Once I emerged from my prison, I heard snickers and laughter wherever I went, but was met with downcast eyes when I attempted to confront anyone. It was the most awful sort of penance; there were no arguments, there was no anger for me to meet with my own. Just silence and glances and shame. It was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t bear it, and isolated myself in my own chambers rather than facing it.
Even my freedom was tainted now. There would be no freedom from that decision. No relief from this embarrassment and shame.
Early on the sixth day, a message came from my mother and stepfather. The scroll was brought by a royal messenger. My mother had written it, in her too-practiced calligraphy that only made the pain of the words feel worse. Poison dressed up beautifully was poison all the same.
The words swam before me as I tried to make sense of them. She called me a whore for allowing my virtue to be taken, and she called me a liar for claiming it was Maksim. She said Prince Galen’s people were disgusted but not surprised. They’d been warned I was willful and indeed I was. But they regretted that I had been so free with my body, giving myself away like some common tramp.
And there at the bottom of the message, the last flame of hope died inside me. All of this pain and embarrassment would have been worth it if it freed me from marrying Prince Galen.
But my mother said the marriage was still on.
And that I would be subjected to a purity test, a public examination of my womanhood to prove I had been deflowered. After that, my dowry would be reduced. It was all agreed upon already, and there was nothing I could do to alter a thing.
“Damaged goods sell for cheap, and don’t you dare cheapen yourself any further,” my mother wrote, before signing her name.
In my hands, I had proof of what I had always known but tried to ignore. I was chattel; I was a commodity. Nothing more. The messenger waited for my reply, but I said there was none and off he went, leaving me with the vellum scroll crumpled in my furiously clenched fists.
For a long moment, I stared into the torches that lit the hallway, letting the light make dark blotches in my vision. I felt stuck in place, glued to the spot. I didn’t want to leave my quarters but I couldn’t bear to stay, either.
Gripping the vellum tight, I closed my eyes. The flame still danced behind my eyelids, and in some sort of dreamlike exhaustion, I was transported into the woods where I loved to hunt. I was no longer the sleek predator, powerful and capable. Now, I was the prey. The little animals, the confused deer, the ducks and pheasants and geese. The world was nothing but a landscape of confusion and uncertainty. But prey had an advantage.
They could run.
I looked around my chambers, then it dawned on me.
The crock of lavender oil, a gift from Maksim so many months ago sat on my bedside table.
Sucking in a deep breath of courage, I channeled those fearful creatures that I had for so long hunted and pursued, and I bolted from my chambers. The guards were lazy and seated, shocked as I came from the door crashing the crock of oil at their feet.
At a run, I turned to see my plan worked. They rose, slipping on the slick liquid and falling one at a time into the other as I blew down the corridor with Maria screaming my name.
But I ignored her, hoping she’d understand and forgive me. I tore around the corner and made a break for a side corridor. I didn’t know where I was going or how I would get there. But I had to go. I had to be free. I had to run.
I sprinted down another corridor and made a break for a door that I saw up ahead. Where it went, I had no clue, but there was light coming through the small inset window. Red light streaming in, the light of sunset. West.
It was as good a goal as any, I thought, as I ran out the door. The cool evening air hit my cheeks and the fresh wind hit my nostrils. It was the first time I’d been outside in nearly a week and it was pure joy, pure hope.
But before I even got off the stone path, I was airborne, my bare feet dangling. A huge forearm seizing me around the waist as I felt the metal of chain mail pressing into my skin. For one stupid, elated moment, I thought it might be Maksim. But it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t.
“Nice try,” said the guard.