Sweet Romance12 min read
I Wore a Crown of Fur (and It Changed Everything)
ButterPicks13 views
I never knew, until the night my body split open and three warm little mouths found me, that I was not fully human.
"Mother, you can't keep them on the bed, the quilt will be ruined," Helena said, her voice equal parts worry and exasperation. "That's the only winter quilt you have left."
"They're my children," I said, cradling a squirming grey pup. "How can you call them anything else?"
Helena looked at me like someone who had watched the palace swallow a noble family and spit out madness. "Madam, you've been in the cold wing a long while. The chancellor's family was executed; you... you must accept that things have changed."
"I am Genesis," I told her. "I am still Genesis." I wrapped the pup tighter, and its whiskered nose pressed into my chin like a warm promise. "Feed them. Warm them. No one will call them anything but mine while I'm here."
"They'll starve you out if they can," Helena muttered, but she warmed the milk. She knew to listen to me when my voice had that thin fever of stubbornness.
Two months before, during the Mid-Autumn banquet when lanterns made the gardens soft like glowing fruit, I had slipped out of the cold wing because the moon would not leave me alone. Sake and breath and the wrong kind of courage had pulled me to a tall, pale man under the willows. I thought he was the crown prince's brother because of the red silk on his shoulder; I thought wrong. I only realized later, with the slow horror of mistakes, that my wild hand had lain on the emperor's sleeve. He had been on the dragon throne that night. When the morning came, I had slurred my way back to my pallet, and for half a year I waited for the palace to notice.
"Are you sure he's all right?" I asked one morning while bouncing a pup against my knee. "Connor was supposed to bring the milk sheep."
Connor Liang shrugged. "The sheep's fine, Your Highness. The palace is a mess. The Emperor was wounded by an assassin and then disappeared. No one knows where he is. People are spooked."
"An assassin," I echoed, and distracted, my thumb stroked a patch of fur. One pup yelped, another nuzzled. "I should blow the whistle I made. He promised he'd come when he heard it."
I blew the tiny wooden whistle I had carved from a scrap of lacquered wood. It sang like a child's toy. The whistle was a stupid thing to trust, and yet, the next day, a rustle of boots and ministers echoed down the corridor and in stepped the very man I'd thought I had kissed by mistake.
"Get down," one of his eunuchs barked, and my heart punched my ribs. I had never properly seen the emperor before, only rumors and court portraits. He looked fragile and sharp, beautiful like a statue touched by cold light—Ellis Barlow. His face was carved with a sickness that had become his armor. He moved like someone who had learned to conserve strength.
I dropped to a knee because the court expected it. The pups, however, had a different plan.
"Eh!" the nearest pup yelped and scrambled toward Ellis. The pup's tiny tail wagged like a banner.
Ellis's eyes flicked down. They lingered. For one impossible breath, the world narrowed to the little grey head and the way it pressed its hot nose against his sleeve. He smiled—soft, like warmth finding a hidden room.
"I hear the Empress designs strange things," he said, and his voice was a low, clear bell. "Even in exile you make devices for warmth."
"Y-Your Majesty," I stammered. "I made a kang… a bed to keep people from freezing."
"Then give me that design," he said, and when he did, I felt something loosen like a held breath. "Think bigger. Ten days. If you can design something that will save the city, you will be granted your bedchamber and my favor."
"Favor?" My stomach dropped. "I—"
"Ten days," he repeated. "Do it, or you will answer for your trespasses."
The court chuckled. We had made small flames of warmth in the cold wing. I would have laughed if I had not wanted to survive.
Behind the laugh of politeness was the soft iron of a challenge. I had to do it. I had no choice.
Within the days I taught myself to weave heated cloth and to bind straw and clay and pipes into a bed that kept breath from freezing. Connor brought bits of mechanism; Helena brought me courage; I bartered three little toys to the abandoned palace craftsmen. The pups grew teeth and attitudes. The second pup, the cheeky runt, always tried to steal my knitting needles.
On the fifth night, when frost carved lace on the lattice, Ellis returned with men in yellow who bowed like lineages. He listened to the plan, nodded, and then—because court stories love to complicate things—another man came forward, regal and dangerous. Greyson Kovalev, the emperor's brother, came in like a shadow with a smile.
