Chapter 12 - Questions
I wake feeling as though I have not rested at all.
For a few seconds, I do not open my eyes.
I simply lie there beneath the blankets and try to understand why my body feels so heavy, why even breathing seems to require a little more effort than it should.
The room is quiet, the sort of quiet that belongs to late morning rather than dawn, when the sun has already climbed high enough to spill warm light through the curtains and the world outside has long since begun moving without me.
Usually, I wake more easily here than I ever did in the palace.
Usually, there is something peaceful in the slower rhythm of the manor, something soft in the way mornings reach me when there is no court waiting, no expectation beyond the simple act of getting up.
Today, none of that helps.
My stomach turns, not violently, not enough to send panic through me, but enough that even the thought of rising too quickly feels unwise.
There is also the memory of last night, of the way Elias stepped toward me and the sharp, unbearable wrongness of his scent, the way my body betrayed me before my mind could understand what was happening.
The humiliation of it still clings to me, thin and unpleasant as cold sweat.
I can still see Achilles' face when I doubled over.
Still hear Veronica's voice turning sharp as a blade.
Still feel the strange embarrassment of being watched while my own body refused to behave.
I open my eyes slowly.
The room is washed in pale gold, the light soft where it reaches across the bed, warming the linen and the carved posts and the heavy chair by the hearth. I turn my head slightly and reach beside me without thinking.
The bed is empty.
But warm.
There is something so unmistakably him in even that absence that my fingers still on the sheets for a moment.
He was here not long ago. Long enough to leave warmth behind, not long enough for it to fade.
The thought ought to comfort me, and it does, but not enough to overpower the heaviness pressing through my body.
I push myself upright with more care than I should need, swallowing against the faint churn in my stomach.
The room swims just slightly before steadying, and that, more than anything, irritates me.
I am not a woman who swoons. I am not delicate.
Tired, yes. Worn, perhaps. But this strange weakness feels too unfamiliar to belong to me.
I drag a hand through my hair and glance across the room.
That is when I see her.
Veronica sits in a chair near the window as if she has always been there, as if she grew naturally out of the furniture sometime before dawn and simply decided to wait for me to notice.
She is dressed impeccably, of course. Dark fabric, clean lines, not a single thing out of place.
Her posture is perfect. Her expression, at first glance, is unreadable.
But there is something in her eyes that tells me she has been watching me for some time already, measuring the way I woke, how quickly I moved, whether I noticed her immediately or too late.
The sight of her there startles me enough that I nearly flinch.
I press a hand to my chest and exhale. "You could have said something."
"I preferred observation," she replies.
Of course she did.
She says it with complete seriousness, as if sitting silently in a room waiting for someone to wake is the most reasonable thing in the world.
Perhaps, for her, it is. Veronica has always existed just slightly to the left of ordinary behavior, close enough that one can almost mistake her for normal until she says something that reminds you she is very much not.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
The question is simple, but there is weight beneath it. Not softness. Veronica is not soft. But something attentive lives under the dryness of her voice, something more careful than she would ever admit to possessing.
I groan quietly and let my head fall back against the carved wood of the bed. "Better," I mutter, though even to my own ears the answer sounds weak.
She does not accept it.
I can tell by the way she watches me that the answer has already been filed away and rejected.
For a moment, she says nothing. Her gaze moves over me once, from face to shoulders to the way I am sitting too carefully, and then she asks, with perfect calm, "How often are you having sex?"
I stare at her.
Outright horrified.
"What?"
She does not blink. "How often are you having sex with your husband?"
My face goes hot so quickly that I feel it all the way to the tips of my ears. I sit straighter despite how much my body protests the movement and stare at her as if that might somehow force the question back into her mouth and keep it there.
"I heard you the first time," I say, which comes out more strangled than I would like. "I'm simply refusing to answer."
Veronica exhales through her nose as though I am the difficult one in this room.
"Don't be childish."
I almost laugh from sheer disbelief. "You cannot possibly think asking me that at this hour is reasonable."
