1 It was the seventh day since I’d faked my own death to escape the gilded cage of The Silk Sparrow pleasure house. To save my dying parents, I’d taken on a piece of dirty work: a Corpse-Right, a deathbed union with a fallen soldier to claim a widow’s stipend. The battlefield was a charnel house, the air thick with the iron tang of blood. I was shoved before a knight who had just breathed his last. “Get on with it,” the procurer, a grim man named Gris, snarled. “We need to consummate the union before he’s cold and stiff. If we can’t get his seed, we get nothing. And neither of us can afford that.” With that, he forced my head down toward the dead man’s groin. … The corpse reeked of stale sweat and old wounds, his armor and skin caked in a shell of dried blood. Gris was in a frenzy, pushing me into the dead man’s embrace. He clawed at my dress. “The union, now! You paid a pittance for this chance; be glad I found you a fresh one. Don’t you dare ruin this for me!” I felt the fabric of my bodice rip, exposing the curve of my shoulder as his hands fumbled to pull it lower. Panic seized me. “Wait! Please, wait! Let me do it myself!” I cried out, my voice thin and desperate. “Even on a battlefield… a union between a man and a woman deserves a moment of privacy, doesn't it?” I scrambled for a better excuse. “Besides, at the Sparrow… I learned a certain art. A way to bring a man pleasure, even after death.” The brutal force on my dress lessened. Gris squinted at me, his eyes filled with suspicion. “What kind of art can please a dead man? Don’t play games with me, girl. Or have you forgotten about the Crown’s stipend? You’re no virtuous maiden to be hesitating now. Just a whore from a pleasure house.” His words branded me with shame. A hot, bitter tide of humiliation and rage swelled in my chest. But he wasn't wrong. I had escaped a pleasure house. But I was not some wanton woman who reveled in being used. I had done it for money, to save my parents. When the matron tried to force me into the bed of a depraved lord—a true monster in the sheets—I chose to die. Or at least, to pretend to. The night I fled and returned home, my parents had wept as they held me. “Jenny, my child, forgive us,” my father had choked out, his body frail. “To have let you suffer so. I would rather die than see you debase yourself like this.” Four years ago, a plague had settled in my father’s lungs. We didn't have a single coin for an apothecary, let alone the herbs he needed. So I went to the city, intending to sell myself into service at a lord’s manor. But on the way, a recruiter for the pleasure houses found me. A girl like me, he said, was worth ten silver pieces. More than I could earn in a year as a scullery maid. When I returned with the money, the apothecary and his tinctures in tow, my parents finally understood what I had done. They held me and cried until their eyes were raw and swollen. “Jenny, my life is not worth your future,” my father had pleaded then, just as he did the night I came home from the dead. “Run. Live for yourself.” I thought it was worth it. In those dark, suffocating moments at the Sparrow, when I had to force a smile for some fat, greasy merchant, the thought that my parents were out there, waiting for me, was the only warmth I had. When they took my hands and led me home, I accepted that my life would be lived in the shadows. It didn’t matter, as long as I could be with them. But the lord I had spurned would not let it go. My refusal was a stain on his pride. He sent his men to our small cottage. They burned it to the ground and stole the few coins my parents had saved over the years. I fell to my knees in the ashes and wept. It was the first time I truly understood: for people like us, there is no justice against the powerful. 2 Homeless and starving, my parents’ health failed again. Desperate, I was wandering the muddy streets of the war camp when a girl approached me. "Become a Corpse-Bride," she’d told me. "Follow the army. When the soldiers fall, you perform the rite. Pleasing a dead man is no different than pleasing a living one, and you get the Crown’s stipend. Your parents will be safe for the rest of their days." "Many women do it," she’d added. "You'll see." And so I came. But I hadn't expected this. I’d barely arrived when Gris dragged me onto the battlefield. After a brutal clash, the ground was littered with the gruesome, broken bodies of men. Some were still warm. Others were already cold, stiff, barely recognizable. This was my first union. My stomach churned with fear. I didn’t know any secret arts to please the dead; it was a lie to buy myself a few more seconds. Gris was the broker for these rites. He took a cut from us and a fee from the army command, who saw it as a tidy way to manage the affairs of their fallen men and distribute the Crown's stipend. If a union was sealed, he got paid. That’s why he was so impatient. Seeing my hesitation, his face hardened. "If you won't do it, I'll find someone who will!" Panic flared. I grabbed his sleeve, forcing a placating smile. “No, no, please, don’t be angry. I’ll undress. I’ll do it now.” But as I moved closer to the body, the metallic smell of blood filled my lungs. I pictured maggots, rot… and I gagged, bile rising in my throat. Gris exploded. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. “You useless bitch!” he roared. “You dare waste time? The moment for the rite is passing! He’s getting cold, don’t you understand? You’re costing me my coin, damn you!” His hand cracked across my face. The taste of my own blood filled my mouth, my head ringing from the blow. I stumbled, my hand falling against the corpse. The flesh was no longer warm. It was cold, firming into the unyielding hardness of a true corpse. A fresh wave of terror washed over me. Gris kicked me hard in the chest and spat on the ground beside me. “Bad luck charm.” He left me there, a lone figure on a battlefield of the dead. As darkness bled into the sky, I clutched my bruised ribs and began the slow walk back to the camp. Suddenly, a sound drifted from nearby—a strange, rhythmic noise. The sound of a woman in the throes of something that was both pleasure and pain. I froze, turning my head in disbelief. Not far away, by the side of the dirt track, lay the body of a soldier, his torso wrapped in fresh linen bandages. A woman was on top of him, her skirts hitched up, her body rising and falling in a steady, practiced motion. Her face was a blank mask, her eyes empty and distant. From my angle, I could see the pale flash of her naked thighs. If I were any closer, I knew I would see everything, the point where living flesh met dead. A hot blush flooded my cheeks. I had serviced many men at the Sparrow, but always behind closed doors. Never like this, out in the open, under the dying light of the sky. The sight sent a shockwave through me.
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