"You're very bold," Greyson said. His voice was silk over steel, and it made a chill that no blanket would touch. "You have designs that would keep the people warm. How useful."
"You should be pleased," I answered. "If the city survives, that's worth more than gold."
Greyson's eyes slid toward me, and I saw greed bloom. "Designs are better in my care. Your creatures—" he nodded to the pups, which had frozen mid-play—"—will be safer in my hands. You are damaged, Empress."
"Mine," I said. "They are mine."
Greyson's jaw tightened. He smiled in a way that did not reach his eyes. "Think, Genesis. A palace woman with your past; the cold will not forgive mistakes. Let me guard what you cannot keep."
I refused. He left with a promise: "We will speak again."
Greyson's presence warped the air. He liked power the way others liked sunlight: he soaked up its warmth and made others pale. Within days, rumors curled like smoke: a drug in the emperor's wine, assassins in the gardens, a whispered list of enemies. Greyson's hand moved quietly, and one morning a favorite concubine, Brielle Barber, sashayed into my audience with a smile that cut.
"Your devices are clever, Empress," Brielle cooed. "But you practiced such cruelty—your pups bit a favorite gown. I request they be taught proper palace manners."
"Do you?" I asked. "Or do you mean you'd like them gone?"
She laughed, high and pretty, and the laughter made cold glass of the hall.
When Brielle's skirts flounced, the two pups and their brother were driven into the garden. They frisked; they chewed the hem of a gown. Brielle's hand fluttered like a fan, then the mood in the court turned ugly. The pups were attacked with staves by servitors who took orders from Brielle. I screamed until my throat burned.
"Stop!" I ran. "Stop! You will not—"
They beat them. The smallest was hurt; blood turned the snow into a spreading bruise. I grabbed Brielle's collar, slapped until her cheeks sizzled, and she cried out like a trapped bird.
"Help! The Empress is mad!" she shrieked.
People loved scandal. They gathered like flies.
"Let her go!" a voice said, calm and iron. Ellis was there, his breath fogging, and his eyes were a temper I had not yet seen. "Enough."
He turned toward the crowd, and where he stood the air seemed to thin. "Brielle Barber," he said, quiet as a blade's edge, "you will be punished for this."
Brielle's smile froze. "Your Majesty—"
"Guards," Ellis said, and his voice shifted into command. "Take her to the tower. She will answer in the morning."
The crowd gasped. Brielle's face changed—pride to pale terror. For the first time in the palace's long memory, a favored woman fell so quickly from a bed to a cell. It tasted like victory rushing iron through me.
The next weeks were the teeth of a slow winter. Greyson's shadow lengthened. Evidence, sudden and peculiar, linked me to poison, to the much-whispered assassin. A scroll with my name enough times landed on a minister's desk. I was dragged from my bed in my soft clothes; Helena's hands trembled as men bound me.
"You're mad," I said. "I'm not—"
"You will be judged," Greyson said, his voice near my ear as we passed him in a corridor. He smirked; his eyes were pleased at their future.
They put me in a cell. The guards took the pups, but not all. One, the biggest, had been spirited away by someone. I wondered who would take a wild dog and keep it starved on purpose.
In the jail the air was damp and smelled of old fear. Greyson visited me in the prison where the damp walls drank any warmth I tried to carry. He swaggered in like a man delivering a gift.
"You were always theatrical," he said. "Make a confession and I'll spare you the public cup."
"Public cup?" I asked.
"The poison," he said, soft. "You will be made a spectacle, Genesis. It will teach others."
"You promised," I rasped. "You promised a way to save the city."
He laughed. "I promised you a chance. Tonight, you'll drink the cup in front of thousands and the crown will look clean. Besides, the Emperor will not lose his favor. He needs a scapegoat."
Three days before my sentence, midnight revolt thundered through the jail. Men fell silent. A dozen whispering steps. I smelled iron—sharp, sweet like a bell.
When I was hurled into the sunlight again, the courtyard had become a theater. The magistrates had written the words I was to say and placed a silver cup at my lips. Greyson stood on a dais like a man who had won a war already. The crowd filled the square. Lanterns swung like flickering moons. The city's breath puffed white and urgent.
"Genesis Beard," Ford Griffin intoned, the chief official, "for crimes against the realm, you shall have your sentence pronounced."
"Ellis," I called, hearing my voice scrape me like a blade. "You promised you would judge justly."
