Chapter Text
The snowstorm outside was merciless, howling against the black stone walls of the northern keep. The windows rattled in their frames, and each gust seemed to carry with it a reminder of where she lived—the furthest reach of the empire, land of wolves and unending winters.
Kim Dokja had grown accustomed to that cold. What she hadn’t expected was that it would seep into her heart long before it reached her bones.
Now she lay on her deathbed, propped up on embroidered pillows, her lips tinged gray from the poison that still burned in her stomach. Every breath was shallow, laborious, yet her eyes—dark and sharp as ever—remained dry.
At her bedside, Marchioness Han Sooyoung sat with her boots kicked up on the gilded chair as if this were any other evening. Her posture was careless, her gaze steady, her fingers tapping against her elbow. She always pretended not to care, but Dokja had long since learned to read her moods. The tapping meant she was furious.
“You’re a damned fool, Kim Dokja,” Sooyoung said at last. Her voice was too sharp to break. “All this time I told you to stop playing the dutiful wife. And here you are—dying for it.”
Dokja’s lips curled faintly. “It seems I was too good at playing the part.”
“Don’t joke.” Sooyoung’s eyes flashed. “Do you think I don’t know? You’ve been poisoned. And I’ll bet every wolf outside that door it wasn’t an accident.”
Dokja let her gaze drift toward the carved oak doors that led deeper into the keep. Silent. Empty. Always empty. “And yet,” she murmured, “he isn’t here.”
Sooyoung stiffened. “Why would you care? He never loved you. You’ve been a shadow in his halls from the day you married.”
“I know.” Her voice was quiet, stripped bare. “But it would’ve been nice, don’t you think? For a husband to visit his wife’s deathbed.”
The words should have sounded bitter, but instead they came out weary, almost gentle. Resignation hung in the air thicker than the smoke from the dying hearth.
Sooyoung leaned forward, grasping her hand with uncharacteristic force. “Forget him. If Yoo Joonghyuk won’t come, then let him rot in his solitude. You are more than the title of archduchess.”
Dokja laughed weakly, though the sound cracked into a cough. “You make it sound like I had a choice. I was sold to him like livestock. My father saved his crumbling barony, the court gained their alliance, and I—” she coughed again, spitting the taste of iron into her mouth—“I became the perfect little wife no one wanted.”
“Not no one,” Sooyoung muttered. “You had me.”
That, somehow, made Dokja smile. “True. The marchioness who terrifies half the court, who can’t hold her tongue for a heartbeat… and yet, you were the only one who stayed by me.”
Sooyoung’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You’re infuriating.”
Dokja’s eyes fluttered half-closed, her body growing heavier by the moment. The firelight blurred, shadows flickering like memories at the edge of her vision. Her voice came softer now, almost like a confession.
“I wanted to be loved, Sooyoung. Just once. Even if it was a lie.”
Silence stretched between them. Outside, the storm screamed, rattling the shutters.
Finally, Sooyoung whispered, low and fierce, “Then if there’s a next life—demand it. Make the world give it to you.”
A soft laugh slipped from Dokja’s lips. Her last. “Then let me be selfish, next time.”
Her hand slackened in Sooyoung’s grasp. Her head tilted against the pillows. The archduchess of the north, unloved and unseen, breathed her final breath.
The fire dwindled to embers. The storm raged on.