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There is a man in the corner of Irene’s bedroom, half-concealed in shadow, looking out the window.
This isn’t out of the ordinary anymore, considering her husband’s habit of sneaking in to see her to avoid the pomp and bother of a formal visit of king to queen. She loved having him there, having him close in a way she never thought she would be able to share her private space. He had made himself part of her privacy, welcome in it.
This wasn’t the same. Because the man in the corner was not her husband, for all that he wore her husband’s skin.
Irene sat up in bed as soon as she noticed, her eyes wary, tucking her knees up to her chest. She watched him watching her city, his posture relaxed. Still dressed in a billowy sleeved shirt, unlaced to nearly the center of his chest, and tight trousers with deep pockets. She could feel her pulse throbbing in her throat as she stared, waiting for him to make a move. He turned from the window to watch her back, eventually. The dim moonlight reflected in his eyes, making them shine like an animal’s.
Rage and terror churned in her gut, bile rising in her throat. “Eugenides,” she said when she recovered the ability to speak again.
He tilted his head. “My queen.”
“Don’t,” she hissed. “I believe I’ve told you before you are not permitted in my chambers. Kindly either depart or see yourself out.”
Her husband’s head merely turned back to the window, eyes hooded. “He’s distant today,” his voice mumbled, turning something over in his fingers. A coin. Running his callouses over the shape of his own profile. “It’s cold.”
Irene said nothing, only watched. She forced even, steady breaths into her lungs and expelled it as quietly as possible, reminding herself she could blink normally.
He didn’t look up when he spoke to her again. “I can hear your heart beating. Rabbity. Fear doesn’t suit you.”
“I am angry,” she snapped.
“You are scared. It tastes different, on the air.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, his mouth dropping open by scant degrees to scent the room.
“This is not your place. I am not for you or of you.”
“Aren’t you, lady poisoner? Did you not steal yourself a throne as well?” Animal eyes, predator eyes, found her again, his teeth glinting into the smile.
Her pulse flared again as he began to cross the room towards her bed. “Don’t.”
The smile grew wider. He climbed into the bed at the foot of it, her husband’s dimples sinking into his own face as lips peeled further and further back. “I am always with him, Irene. I am with you. I have been with you since you first stole yourself out of your nursery and into your mother’s lap. I will be with you until the end, until I let him go. He’ll fall beautifully, Irene, I promise. It will be graceful. Will you watch him?”
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered as he hovered over her, his weight pressing her into the bed even without him touching her. She shrank back against the headboard, breath coming in gasps as his face pressed closer, and closer.
She woke with a gasp, jerking beneath the covers. She panted at the ceiling for a moment, afraid to look to the line of warmth pressed to her side, an arm thrown over her middle, forehead against her shoulder. Afraid of what she would see.
When she did look, it was only Eugenides, of course. Sleeping peacefully for once, his face precious and slack. She lifted a hand to brush her knuckles over his cheek and his eyes rolled under the lids, fluttering for a moment before he settled back again, now with a hint of a smile. His wrist flexed as if holding her closer with the ghost of the hand he’d never get back. Only the one hand. She turned her head away, heart calming.
On the other side of her pillow lay a sprig of coleus.