Ellis walked forward. He looked oddly thin under the dragon robe, but his eyes met mine. "Stand," he said softly. "Tell the truth."
I opened my mouth to scream about Greyson's manipulations. My throat closed. Then I did the only thing left to me. I told the truth. "It was Greyson. He told me—he framed me to take power. He gave me a vial and named me traitor. He set servants to smear my name. He put poison under collars. Search his house."
For a heartbeat, the world hung like a frozen moth. Greyson's face drained the color from a bad dream. He laughed once, fast and ugly, and then he turned deadly. "You lie," he spat. "You are mad."
"Search him," Ellis commanded.
Ministers fanned like hawks. Guards ran to Greyson's mansion. They carried sacks, opened chests. A tide of documents spilled out: letters, secret seals, communications in the hand of those Greyson had seduced into his cause. It unfurled like a map of treachery.
The palace had its eyes peeled. The evidence burned so bright it threw shadows in every direction. Greyson's face had the first crack of honest terror. The crowd smelled blood and victory in the air and tipped toward us.
"Arrest him," Ellis said, but his voice had gone very small and very steady. "Greyson Kovalev, you will answer."
Greyson's bravado vanished like snow under iron. He was dragged forward. He stopped and looked at me with a storm of emotions: rage—then disbelief—then the slow, warming panic of a man who sees the ledgers of his life open and reads every ugly line.
The punishment was public, and I promised myself I would watch. If he had made me the spectacle, I would return the favor.
They took Greyson to the great square. The magistrates read out his crimes: collusion with foreign powers, plotting to poison the Emperor, arranging assassinations, embezzlement, conspiracy with the concubine and certain ministers, and, finally, cruelty to innocents and attempted regicide. The words struck the air like hammers.
Greyson's mask slipped in front of everyone. "You cannot do this," he hissed. "I am the prince. Blood is on my side."
A single voice from the crowd answered. "Blood? You had only your greed."
I stepped forward, though no one expected my hand. "You worked in secret, Greyson," I said. "You thought you could braid deceit into silk and wear it as honor. Look at your hands now."
"Traitor!" he roared, then his voice broke into a beggar's whine. "You dare—"
Showtime is a mercy to the guilty; the city wants to watch the proud fall. They led him to a platform where the crowds could see. The sun burned like accusation. He was made to kneel. The magistrate's hammer fell.
I watched the colors in his face change. First came the cool veneer—composed. Then the lid of that composure lifted to reveal raw fear. "I had supporters," he croaked, "men of rank—"
"Where are they?" one woman called from the crowd, and hands crept up to point. The crowd's mood hardened like frozen clay. They wanted names now.
Greyson tried to summon pride and failed. He looked small. He laughed, but the laugh had no sound, only tremors. "You—" he said, looking to the magistrate for mercy, but there was none.
"By order of the throne," Ford Griffin proclaimed, and the crowd hissed. "Greyson Kovalev stands condemned."
The executioners began a ritual of humiliation first. They stripped the prince of his ermine, pulled from him the trappings he used to hide his hunger. They hung his banners upside down for the crowd to jeer. A child spat at his boot. The magistrate read out each betrayal in meticulous detail so the history books could not be kind to him.
Greyson's breathing changed. He tried to hold his chin high; he couldn't. He pleaded for allies. "Ellis, your brother—" he reached for the emperor as someone reaching for a lifeline. He threw accusations: "You planned against me! You poisoned—"
Ellis's face did not flinch. "I did not," he said. "This court will decide."
Panic moved like a sickness through Greyson. He went through faces like a man flipping through doors searching for escape. "I gave them gifts!" he screamed at the ministers. "I protected them!"
"By stealing the treasury and selling secrets," another minister barked back. The crowd's faces sharpened. Faces that had once bowed to Greyson were now turned away. A woman who had once fawned on him spat and screamed, "You killed my brother's hope!"
He tried to look dignified, but the cords in his neck worked like twine. He begged for friends. He begged for his life. The crowd's anger fed his fear and his fear fed their appetite for retribution.
Then the worst turned to humiliation. They marched him through the alleys where the poor had suffered his taxes and the customs he had broken. People returned his scowls with the faces of those who had paid his price. A mother held her child up for him to see what his greed had cost. An old man slapped him. The prince's teeth clenched and unclenched; he tried to form words. He stumbled and fell; a thousand eyes recorded it—eyes that would carry the image for generations.