"I think your embarrassment is less useful than the answer."
"That is not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
My face is still burning. I pull the blanket a little higher over myself on instinct, as if that somehow helps, and Veronica watches the movement with the deep patience of a woman accustomed to people complicating simple things.
When I continue to say nothing, she turns her head toward the door.
"Achilles."
The door opens almost immediately.
Only his head appears at first, then part of one broad shoulder, as if he had been standing just outside waiting to be summoned.
With him, that is entirely possible. His hair is still damp from bathing, pushed back carelessly, and he looks infuriatingly composed for a man who is about to become part of the most humiliating conversation of my life.
"Yes?"
"How often?"
I go cold.
Then hot all over again.
I look at her, then at him, horrified in ways I did not know it was possible to feel before noon.
He blinks once, understanding almost immediately what she means.
Then he shrugs.
"It depends... daily..unless you want to know how many times a day."
He says this with the same tone he might use to discuss the weather, tariffs, or border disputes.
I stare at him in mute disbelief as he opens the door a little farther, leans one shoulder against the frame, and actually begins counting on his fingers.
Not joking.
Not mocking me.
Trying to answer accurately.
My soul attempts to leave my body.
He looks up, thoughtful. "Are we counting oral..."
"No," Veronica says sharply before he can finish. "Only penetration."
He nods with grave seriousness, as if this clarification is medically useful and not the final blow to my dignity.
I move before I think. I throw the blankets aside, stumble out of bed with all the grace of a woman possessed by pure panic, and rush across the room to shove him out the door, closing it in his face.
"Go away!"
There is a pause from the other side.
Then his voice, muffled but calm. "im trying to answer her question."
"No, just no!"
I close my eyes and make a noise that is somewhere between a groan and a prayer for death. Behind me, Veronica sighs the sigh of a woman whose morning has somehow become less efficient than planned.
"Sit down," she says.
"I would rather swim in lava."
"You're dramatic."
"You are interrogating me about my sex life."
"It's a very simple question."
I turn and stare at her. She looks entirely sincere.
I sit because I suspect that if I refuse, she will simply continue anyway, and I would rather preserve what little control remains.
I perch at the edge of the bed, grabbing the blanket and clutching it around myself, and try not to think too hard about the fact that my husband is still definitely on the other side of the door and almost certainly listening.
Veronica studies me for a moment and then asks, "Are your breasts tender?"
I blink. Then I choke.
The answer to that, unfortunately, comes too quickly for me to pretend not I know it.
"Why are you asking this?"
"Just answer the question."
I look away. "Yes."
"Have they gotten Larger?"
"I don't think so."
From the other side of the door, Achilles says, "They are."
I whirl toward the door in immediate outrage. "Stop listening!"
There is no shame in his voice when he answers. "I'm helping."
I look at Veronica helplessly, as if surely, surely she will tell him to leave. Instead, she nods once, apparently taking his contribution as medically valid information.
"Headaches?" she asks.
I turn back to her, appalled. "How are you still doing this?"
"Headaches?"
"Yes," I mutter.
"Tiredness?"
I sigh bitterly. "Yes."
"Nausea?"
I hesitate.
Then nod.
"Appetite changes?"
I frown. "Maybe. I don't know. Things smell stronger. Some food sounds good until I actually see it."
"When was your last cycle?"
The question lands so abruptly I nearly miss its meaning.
Then, when I understand it, I look down automatically, counting backward in my head.
The days blur. The weeks blur. I have not been paying attention in the way I should have because so much has happened, because my body has had too many reasons to behave strangely lately, because. .. because I did not think...
"It's only a little late," I say.
Veronica's face remains impassive. "How late?"
I swallow. "Three weeks."
She leans back in her chair.
"Great."
I do not like the way she says that word.
"Great?"
Instead of answering immediately, she reaches to the side of the chair and lifts a small glass beaker.
I stare at it.
Then at her.
Then back at the beaker.
"...what is that for?"
