Chapter 55- Roses
Leaving the nursery should have been easier than entering it.
It was only a room. Stone, wood, paint, cloth, carved furniture, folded blankets, ridiculous stuffed creatures Veronica kept arranging with a seriousness that suggested she was preparing them for court presentation.
It should have meant nothing yet. My child had never slept there.
Ophelia had never stood in the doorway with her hand beneath her stomach, smiling at the painted birds while pretending she was not about to cry.
No laughter had touched those walls. No small hands had reached for the cradle.
Nothing had happened in that room except preparation, and preparation had always been easier than hope.
Preparation was logical. Useful. Controlled. Hope was a blade without a handle.
And still, when I stepped out of the nursery and closed the door behind me, something in my chest resisted.
The nursery connected directly to our chambers now.
I had ordered the passage opened the second day after Ophelia left, because the idea of our child sleeping somewhere I could not reach in less than ten breaths had become intolerable.
The architect had looked at me as if I were deranged.
The steward had asked whether tradition required the royal nursery to remain in the eastern wing.
I had told him tradition could be buried beneath the eastern wing if it felt strongly enough about the matter.
After that, people stopped asking questions and started breaking walls.
I had been setting the room up since she left.
Not because I believed furniture would save her.
Not because folded blankets and painted ceilings could undo poison.
Not because tiny dresses and carved cradles could answer the questions still rotting through my mind.
I did it because my hands needed something to do while my thoughts tried to murder me.
I did it because every time I sat still too long, I imagined her at Elias's manor turning pale beneath foreign sheets.
I imagined her coughing blood into a handkerchief.
I imagined her reaching for me and finding empty air.
I imagined my child inside her, small and helpless, trapped in the same body some coward kept turning into a battlefield.
She was safe.
I knew that.
Elias would soon send word just as Liliana had details no one asked for.
Veronica had confirmed every message through separate channels.
Ophelia had eaten broth. Ophelia had slept.
Ophelia had walked too far and frightened three people who were pretending not to hover.
Ophelia had gotten lost, because of course she had, because my wife could survive poison but not a hallway designed by my ancestors.
She was alive. She was away from the palace.
No one knew she was gone but she was alive and doing better.
I just prayed she would not relapse.
Every report I received should have calmed me, but instead each one sharpened the same question until it became impossible to ignore.
How could I bring her back here?
How could I stand in that nursery and imagine my daughter sleeping behind those walls when I was no closer to knowing who had tried to turn my wife's body into a grave?
How could I promise the empty cradle that Ophelia would come home when this palace remained full of hands, mouths, keys, loyalties, lies, servants, nobles, physicians, guards, and people who had learned to smile with poison behind their teeth?
Anyone could have a motive.
That was the problem with ruling the way I did.
I had never pretended to be loved. I had never needed affection from the court, never begged approval from men whose ancestors had survived by kneeling at the correct time.
Fear was efficient. Obedience was measurable.
Loyalty could be tested. Love, however, made men stupid, and I had once considered myself too practical to build rule upon something that could not be sharpened or enforced.
Now I understood the cost of that efficiency.
When a man has made enemies out of half the room and frightened the other half into silence, motive becomes useless. Everyone has one.
Veronica would never hurt Ophelia.
I believed that.
Mostly.
And the word mostly made me want to rip my own thoughts apart.
Veronica had bled for us. Killed for us.
Protected me with the sort of vicious devotion that made even hardened soldiers uncomfortable.
She had stood between me and danger without hesitation.
She had softened in ways I never expected and remained horrifying in ways no sane person should admire.
But even now, after all these years, I could not pretend I knew everything that moved inside her head.
Veronica still shocked me. She still said things that made rooms go cold.
She still smiled at pain like it was an old friend arriving late for tea.
Trusting her was easy. Understanding her was not.
whether I choose to admit it or not Veronica was unstable.
There was no line she wouldn't cross for revenge if she could pludge a sword into her own son's heart a little poison is not an unthinkable possibility if she believes I had been unjust.
Levi had already destroyed his own family.
Why would he not destroy someone else's?
The thought came and stayed, ugly and logical.
He had wrapped cruelty in etiquette for years, had spoken of children like future acquaintances and wives like inconveniences.
Men like Levi did not always need hatred to hurt people.
Sometimes indifference was enough. Sometimes pride was enough.
Sometimes the simple resentment of watching someone else receive tenderness he had never valued was enough to make a man reckless.
Nathaniel rarely interacted with anyone.
He did his work. Went home. Spoke when spoken to unless something mattered enough to break his silence.
He was useful. Calm. Observant. Gentle in the way quiet men sometimes were when they had seen too many loud ones do harm.
Ophelia trusted him, or at least never feared him, which mattered more to me than most recommendations.
And yet quiet did not mean harmless. Distance did not mean innocence.
Men who kept to themselves had room to hide entire lives.
Jacline was strange.
That alone did not condemn her. Most people close to us were strange.
Elias had built an entire family out of the damaged, the discarded, the brilliant, and the unwell, then acted surprised when none of them behaved normally.
