never came.
Then, softly: “Because I’ve seen it before. Many times. Life at the Imperial Palace of a Thousand Suns didn’t afford me the luxury of ignorance.”
Her answer was a confirmation of his darkest guess. A cold fury, directionless and vast, settled in his gut. Not at her, but at the world that had made such knowledge necessary for a princess. He looked at her—composed, methodical—and saw not just strength, but the cost of it.
“You are a princess,” he said. “You should’ve been spared from such ugliness.”
She looked up and held his gaze. “I am a daughter of the emperor, my lord. That is not the same thing.”
Alexander stared at her. The more he saw, the more he found himself wanting to know what else lay behind the veil—not just the face, but the life it had concealed.
The princess paused, her fingertips brushing the dead woman’s temple with such gentleness, it brought an ache to his chest. Then, solemnly, she passed her hand over the woman’s face, closing her eyes.
“She was left like this,” she murmured. “Whoever abandoned her didn’t even bother to close her eyes.”