Yvonne's heart hammered against her ribs so violently she could barely draw breath. The sword pressed to her throat had already nipped the skin; from the corner of her eye she watched a thin ribbon of blood slide down her neck and soak into the collar of her gown. The mad beast holding the blade didn't seem to care that he was making her bleed. His eyes had darkened until they looked monstrous. pupils swallowed by black, the familiar blue drowned in something feral and mad.
Ice flared across the courtyard stones in jagged veins, creeping higher up the legs of several maids until they stood frozen like grotesque sculptures. Yvonne stared, disbelief clawing at the back of her throat. How was he doing this?
She wasn't just in the past anymore. This was something else entirely, supernatural, impossible, and deadly. Every instinct screamed at her to step back, to yield before she ended up a human popsicle or missing her head. She didn't even know the trembling girl cowering behind her; if it had been Klara she might have understood the impulse to shield her. But this stranger? Still her feet remained rooted to the blood-slick stones.
Her word should carry weight here. He might be the sovereign ruler, but she was queen.
Yet it was painfully clear this demon king cared for neither of them.
Even so, Yvonne refused to move. She would not step aside and whisper, Go ahead, kill her. That would be cowardice, and she had never been a coward.
She lifted her chin higher. The blade sank another fraction of an inch. Fresh heat bloomed along the cut; she felt the vein flutter wildly against cold steel. One wrong twitch and she would tear something vital open.
Still she did not yield.
A fresh line of fire opened along her throat, warm blood trickled down the hollow between her collarbones, soaking into the cream silk already stained with courtyard mud and someone else's blood on the floor.
Javier did not flinch.
His eyes, now blacker than midnight remained locked on hers. No flicker of concern, no softening. Only that bottomless, predatory stillness that made every hair on her arms stand up.
Around them the courtyard had gone unnaturally quiet. The wind had died; even the surviving servants seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Ice crackled underfoot, crawling higher up the legs of the nearest frozen maid until her skirts stood rigid like glass sculpture. Somewhere a horse whinnied once, then fell silent.
Yvonne swallowed. The motion dragged skin against steel. Fresh heat welled.
"You bleed easily," he observed, voice so low it barely carried past her ears. "Yet you still stand in my way."
She forced a smile. "You bleed too, don't you? When you're not careful."
A muscle ticked along his jaw. The first real crack she'd seen since the massacre began.
"I bleed," he said softly, "when I choose to." The sword tilted just enough. Another bead of red slid down her neck, dripping onto the toe of his boot. "You bleed because you are careless."
She laughed, the sound shaky even to her own ears. "Careless? You just murdered half my household staff because the physician thinks I was poisoned. That's not careless. That's *deranged*."
His head cocked, almost curious.
"Deranged," he repeated, tasting the word like wine. "And yet here you are, bleeding for a girl whose name you do not know, while the poison that should have killed you weeks ago still swims in your veins."
Yvonne's stomach lurched. The world narrowed to the cold line at her throat and the man holding it.
"Step out of the way,"
Yvonne's knees threatened to buckle. She locked them. "No, someone needs to protect your people because.." she rasped. "You certainly won't."
A beat of absolute silence.
Then he laughed, low, dark, and terrible. The sound crawled inside her ribs and stayed there.
"Bold," he murmured. "Stupid but bold."
He stepped closer. The sword stayed steady at her throat, but now the length of his body nearly brushed hers. Heat rolled off him despite the ice spreading outward from his boots. She could smell blood, leather, something sharper—ozone, maybe, or the metallic bite of winter itself.
"Move," he repeated.
Yvonne lifted her chin higher. The blade sank another fraction. Stars burst behind her eyes. She felt the vein flutter wildly against steel.
"No."
His free hand snapped up suddenly, fingers closing around her jaw, forcing her face to his. Up close his eyes weren't black; they were the color of storm clouds right before lightning splits them open.
"You think your title protects you?" he whispered. "You think being queen means anything when I can end you with a flick of my wrist?"
"I think," she managed through gritted teeth, "that if you kill me now, you lose the one person in this entire frozen hellhole who isn't terrified of you."
His thumb stroked once along the edge of her jaw almost tender. Then he squeezed, hard enough that her teeth clicked together.
"Terrified," he echoed, tasting the word. "Is that what you believe I want?"
"Isn't it?"
For one endless second something flickered in his gaze, something raw, something starving. Then it was gone, shuttered behind ice again.
He leaned in until his lips nearly brushed the shell of her ear.
"I want obedience," he breathed. "I want legacy. I want you on your knees, little queen, with my name on your tongue and my child in your belly. And if you will not give me those things willingly…" His fingers flexed. "I will carve them out of you."
Yvonne's vision tunneled. Blood roared in her ears.
"Then do it," she whispered back. "Kill me. Kill the maid. Kill everyone who looks at you wrong. But when the next arrow comes or when the next cup is poisoned, you'll have no one left to stand between you and the blade. Not even your precious heir."
His grip spasmed.
The sword wavered just a fraction.
She pressed forward into the edge again. Fresh heat spilled down her chest.
"Or," she continued, voice cracking, "you could stop acting like a rabid dog and investigate. Ask questions. Find out who actually wants me dead. Because I promise you .." her lips curled despite the pain, "...it isn't them."
Silence stretched so thin it hurt.
Then, slowly, agonizingly slow, he withdrew the blade.
Not far. Just enough that the steel no longer kissed her vein.
Blood kept dripping, warm against suddenly freezing skin.
Javier stared at the red line he'd opened, expression unreadable.
"On your knees," he said at last.
Yvonne's legs shook. She locked them harder.
"No."
His eyes lifted to hers.
"On your knees," he repeated, slower, "and I will hurt no one else… today."
The promise hung between them like smoke.
She searched his face, really searched. Past the ice. Past the blood. Past the monster.
And found… nothing she could trust.
But she also found no lie.
Her knees hit the stones before she could talk herself out of it.
Pain shot up her legs. Gravel bit through silk. She didn't flinch.
The maid behind her let out a broken sob of relief.
Javier exhaled sharply, like a man who'd been holding his breath for years.
He sheathed the sword in one smooth motion.
"Take the girl to the dungeons," he told the nearest guard. No heat. No malice. Just fact. "Question her…. " He trailed off and then turned to his queen and added with a humorless smile "Gently."
The guard blinked.
"Now."
They moved.
Yvonne stayed on her knees, staring up at him through the haze of pain and adrenaline. Blood had soaked the front of her gown; she could feel it cooling, sticking.
He crouched down until their eyes were level.
"You will learn," he said softly, "that mercy is a luxury I seldom afford."
His gloved hand rose. Thumb brushed the cut on her throat smearing blood across her skin like paint.
"But today," he continued, voice dropping to something almost intimate, "you bought one life with your own. Remember that, little queen."
He stood.
"Get her cleaned and washed," he ordered the remaining servants without looking away from her.
No one moved until he turned.
Then the courtyard erupted into motion.
Yvonne stayed kneeling long after he walked away, long after the guards dragged the maid off, long after the blood on the stones began to congeal.
She lifted trembling fingers to her throat.
The cut was shallow. It would heal.
But the weight of what she'd just done, of what she'd just bought settled in her chest like lead.
She had stood between death and an innocent.
And the monster had shown…..mercy.
For now.