Jacline and Ophelia had formed a friendship slowly, awkwardly, in the way Ophelia formed most friendships, by being kind long enough to confuse people into lowering their guard.
Jacline seemed loyal. But affection could be faked.
Loyalty could rot. Friendship could become envy if watered with enough poison.
Elias could do it for the throne.
That was the obvious suspicion. The clean one.
The one a lesser man would seize first because it required little imagination.
Elias had royal blood close enough to matter, history deep enough to be inconvenient, loyalty complicated enough to frighten fools.
If Ophelia and the child died, if grief broke me, if the empire became unstable, men would whisper his name even if he never allowed them to speak it aloud.
But Elias would sooner cut off his own head than wear a crown.
He had made that painfully clear more than once.
Elias liked power best when other people did not see him holding it.
A throne was too bright, too exposed, too tedious.
It came with ceremonies, petitions, bloodlines, heirs, courtiers, expectations, and public obedience to rules he preferred bending from shadows.
More than that, Elias would never hurt my child.
Not for politics. Not for ambition. Not for survival.
That child was not only mine. Not only Ophelia's.
That child was the continuation of something Elias had spent years protecting despite pretending he cared only because it entertained him.
Our family line.
Our legacy.
The one thing Elias could not make himself.
No one knew.
No one outside the smallest of circle knew Elias could not have children.
He had hidden that truth so thoroughly that even Veronica had not known until she carved it out of him by accident.
She had spent years telling him he deserved someone younger, someone softer, someone less ruined by life and blood, someone who could give him a proper family.
She had said it often enough that Elias, who could survive torture with jokes and smile through blood loss, finally snapped.
I had not been there for the first fracture, but I saw the aftermath.
Veronica standing pale and silent for once in her cursed life.
Elias laughing without humor, eyes dead, voice too light as he told her he had made peace with not having a family of his own long before she decided to punish herself with him.
The horror on her face had been unforgettable.
Not because Veronica shocked easily. She did not.
Pain rarely moved her unless it belonged to someone she loved.
But realizing she had spent years trying to free Elias from a burden he could not carry, trying to send him toward a life he physically could not have, broke something open in her.
She had thought he was being stubborn. Lying.
Noble in that irritating Elias way where he pretended self-denial was a personality trait.
She had not understood that every time she told him to marry someone who could give him children, she had pressed her thumb into a wound he had never shown her.
It explained too much after that.
Why Elias became frighteningly quiet around men who mistreated their children.
Why neglect angered him more than insults.
Why the manor was filled with children who were not his and somehow all his.
Why he could laugh through blood and politics but go cold when someone treated a child like an inconvenience.
Why he had never cared to marry before Veronica.
He had not wanted to give a woman a life where the court would blame her empty cradle before blaming him.
He had not wanted some girl destroyed by whispers because he could not produce an heir and prideful men preferred barren women to imperfect husbands.
No.
Elias would not poison Ophelia.
He would not poison my child.
But removing one name from suspicion did not empty the list.
It made the remaining shadows darker.
By the time I reached our chambers, the corridor outside had already been cleared.
No guards stood at the door anymore. No maids waited with trays.
No physicians whispered in corners. No servants came in and out carrying linens, medicines, water, broth, reports, sympathy, fear.
I had stripped the room of access piece by piece after Ophelia left, using her exhaustion as excuse, her need for peace as shield.
The queen felt suffocated, I said. The queen wanted privacy.
The queen was overwhelmed by constant concern.
The queen required fewer visitors. The queen would recover faster if everyone stopped treating her chambers like a public mourning hall.
No one questioned me.
They were too relieved to have an order that sounded gentle.
Only Veronica and I were allowed inside now.
One physician entered at specific hours and only after being searched so thoroughly that the man had begun sweating before he reached the door.
He knew the truth. He knew Ophelia was gone.
He also knew that if he spoke of it, death would be the kindest part of what followed.
Fear kept him obedient. For now, fear was enough.
Food still arrived regularly.
For appearance.
Every tray was inspected, carried, documented, tested, and delivered with careful ceremony.
Then I threw it away. Broth. Porridge. Soft fruit.
Tea. Honeyed milk. Everything she would have tried to swallow while pretending her throat did not feel carved open.
I disposed of it all and sent back enough signs of consumption to keep the lie breathing.
Cups half emptied. Bowls disturbed. Bread torn.
Napkins stained. If anyone watched, they would believe my wife still ate poorly but ate.
Still slept. Still existed behind those doors.
The bed had been arranged to look occupied.
Pillows beneath blankets. Curtains half drawn.
A shape beneath the covers visible enough to satisfy servants who only glimpsed from the threshold.
Veronica changed the arrangement every few hours because she claimed my first attempt looked like I had murdered a tall bundle of laundry and tucked it in with military respect.
I had told her she was free to stop helping.
She told me she was free to keep insulting me.
I opened the chamber door and stepped inside.
The room smelled like flowers.
It had smelled like flowers for weeks.
