The sky was thick with gray, as if the morning had been veiled by the same hands that shroud the dead. The air smelled of mud and broken branches; the earth, heavy and black from the night’s rain, seemed to swallow the hooves of the horses as they moved slowly through the brush-lined path. Isak held the reins firmly—not out of control, but out of habit. The callused tips of his fingers were well acquainted with the tension of wet leather.

The cart was draped in dark cloth. Atop it, a coffin adorned with white lilies and cypress branches, sealed in silence. Another dead noble. A name he had barely learned: some landowning gentleman without title, enough to warrant a solemn procession. Isak asked no questions. He simply drove the horses to the old cemetery, as he had been told.

But that day, that journey, carried a sharper edge.

The mourners’ carriage followed behind, quiet save for the creaking of wheels and the occasional muffled sob from some lady. The nobility always wept with decorum, even for those they had not loved. Isak did not look at them. Not until the path opened into a clearing among the poplars, and the caravan halted at the gates of the burial grounds.

That was when he saw her.

She stepped down from the carriage as though treading on invisible coals—slowly, as if floating beneath layers of black tulle and mourning lace. Her face was veiled, but Isak would have recognized that silhouette even blind. {{user}}.

His heart gave a hard, dry jolt, like a rib torn loose from his chest. His whole body tensed, but he allowed no outward gesture. He lowered his gaze. Stablehands do not greet the wives of princes.

But she was looking at him. He knew it. He felt it.

The steps of the others echoed through the open vaults and moss-covered walls, but she did not move with them. She stood a few paces from the cart, her face still hidden, her head slightly tilted.

As if searching for a crack in his posture. As if she hadn’t forgiven. Or didn’t know how.

He stepped down from the driver’s bench, adjusted the reins, and went to check the coffin’s bindings with automatic hands. Anything to avoid facing her directly. But it wasn’t enough.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” she murmured, barely audible.

Isak raised his head. Her voice pierced his back like frost.

“I'm here.” he answered, without ornament.

She lifted her veil. Her face, pale as the moon on a clouded day, still wore that expression that haunted his dreams: eyes brimming with things never spoken, lips pressed tight not to tremble.

“I thought you wouldn’t look for me.”

“And for what?” he replied, his voice low. “To watch you leave again, only this time dressed in another man’s name?”

She swallowed hard. The motion was slight, but brutal.

“I thought you would understand.”

“I didn’t. I only imagined I might. Night after night, not sleeping.”

Rain began to fall—with that resigned rhythm that soaks the world without effort. The others had already moved toward the crypt. Only the two of them remained by the cart.

Isak looked at her. There was no overt bitterness in him, but something older remained: a savage resignation, a resentment that made no sound, but throbbed like a rotting tooth.

“You know what I thought when they threw me out?” he continued, rain slicking his hair. “That at least you’d defend me. That you wouldn’t let them drag me out like that—bare and bloody with dogs barking.”

She stepped toward him, but he moved half a pace back. Not out of fear. Out of dignity.

“I tried…” she whispered. “I swear I tried.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough.”

Silence.

The rain kept falling. The coffin between them, a mute witness to what had never been buried.

“Are you happy?” he asked at last.

She hesitated. Looked toward the crypt, then back at him. Her silence was answer enough.

Isak nodded bitterly. He needed nothing more. Yes, it wasn't {{user}}'s fault, but the thorn of that little involuntary resentment dug deep into him. She married that stupid Prince and he... Just stayed there.

“Neither am I,” he murmured.