Chapter 71- Every Fairy Tale Buries Someone Outside Its Pages
"What are you talking about?"
The question left me quietly.
I did not ask because I wanted to challenge him or force one final answer from a dying man.
I asked because I genuinely did not understand.
I had listened to every word, searched every memory I possessed, followed the grief in his voice as carefully as I could, and still the woman he mourned remained faceless.
Nathaniel laughed.
The sound barely formed.
It slipped from him as a thin, broken breath, more air than voice, and disappeared into the quiet of the office before it could become anything resembling amusement.
His chest rose beneath his coat, shallowly now.
Each breath seemed to require thought. Each one came a little slower than the last, as though his body had begun deciding which functions were no longer worth the effort.
He closed his eyes.
For several moments, he lay motionless among the broken remains of the table, one arm resting strangely beside him, his fingers still curled against the ruined carpet. Then, with painful determination, he shifted.
His shoulder dragged against the floor.
His elbow pressed down.
He attempted to roll onto his back, failed once, and tried again.
The movement should have made me look away.
There was something deeply intimate about watching another person struggle against a body no longer willing to obey him.
Yet I remained still, uncertain whether helping would be kindness or insult.
Eventually, he managed it.
He lay flat beneath the ceiling, staring upward as though there were something painted among the beams that only he could see.
The fire continued burning.
The clock continued ticking.
The wine spread slowly through the rug beneath the broken wood.
Nathaniel drew in another breath.
"I have one request," he whispered.
His voice had become so faint that I nearly leaned closer without meaning to.
He turned his head toward me.
The movement was slight.
His eyes looked heavier now. Not peaceful. Only tired in a way sleep could no longer solve.
"Bury me beside her."
I stared at him.
He waited.
Perhaps he believed I knew who she was.
Perhaps grief had convinced him that the woman he loved must have been important enough for everyone else to remember.
My gown dragged softly over the floor as I crossed the distance between us. I stepped around broken porcelain and avoided the dark stain spreading near his shoulder. When I reached him, I lowered myself carefully, first onto one knee and then both, until I sat beside him on the rug.
Pity entered me before I could prevent it.
Not forgiveness.
Not regret.
Pity.
It was a quiet thing, almost reluctant. A feeling for the man he might have been before grief turned into resentment, before love became something he used to justify placing poison near unborn children.
I looked down at him.
"Who are you talking about?"
Nathaniel smiled.
It looked almost gentle.
"I suppose the king still hides parts of his past from you."
The answer tightened something inside me.
"He does not."
Nathaniel's smile widened faintly.
"I thought the two of you had no secrets."
"We do not."
The words came immediately.
Then I became quiet.
Because that was true.
Mostly.
Achille and I did not hide the things that could harm our marriage. He told me what he feared, though sometimes only after fear had already made a mess of us. He told me what threatened me. What threatened our children. What dangers existed around the throne.
But there were also things we did not discuss.
Not because they were secrets.
Because neither of us wanted them inside our marriage.
His past relationships belonged to that silence.
Achille had attempted to tell me once.
At Elias's manor.
He sat near me and began explaining something that had happened before we met. The moment he mentioned a woman, I stopped him.
I asked only two questions.
"Did you betray me?"
He said no.
"Will she ever be allowed into our marriage?"
He said no again.
That had been enough.
I trusted my husband.
I trusted him with my life, which was perhaps foolish considering how many times my life had nearly ended because of his world. I trusted him with my heart, which was far more dangerous. I believed him when he said there had been no one else after me.
But trust did not erase jealousy.
I did not want to hear about the hands that touched him before mine.
I did not want to know which women had slept beside him, which ones had whispered his name in darkness, which ones had seen his body without scars or with fewer of them. I did not want descriptions of affection that belonged to a life before me.
It was not noble.
It was not gentle.
It was simply true.
I had one rule.
Keep them away from me.
Keep them outside our home.
Outside our marriage.
Outside the life we were building.
I might be patient, but I was not patient enough to smile across a dinner table at a woman who had shared my husband's bed. I was not kind enough to pretend I felt nothing while someone looked at him with memory in her eyes.
I had rarely threatened Achille.
But on that subject, I had been clear.