At first, Ophelia had loved it.
Nobles sent flowers every day after she fell ill.
Baskets. Bouquets. Arrangements taller than children.
Roses, lilies, wildflowers, pale blossoms from northern estates, expensive greenhouse absurdities from southern families desperate to appear devoted.
My wife had found it sweet. She had sat among them when she had strength and smiled softly at each card.
She had arranged some herself because lying still made her restless and flowers made illness feel less like surrender.
The rest of us thought it was excessive.
There were more flowers than vases. More petals than sense.
The sitting room had begun resembling a garden losing an argument with death.
Every table held arrangements. Every corner carried the heavy sweetness of wilting stems and perfumed water.
I had ordered some removed more than once, but more always came.
Sympathy was convenient when delivered by servants.
A bouquet allowed nobles to feel loyal without entering the room where suffering lived.
I was seated at Ophelia's desk with reports spread before me when Veronica entered carrying another armful of flowers.
She kicked the door shut behind her and groaned like a dying soldier. "This is expensive."
I looked up.
Her hair was slightly loose around her face, and sweat shone along her brow despite the late hour.
She looked tired in a way Veronica rarely allowed herself to look, sleeves rolled, gloves absent, arms full of roses and pale greenery wrapped in silk ribbon.
One thorn had scratched across the inside of her wrist, leaving a thin red line she appeared more offended by than hurt.
"I am tired of getting cut by stupid roses," she muttered.
Despite everything, I laughed.
"You should have kept your gloves on like usual."
She gave me a withering look. "It is the middle of the night.
I am not walking around in full gear like an idiog.
"She crossed the room and dropped one arrangement onto a side table with less care than the sender likely hoped their expensive grief deserved.
She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, then grimaced when she noticed the smear of dirt and plant residue against her skin.
"If one more noble sends roses, I am going to start returning thorns in envelopes. "
I looked back down at the document in front of me, though the words had begun to blur.
Border inventories. Guard rotations. Flower delivery records.
Physician notes. Servant schedules. Every piece of palace life reduced to ink, and still none of it formed the answer I needed.
Veronica moved around the room behind me, muttering under her breath as she replaced dying arrangements with fresher ones.
Glass shifted. Water poured. Stems scraped against ceramic. Petals brushed the table.
For a few minutes, the sounds became part of the room.
Ordinary.
Then glass shattered.
My head snapped up.
Veronica stood near the far table, frozen, one hand still lifted where the vase had been.
Broken ceramic lay across the floor in jagged white pieces.
Water spread over the carpet, darkening the fibers.
Flowers lay scattered near her boots, stems bent, petals bruised, leaves shining wet beneath candlelight.
At first I thought she had simply dropped it.
Then I saw her hand shaking.
Not trembling from pain.
Shaking.
Her brows drew together as though the room had briefly stopped making sense.
She looked down at her fingers. Then at the flowers.
Then around the chamber with sudden, dawning confusion that cut colder through me than fear.
Veronica did not confuse easily. She did not panic beautifully or dramatically.
She did not become fragile because a vase broke.
Her face changed.
Realization crossed it like a blade.
Then she bent forward and vomited onto the floor.
I was out of the chair before the sound finished.
"Veronica."
She staggered away from me so quickly her shoulder struck the table behind her.
Another vase wobbled. She hit the edge of a chair, cursed, nearly fell, then lurched toward the bathing room, catching herself against furniture with no grace at all.
I followed immediately, one hand already reaching for her because despite all reason and personality flaws, she was family, and family apparently meant chasing dangerous women while they stumbled through my chambers vomiting secrets onto carpets.
She slammed into the bathing room doorway and grabbed the wash basin.
Soap.
Water.
Her hands moved too fast.
She scrubbed her forearms with a violence that made my stomach tighten.
Once. Twice. Again. Water splashed over the basin.
Soap foamed thick and white against her skin.
Her breathing had changed. Not panicked exactly.
Controlled panic. The kind trained people used when terror arrived and discipline grabbed it by the throat.
"What is wrong?" I demanded.
"Do not touch me."
The words cracked through the room.
I stopped.
Veronica did not look at me. She kept scrubbing, harder now, nails dragging over skin, washing from wrist to elbow, then starting again. Her face had gone pale beneath the candlelight. Sweat clung to her temple. Her jaw clenched as if she were trying not to vomit again.
"What happened?"
"Do not touch me," she repeated, sharper. "Do not touch my hands. Do not touch my sleeves. Do not touch anything I carried."
I stared at her for one second longer, then forced myself to turn back toward the sitting room.
The broken vase lay across the carpet. Water continued spreading slowly beneath the flowers. I moved toward it, irritation and concern battling beneath my ribs.
"Achille."
Her voice came from the bathing room.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Terrified.
I froze.
"Do not touch any of the flowers in this room."
The world narrowed.
I looked down.
The flowers lay inches from my boot.
"What?"
Water ran in the bathing room. Veronica's breathing sounded rough. "Do not touch them."
I did not move.
"There is conium maculatum in some of the arrangements."