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As they led him from the throne room, blood poured from the side of Ryson’s head. He felt the stone of the medallion pulse against his palm. A sudden and powerful wave of cien rushed into his veins, and in seconds, he felt more alert than he had in years. They led him from the throne room, and with such alertness he felt his conscience pry lose from his mind. They led him down one staircase after another, Ryson unable to resist the symbolism as the depths of his nature stirred. By the time they reached the dungeon, the skin on his scalp stitched back together. They led him through the cells and his heart beat hard against the growing snares of its old curse, once again enlivened by the outpouring of cien.
They slammed the metal door of his cell behind him, picking up their tools of torment as they made jokes to each other in Kaletik, exploring with humor the varying ways they would torture him. The cauldron of rage inside him circled like a shark in the filling crater of his being.
Princess, I hope you hurry, he thought, counting the seconds as they escaped with pieces of his humanity.
†††
Clea stumbled from her room as the servants nudged her forward persistently. “Where are my things?” she asked again, hands still trembling from her most recent struggles with the maids. She felt disgusted at their touch and its crude, unfeeling invasion.
The women pushed her forward and forced Clea down the hallway to her right, speaking in Kaletik.
“Where did you put my things?” Clea raised her voice. “I need to know!”
They shouted and gestured at her, demanding that she turn around and walk forward.
Clea turned and ground her teeth, trying to trace the medallion’s presence. She was soon surprised to find that an entire world of presences had opened up to her. She hadn’t realized how numb she had been to them before, with the medallion stifling her senses. The presences wandered and wound about her like mingling scents, and with all her might, she tried to find the medallion. It was hard for her to focus as the maids pestered her forward, adjusting her scarlet dress that glimmered against the torchlight. It clung to her like a second skin, highlighting a curvature to her body that she was embarrassed to know could be so publicly displayed. They had picked this dress for her, a dress that also covered most of her skin. It flickered like fire, like the fire she still felt when they’d pushed the coarse brushes over every inch of her.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, but she’d woken up from the slumber of their tonic feeling more revived than she had in weeks, boiling with both energy and emotion. Her clothes had already been changed, hair washed and now woven into an intricate braid interlaced with gold pins. A heavy ruby necklace replaced the medallion on her chest.
She could only assume based on Ryson’s warnings that they knew sleep would help her recover her radiance; her skin already seemed the slightest bit brighter. Though the reasons for their treatment and the very experience of enduring it were both horrifying and humiliating, it was returning her power. She strained to keep her mind focused on that. The restshe could only imagine dealing with later.
The medallion’s presence flickered through her improved senses, and she drilled her attention into it. It was distant and growing more so as it moved deeper into the castle chambers below her.
A soldier turned into the hallway and stood in wait for her. He wore faded gray armor with a spear and a shield. King Kartheen’s soldiers all wore different armor, a sign that they were mercenaries driven by coin rather than loyalty.
The maids handed her off to the soldier. Her broken understanding of Kaletik speech between the guards told her that the auction was in three days. They led her to a set of large, glossy doors with gilded engravings.
Golden doors. She nearly balked.
The doors opened into the throne room, one that surpassed the beauty of any she’d ever laid eyes on and she was grateful that she didn’t have the time to linger before walking through them.
Golden door means knowledge anyway. She reminded herself, ushering the worry from her mind as she wrestled herself back into focus.
Tapestries and murals decorated the walls. Lush purple carpeting covered the walkway, lined with marble columns. The rich scents of incense, spices, and exotic plants and flowers hung in the air. The drum and whistle of instruments echoed throughout an enclosure that overwhelmed her senses. Her eyes followed the walkway to a great throne. Pelts of creatures and strings of gems and gold covered it.
Clea came to her senses as a cold, metal spear touched the small of her back. She made her way toward King Kartheen and stopped before the steps of the throne. At the base of the stairs was an old stone altar, and she shivered inwardly, remembering what Myken had proclaimed about the early uses of this fortress. She was sure King Kartheen had kept the altar on purpose, perhaps savoring its symbolism as wares were presented in front of him.
Clea resisted the urge to tug on her dress in order to better conceal herself as the king’s eyes moved over her with a gaze that inspected every part of her body. She remembered the earlier versions of herself which knew royal courts well, knew kings well. He wanted to be a king, and so she would treat him like one.
She knew how to present herself with poise, how to model elegance, speak with refined refrain, and banish faintness from her demeanor despite how she felt in her skin. These skills had all seemed so useless lately that she’d forgotten she had them, forgotten that she was, in fact, an actual princess.
“Welcome,” he said in deeply accented speech, sweeping an open hand before him in a gesture of giving. He was marked as a Kalex in obvious ways that were highlighted in statues, trinkets, and banners of reptiles around the room. “Princess of Loda, Clea Hart. You are a very rare and special guest and I assume you understand how my kingdom works. I will give you nothing but the best. All I ask is that you don’t betray my kindness.”
In gesture alone, he reminded her of King Odell of Virday, but in every other way he reeked of malintent. He became an easy symbol of the injustices she’d already seen and experienced.She stomached a potent mixture of disgust and anger. His eyes were full of malintent and yet beneath them she restrained herself.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she assured him, her voice delicate, her face soft. She chose her words carefully, words not so tender as to sound mocking, but tender enough to sound compliant.
He seemed pleased, if not amused.
She knew how to escape a castle.
She knew how to acknowledge the ego of a king.
Another small seed of hope bloomed. Against Ryson’s advice, she tested her luck. Ryson had warned her against requests, but something told her that catering to people of status had never been his area of expertise.
“Yet with your permission, I must ask a small favor of you,” she said, her hands folded politely in front of her, head bowed in the slightest way. Her voice remained submissive, but unafraid, beseeching, but not desperate. Acting too submissive could invite disgust, and in this case, abuse. Acting too abrasive would invite much the same. Finding that fine balance in every word was another skill of her royal upbringing, and she’d wield it as swiftly as she could.
He raised his eyebrows with interest as he relaxed in his seat. His scaled and hooked fingers intertwined with one another as his elbows found his armrests. Clea imagined that many Veilin didn’t stand before him making polite requests. The armed guards lining both walls assured her of that.