It would be the only one .
Or it would gone.
There would be no former lover hovering close enough to become possibility. No woman waiting for weakness. No convenient arms he could return to after an argument. No part of our marriage would be shared with someone who believed history gave her a claim.
I had spent too much of my life being unwanted to become another person's second choice.
Nathaniel watched my face.
Even now, he appeared to notice the things I did not say.
I searched my memory again.
A woman at the manor.
Dark hair.
A familiar manner around Achille.
A gaze that lingered too long.
"Are you speaking about Elias's maid?"
Nathaniel's eyes sharpened.
I frowned, frustrated with myself.
"I am sorry. I have forgotten her name."
He laughed again.
The sound turned into a shallow cough.
"Alexis."
The name returned.
Yes.
Alexis.
I remembered her now.
Not well.
That embarrassed me more than I expected.
She had existed so briefly in my life that I had reduced her to an uncomfortable glance and an old connection I did not want explained. I remembered disliking the way she looked at Achille. Remembered the unease in my chest when I realized there had been something between them once.
Then she disappeared from my thoughts.
Apparently not from Nathaniel's.
"Her name was Alexis," he whispered. "She is buried on Elias's estate."
I looked down at him.
The grief in his face had changed.
It no longer appeared sharp.
It looked exhausted.
The anger that carried him this far had nearly spent itself, leaving only the truth beneath it.
"I am sorry," I said.
Nathaniel's mouth curved.
"Why?"
I did not know.
Because she was dead.
Because he loved her.
Because I had forgotten her name while he had built his entire ruin around it.
"I did not want her to die."
"No." He looked toward the ceiling again. "You only wanted her away."
The words touched something shameful inside me.
I did not deny them.
He closed his eyes.
"You did nothing wrong," he said. "That is the worst part."
I remained beside him.
"You walked into the life she wanted and lived it better than she ever could." His breathing faltered. "Live the fairy tale she dreamed of." There was no bitterness in the words now.
Only surrender.
I looked toward his face.
"I am not sorry I tried to kill you." The confession should have angered me. Instead, I felt strangely still. Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked at me once more. "I am sorry it had to be you."
I frowned.
"That is not an apology."
"I know."
His gaze softened.
"Love makes the worst of us."
"No," I said quietly. "Choice does."
He smiled.
Perhaps because he expected that answer.
Perhaps because, in some distant part of him, he agreed.
"I have no right to ask you for anything."
"That is true."
"But please."
The word nearly disappeared.
"Let me rest beside her."
I watched him.
He waited without pretending he deserved mercy.
His eyes glistened.
Not from fear now.
From something gentler.
Something already looking beyond me toward a grave beneath trees on Elias's estate.
I smiled at him.
Small.
Sad.
Nathaniel smiled back.
A tear escaped the corner of his eye and traveled slowly toward his temple. Then another followed. His face began to relax, the tightness leaving his jaw first, then his brow. The constant effort required to remain composed finally became unnecessary.
His chest rose.
Fell.
Rose again, though not as far.
I stayed beside him.
Not because he deserved comfort.
Because no person should be completely alone in the final moment if someone is already near enough to stay.
His eyes remained on mine.
Then slowly lost focus.
The next breath came faintly.
The one after that barely moved him.
I waited for another.
It did not come.
The office became quiet.
Completely.
I looked at Nathaniel's face.
Death made him appear younger.
That seemed unfair.
For months, I had imagined the person responsible for the poison as something monstrous. Someone whose cruelty would reveal itself once caught. Someone I could hate cleanly.
Instead, he looked tired.
Broken.
Human.
I still did not understand.
How had Alexis died?
What had happened between them?
When had grief turned into hatred for me?
Why had my happiness become proof that she had been robbed?
The questions came too late.
I remained kneeling beside his body until the door opened.
I turned my head.
Achille stood in the doorway.
For one moment, he was smiling.
Not broadly.
Just the faint, private smile he wore when he found me after searching. Relief softened his face before he fully understood what he was seeing.
Then his gaze moved past me.
Toward Nathaniel.
The smile disappeared.
Elias stood behind him.
Levi beside Elias.
All three looked into the room with the same confusion arranged differently across their faces.