The magistrate ordered speeches. Ministers read how Greyson had conspired with neighboring lords to trade the kingdom for gold, how he had attempted to sell loyalties for lands, how he had forced brands and false edicts. Each accusation was a hammer stroke. Greyson's expression shifted from denial to rage to pleading to blankness. He mouthed apologies without meaning them.
Then the final sentence: death by beheading and public forfeiture of rank. The crowd silenced only for the blade. For one terrible minute, even the air seemed to hold its breath. Greyson dropped to his knees. He looked at me with a kind of ghastly recognition.
"You all wanted theater," he whispered, "and found it. I am sorry."
The blade fell. The sound was final and small. A hush like snow covered the square. Then the crowd broke—some in cries of victory, some in sick triumph. Men spat at the place where he had fallen. Women clapped. Children laughed without meaning to. Ministers bowed to the emperor for mercy.
Greed had made a prince; ruin had made him nothing. In the aftermath, I sat and watched people come to witness the aftermath. Greyson's allies, once smug and secret, were hauled forward like fish on hooks. Names rotted in public sight. Many fled. The people were hungry for justice and the spectacle fed them.
When the dust settled, the emperor stood before me in the great hall. His face was grave, tired as a road. "You told the truth," he said simply. "You told the truth and it burned clean."
"I thought I would die," I admitted. "I thought it would be the end."
He touched my hand, his fingers surprisingly warm. "You did not," he said. "And now the city has warmth because of you."
We rebuilt. The heated devices were scaled from my crude bed to furnaces and insulated cloths and pipes. The city lived.
Time, as it does, folded. The truth twisted into a gentler thing with memory. A year later, under a sky the color of old sapphires, Greyson's mansion became a ruin when, during a sanctioned demolition of a secret cellar, hidden vaults exploded the evidence of his treason into daylight. The palace used it to complete the story of his crimes. The people cheered.
And in quiet moments when the courts were far away, when the winter had gone and spring pressed its green fingers through the city, Ellis would come to my chamber with a fur rug in his hands and look at the three who had once been pups, now long-limbed and clever. He would sit, tired, and they would bound to him, wolf-blood warmed to his call. He would smile that same soft smile and murmur, "Stay."
We learned, slowly, that some lines in blood are unpredictable. Ellis was not simply an ailing man; the palace's stories were half-silent. He carried a strange inheritance—wolf-blood that could bloom. When danger had found him on the field, the change had begun. The pups were his in a way the court could never deny: when he stepped into the center of the garden, they ran to him and changed form like light flipping.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked once as we sat atop the kitchen roof and watched the city warm.
He looked at me with an exhausted affection. "Would you have trusted me less?" he asked. "I needed you to come because I saw you out there. You came to me by mistake. I chose to keep you."
"I thought I had ruined everything," I said. "I thought—"
"You did not ruin us," he said. "You built heaters."
He smiled, and it was not only the boy's warmth. It became something steady and sharp. The pups—our pups—slept curled across us like proof.
In the end, power and rotten ambition met the cold and were burned away by truth. Greyson was reduced from prince to a story taught to children about greed. Brielle Barber and others who had hurt innocents were stripped of favor and punished; some fled, some were banished, some wept in cells, their faces small and human and helpless.
One night, with the two older children asleep and the smallest burrowed into my neck, Ellis took my hand. "You were brave," he said. "You chose the truth."
"I chose my children," I answered.
"And you chose me," he said, voice low.
I pressed my forehead to his. "Don't pretend you don't like that I pounced you."
He laughed, a sound like sunlight on brass. "I liked when you did."
We kept warm in a world that had once nearly starved us. It was not a beginning anyone could have predicted, but it was honest. The pups grew. The city survived.
I had been a woman who thought she lost everything. Instead I had found truth, family, and the strange mercy of a man who could be fierce and gentle, cruel and kind. I forgave because I had to move forward, not because I forgot.
The last winter I remember, Ellis stood on the palace steps and watched the lanterns and the snow and the children dancing in the square. He squeezed my hand and said, "We made it."
I put my other hand over his and felt the calluses there, the small scars of a man who had learned to be warm on purpose.
"Yes," I whispered. "We did."
The End
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