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.”
She continued her examination, and Alexander stepped back without being asked, sensing her need for space to focus. Leaning in, she parted the woman’s lips with two fingers. His eyes widened when he saw something moving beneath her touch. A moment later, a pale, glistening slug slid free from the mouth cavity, landing on the rug with a wet splat. It writhed once before crawling aimlessly toward the edge of the tent.
A shiver crawled up Alexander’s spine, but the princess didn’t even blink. She kept her gaze on the woman, utterly focused. If she was unsettled, she didn’t show it.
“You may want to see this, my lord,” she finally said.
He stepped forward.
“There are ulcers on the inner cheeks,” she said, angling the jaw slightly for him to see. “They’ve begun to rot. And here”—she lifted one of the woman’s limp hands, careful as ever, and turned the palm upward—“brittle nails. Discolouration beneath the beds. Not what I’d expect from drowning.”
Alexander leaned closer, his gaze narrowing. “Poison?”
“Perhaps,” she said softly. “The medical texts I read during my voyage spoke of a substance which, if used in small, precise doses and strict methods, can have healing properties. But it can also be a deadly poison.” She looked at him. “Purple limyerite.”
His head snapped up right away. Their eyes met.
