Long past midnight. Weary at last, Margarite had fallen asleep with the baby.
Hyderlin lay down on the bed as well, but sleep would not come. For a body that could always fall asleep precisely when needed and wake precisely when required, this was an unfamiliar sensation.
Was this what it meant to inhabit the body of a corpse that could not sleep?
She tossed and turned for a long while. She pressed her fingers to her chest, feeling the beating of her heart, and then reached up to run her hand along the rough stitching at her neck.
Could I take these out?
A peculiar curiosity stirred in her. Hyderlin got up.
She lit the lantern, stood before the mirror, and used a razor to carefully pick at the stitches one by one. A crawling, unsettling sensation moved across her skin as the threads came loose, one after another.
What remained on her neck was a faint scar — jagged and branching, resembling the mark left by lightning.
The trace of a severed head.
The memory of having her head cut off before the crowd was still vivid. The king’s cold gaze as he had looked down at her — that, too, clung to the inside of her skull like something thick and stubborn.
Hyderlin clenched her teeth.
“You miserable bastard…”
If the king was a miserable bastard, then his elder sister Hyderlin was one as well. She spat in her own face with the thought, and then breathed out sharply to push down her fury.
There had been a time when Hyderlin had loved Chesa deeply and sincerely. She had cherished him as an elder sister, and pledged her loyalty to him as her king.
She had refused nothing for his sake — not as his sister, and not as his Royal Guard.
Yet Chesa had discarded her.
He had framed her, had her tortured, and paraded every crime she had committed in his name before the world as the evidence of her guilt.
Hyderlin trembled as the full force of a betrayal she had never been allowed to feel in life finally came crashing down upon her.
“Chesa. You wretched, wretched man. I did everything for you. Why? Why did you kill me like that?”
Hyderlin had vowed to live out her days alone and unmarried, lest her very existence become a threat to Chesa’s hold on the throne.
She had told him every one of her secrets. She had carried out every order he gave her without leaving so much as a loose thread. She had been the perfect ally.
There had been no reason for him to discard her.
During her time in the dungeon, being broken apart and put back together again, she had asked herself hundreds of times — thousands of times — why. And never once had an answer come.
In the end, she had resigned herself to not knowing.
She had believed that death would free her from those unanswerable questions at last — but Margarite had brought her back.
“Why did you do it…”
The questions that had gone still inside her began to unspool again, one following another in an endless chain.
“I lived my life for you. Why did you betray me like that…”
And so Hyderlin spent the night in the grip of fury, hatred, the ache of betrayal, hollowness, and grief.
None of them let her go until morning.
Margarite opened her eyes at the first crow of the dawn cockerel. But she could not bring herself to sit up. She lay there groaning softly, breaking out in cold sweat.
Hyderlin pressed a hand to her forehead. She was burning up. The consequence of being soaked through in the rain the night before had arrived right on schedule.
In the meantime, the baby, freshly woken, began to cry. Margarite dragged her heavy body upright and checked on the child. She tried to nurse her, but the crying continued. Hyderlin reached out toward the baby and spoke.
“I’ll see to her. Please lie down.”
She said it because Margarite looked exhausted, but the moment she moved to act on her words, she was at a loss.
She was worried that a reanimated corpse might somehow harm an infant. And beyond that, in all her years of living, she had never once handled a child.
Margarite noticed Hyderlin’s helplessness and began directing her — telling her exactly what to do, step by step.
The baby was so small, so soft, so warm. Her oversized head kept lolling to one side, which filled Hyderlin with a low-grade terror.
Watching Hyderlin stand there, flustered and unsure of herself, the baby tucked against her chest, Margarite laughed weakly.
“It’s nice, though — having someone nearby. When I was alone, it was truly overwhelming. If I was even slightly unwell, and the baby started crying, I couldn’t do anything properly. I just… cried along with her.”
Her eyes were unfocused, hazed over with fever.
The baby looked to be no more than a few months old. And Margarite had said she had been a fugitive for roughly three months. Which meant she had fled with her body barely recovered from childbirth. Hyderlin could not fathom how the two of them had survived these past three months together.
A knock came at the door. The inn’s servant girl peeked her head in — the same girl from the night before, the one who had been watching the baby.
“Are you having breakfast this morning?”
“Breakfast for one person only. And there’s a patient here — could you find a doctor?”
“Breakfast is five gallots. Fetching a doctor is four gallots. Errand fees are normally two gallots, but in this weather, they’re double.”
Hyderlin rifled through Margarite’s pack. There were quite a few pieces of expensive jewelry, but very little cash. She flipped a one-galloté gold coin to the girl. The girl bit down on it and looked up.
“Is this a real galloté? I don’t think I’ll have change for this.”
“Keep the change. Just do me a few errands.”
Margarite muttered something about Hyderlin having no sense of economy. Hyderlin ignored her.
Hyderlin was still dressed in the old funeral shroud she had woken up in. Wearing it out into the streets was out of the question, but she could hardly send the ailing Margarite out to buy clothes, which left her with no choice but to send the girl.
