In the quiet bedroom,
Lin sat on the edge of the bed. Motionless.
Naked.

His body was a map of pain—bruises, bite marks, dried blood, and faint chains of violet burned around his wrists and ankles, marking where restraints had once dug into him.
His gaze was empty. Lifeless.
Like a corpse forced to breathe.

The door creaked open.

Queen Oralina stepped in, draped in her usual white—no longer regal, only cold. A smile tugged at her lips, the kind reserved for delivering “good news” to a beloved.

Her heels clicked softly across the icy marble as she approached.
She crouched before him, crimson eyes scanning his face.

Then—without warning—she hugged him from behind, pressing a firm kiss to his cheek.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.
Those soulless eyes just stared through her. As if she were air. As if she didn’t exist.

Her smile widened.

> “I have good news,” she whispered.
“I’m pregnant.”
“You’ll be a father.”

Silence.

Lin didn’t move. Not a twitch in his brow.
No rage. No despair.
Just the calm stare of something long dead inside.

She began removing his cuffs, murmuring,

> “I will let you go free.”

A flicker of light glimmered in Lin’s hollow eyes. Not hope. Just… curiosity.

Then, with sharp nails, she carved a symbol into the skin over his spine—slow, deliberate cuts that broke through scabs and bruises.
He didn’t cry out. He knew better. The last time he made a sound, she bit him.

Once the mark was complete, she cut her palm and smeared her blood across it.

Then she laid her hand on his back and chanted, voice cold and echoing with old power:

> “By ice of purity, by blood of flame,
By ancient breath that bears no name—
I call upon the olden throne,
To bind this flesh, to claim this bone.

> By right of frost, by crown and vein,
Let chains unseen declare my reign.
His breath, his heart, his every beat,
Shall bow to me beneath my feet.

> Let pain strike should he roam,
Beyond the edges of my throne.
By chain of white, by oath unspoken—
The seal is cast, the will is broken.

> So let it be done.
He is mine.”

A soul-bound white chain emerged from her palm—glowing like frostfire.

It slithered through the air like a serpent of ice, then pierced Lin’s chest. It phased into his body and coiled around his heart. Tightening. Binding. Etching itself into his soul.

A glowing sigil—a white crown of thorns—appeared on the back of her hand, pulsing softly.

Lin’s body trembled violently.
He collapsed to his knees, coughing raw, black blood that splattered the cold marble beneath him.

Oralina leaned down, her voice a ghost against his ear:

> “If you even think of leaving…”
“If I die…”
“Your heart will explode.”

Soft. But it echoed in his skull like a brand being hammered into bone.

Then, turning away as if bored of a ritual, she commanded sharply:

> “Maia. Fira. Take his clothes from the drawer—and his dagger. Prepare a medical bath. Treat his wounds.”

From a side door, the same two maids who had witnessed his earlier degradation entered—silent as falling snow. Their white-silver robes glided across the floor.

They bowed, then approached the tall carved dresser. One fetched a folded his clothes. The other retrieved Lin’s dagger.

No words. No questions.
Lin stood. Slowly. Stiffly. Each limb moving like it no longer belonged to him.

They led him down a quiet hall lit by icy lanterns.

At the end awaited a familiar chamber—circular, sterile, with a high ceiling.
At its center, the old stone bath sat, untouched. Dark, still water shimmered inside it—cold, ominous. A memory waiting to drown.

But beside it, a new pool had been prepared. Smaller.
Its edges lined with silver runes.
Steam rose from it—blue and white—casting faint halos across the stone.

It was beautiful. Precisely so. Too precisely.

> A trap, Lin thought.
Even when they offer warmth… it comes with a collar.

Without a word, they guided him to the new bath.

One maid knelt, sprinkling crushed frost-leaves and glowing blue herb-dust into the water.
The other poured a white elixir—slowly—until spirals of soft light swirled on the surface.

> “Clean, pure, healing… they say.”
I don’t care. About any of it.

He stepped into the water with a cold, vacant stare.
No acceptance. No resistance.
As if nothing mattered anymore.

And it welcomed him.
Not with pain.
Not with peace.
Just… silence.

And beneath that silence,
the echo of a crown pulsing on a woman’s hand—
claiming him with every beat.