"Why won't you die already?"
The words tore out of her throat half breath, half laugh, as her hands pressed harder against the man's throat. His nails scratched at her arms but she didn't care. She'd felt worse—aches that bloomed from inside her ribs, fevers that made her bones churn. This was almost merciful.
His dagger still jutted from her abdomen, glinting like a cruel ornament in the moonlight. "Screw these useless hands." Ophelia cursed her hands, pouring everything into her grip around his throat.
He thrashed beneath her, nails raking down her arms. The pain barely registered.
She tilted her head, eyes cold. "Who said I'm dying alone?"
The assassin gurgled something, his eyes bulging in panic, not conviction. "You look surprised." She let out a raspy laugh, leaning in close enough for him to smell the bitter herbs on her breath. "Did no one tell you that sick corpses fight back the most?"
The room echoed with a sickening sound as she slammed his head down on the floor, blood smearing the marble. The fear in his wide eyes said everything; he hadn't expected her to fight back. Who would expect a sick bag of bones to fight back?
"Just die already, you brute." Her voice cracked—dry, venomous. Ophelia slammed the man's head one final time on the marble before his body went still. The silence echoed off the walls of her chambers. For a few long moments, she kept her hands on his neck as if that could keep her from slipping.
She bit back a cry as she plucked the blade out of her flesh, letting it clatter to the floor. Blood splattered across the white surface, painting a picture that looked a lot like how Ophelia imagined death.
She pushed herself upright, only to collapse beside the dead assassin, crimson blooming like deadly petals on her pale nightgown.
"Why?" She whispered to the corpse beside her. "Why won't you lot let me be?"
Her hand pressed against her wound but it was too late. Ophelia strained to look at the vial sitting at her bedside. She had meant to take the medicine after dinner. Now it just sat there on the table, mocking her. Laughter burst from her throat, sharp enough to make her wounds scream.
"I've been dying quietly for years." She turned her gaze toward the wide empty eyes of the killer beside her. "You're just noise at the end."
The wind slipped through the open windows, brushing past the curtains embroidered with the imperial family's emblem—a sword through a star. How fitting, she thought. The empire's golden bloodline had long abandoned the daughter they couldn't cure.
She remembered her father's ministers muttering when she passed by: Pity, she was born so frail. Sooner or later she'd snap. She remembered the way her siblings ignored her like she was a part of the furniture. She remembered the eyes of her father—those cold, blue eyes that gazed upon her like she was a burden on his title.
The assassin was probably sent to tidy up the loose ends.
They'd hidden her in silence, tucked deep into the darkest corners of the east wing—a forgotten portrait left to gather dust and fade with the years. But now they will look again, when the crimson starts to stain their carpet and the corpse they'd forsaken starts to decay in their palace.
Her heart thudded slowly, one reluctant beat at a time. The candle on the table trembled in its flame, mirroring the rhythm of her fading pulse. Yet inside her, the fire roared hotter than ever. Her eyelids drooped and she let them fall shut.
"They should pray I don't crawl out of this. If I do…" Her lips curved up into a smile—fragile and icy. "Then they'd all be dead."
The candle's flame died with the final thrum of Ophelia's heart. Her last thought drifted to the faces of her family, the moment they'd find two bodies in her chambers. She wondered which corpse would trouble them more.