"You're going to pee in it."
For a moment, I can only stare. I feel certain I have misheard, and yet I know I haven't, because Veronica never sounds uncertain enough to be mistaken.
"What?"
She says nothing, just extends the beaker.
I do not take it.
My gaze narrows suspiciously.
"What are you testing?"
"A theory."
"im not peeing in that"
"Fine, we can do it another way, blood would do the trick also." She looks mildly irritated by my hesitation. Then, perhaps deciding clarity will speed things along, she reaches into the fold of her sleeve and produces a small, wickedly sharp blade.
I am on my feet instantly.
"No."
"It would only be a little blood."
"No."
"It would be faster."
"No!"
She lifts a brow. "Then use the beaker."
I snatch it from her so quickly she almost smiles.
The bathroom has never seemed farther away. I disappear into it with what remains of my dignity and close the door harder than necessary. For a moment, I stand there gripping the little glass container and staring at my reflection in the polished mirror.
Pregnant.
The word arrives then.
Fully.
Completely.
I feel my stomach turn again.
Not from sickness this time.
From fear.
I had never truly thought about it. Not seriously. Not beyond the vague knowledge that wives became mothers and queens had to produce heirs, and that, one day, perhaps, if he did not kill me, it would happen.
And yet my body has apparently been making decisions without consulting me.
I return with the beaker like a condemned woman carrying her own sentence.
Veronica takes it without comment, as though this is the most ordinary exchange possible between two women on a quiet morning. From a small bag at her feet, she produces a narrow vial containing dark purple liquid and begins her work with unsettling competence. She pours. Measures. Swirls. Waits.
I sit again because my knees no longer feel entirely trustworthy.
My heart beats too quickly.
Outside the door, there are voices now.
Elias, unmistakably.
"I'm just saying," he says in the easy, amused tone of a man who has no idea he is standing directly beside his own death. "Given your record of failed marriages, I was beginning to suspect there were problems in the bedroom, but it's nice to have the court's doubts officially corrected."
My face flames all over again.
"I can hear you."
There is a sudden silence.
Then Elias, far too cheerfully, says, "Sorry, I was just talking about how the whole court thought your husband might have had potency issues."
I hear Achilles mutter something lower, likely a threat.
"This is a nightmare."
"No," Veronica says absently, still watching the liquid settle in the vial. "It is science. Your husband and his uncle are the nightmare."
That is, unfortunately, fair.
I peek through my fingers. "What if I'm terrible at this?"
She does not look up. "At what?"
"At..." My throat tightens. "At being a mother."
The words sound strange aloud. Too fragile. Too final.
Veronica's hands still for a moment. Then she looks at me, really looks, and some of the sharper edge of her usual expression eases just enough to matter.
"You won't be."
"You can't know that."
"I can."
"How?"
She gives a small, almost offended shrug. "Because you're already frightened of failing at it. Bad parents rarely bother with that part."
I want to believe her. Desperately. But fear is not so easily reasoned with.
I think of all the ways people have been wronged by those meant to love them.
I think of crowns. Of bloodlines. Of the children of cruel men.
I think of Veronica saying her own children wear the face of someone monstrous.
Of my mother. Of everything I do not know.
She stays fixed to the vial and gives it one final shake before setting it down. The liquid settles slowly, and she studies it with the same focus she gives knives, poison, and interrogation methods.
Then she looks up at me.
"Do you want to tell him," she asks, "or should I?"
My hands tighten in the blanket.
I can hear my own heartbeat. I can hear Elias shifting outside the door, probably trying and failing not to eavesdrop. I can hear the faint rustle of Achilles' clothes as he straightens, suddenly more attentive than he had been a second ago.
I do not know what expression crosses my face, but whatever it is, it makes Veronica's mouth twitch in something dangerously close to amusement.
I am exposed. Mortified. Exhausted. Possibly pregnant, no, definitely pregnant. by a husband who has no sense of conversational boundaries, his impossible uncle, and a woman who could probably murder half the room.