“What kind of errands?”
“This might be a long list — are you sure you can remember it all?”
“I have a good memory. I can manage.”
The girl bristled. Hyderlin smiled faintly and began listing off everything she needed.
One set of traveling clothes, top and bottom. One waterproof cloak. Boots. Hair dye. A dagger. A belt… and so on.
As the list stretched on and on, the girl’s expression gradually went blank. Whether she truly memorized everything or was simply too proud to ask for it to be repeated, she never once asked Hyderlin to say anything again.
Once the girl had gone, Margarite gave Hyderlin a pointed look.
“Please, show some restraint.”
“Yes. I’ve received the advance for the task. It’ll do.”
Some time passed. A boy arrived carrying their breakfast, the doctor following close behind. The doctor examined Margarite, left a prescription, and departed. With the fever brought somewhat under control, Margarite managed to eat with a noticeably improved complexion.
“You’re not eating?”
“I don’t feel hungry.”
“You should eat something anyway.”
“It seems Your Majesty was right — this body requires neither food nor sleep.”
She had not slept even a moment through the night, and she did not feel the least bit tired. Looking at the food stirred neither appetite nor hunger in her.
The girl returned before long, drenched to the skin and gasping for breath, and held out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth.
“Check if anything is missing!”
Hyderlin spread everything across the bed.
One set of traveling clothes, top and bottom. A waterproof cloak. Boots. Hair dye. A dagger. A belt. And everything else besides.
It appeared she had bought every last thing on the list.
“Did you check? Nothing missing? Then I’ll be on my way!”
“You’ve still got at least half a galloté left, and you were thinking of slipping off without a word.”
“You said the change was mine!”
“It is. But there’s a patient here who needs watching. Stay with her for a while.”
The girl’s face transformed at once.
“Oh, if that’s all you need, of course I’ll help. Ma’am, I’ll keep an eye on the baby. You get some rest. Has your fever come down at all?”
While the girl fussed over Margarite and the baby, Hyderlin stood before the mirror with the hair dye in hand.
The mirror showed her a haggard face.
Her eyes, sunken deep beneath the brow bones, were bleak, but the set of her gaze was as fierce as a bird of prey. Long, thick lashes cast deep shadows at the corners of her eyes. Her nose was sharp, and her drawn cheeks and chapped lips were bloodless and pale.
Her complexion was colorless as chalk — but the coiled hair falling over her shoulders was a vivid, burning red, bright as open flame.
“You could be spotted from a hundred paces.”
Sarg had said that about her hair once. Hyderlin had thought he was being excessive about it — but apparently, to Sarg’s eyes, she had been quite remarkably visible.
When she felt eyes on her and turned, she had often found Sarg standing somewhere in the distance, their gazes meeting with uncanny frequency. On those occasions, Hyderlin would give him a wide grin, and Sarg would tighten his jaw and remove himself from sight.
Hyderlin had always found it rather entertaining to needle Sarg.
What a funny man.
In any case, the red hair was far too conspicuous.
Even if someone who had known her in life crossed her path, they would not seriously believe that the woman they were looking at was the dead Hyderlin. A dead person walking the earth again was the kind of thing that happened about as often as the sun rising in the west.
But her hair was, by Sarg’s own account, visible from a hundred paces away. On the off chance that someone who had known her got close enough to recognize her face, there was no reason to take the risk.
Hyderlin preferred to be cautious.
She used the dye the girl had bought to color her hair — and her brows — black. The girl, who had been cooing and playing peekaboo with the baby, drifted over as she watched, and sidled up next to her.
“It’s such a shame, really — hair this beautifully red is so rare… though I’m sure black will suit you just as well, ma’am.”
She was chatty and loud. But she was helpful with the dyeing, and that made her tolerable. Hyderlin endured the girl’s running commentary.
When she rinsed out the dye, a woman with black, tumbling curls looked back at her from the mirror. She moved to cut the long hair off, but the girl physically stopped her.
“Leave it until it’s grown another hand’s length, then cut it. Cutting it now won’t sell it, and it’ll only make you cold in the winter.”
“I don’t feel the cold.”
“That may be so! But isn’t it a waste? You could sell it for a tidy bit of coin!”
“Yes, yes, all right…”
She had no particular interest in selling her hair, but she agreed not to cut it. Before her death she had worn her red hair short — wearing it long now, and black, might at least help confuse anyone who thought they recognized her.
“But what’s that — on your neck?”
The girl was sneaking glances at the base of Hyderlin’s neck.
The funeral shroud’s high collar had covered the scar from the severing. But the girl, standing close enough to help with the dyeing, had apparently caught a glimpse.
Hyderlin thought for a moment before answering.
“A necklace.”
“What kind of necklace looks like that? It’s frightening.”
“Only foolish adults wear it.”
“Then I certainly won’t be wearing one.”
The girl said it cheekily. Hyderlin answered in an even, matter-of-fact tone.
“That’s right. You have no need of it.”
