Page 40 of The Tsarina's Favorite
The tsarina dismissed her with a glare, and when we were alone again, the tsarina set the bowl and book down on the nearest dresser.She returned to my side and settled on the stool.
As she surveyed the food offerings on the tray, she asked, “Are you feeling any better?”
“Not at all,” and “I never expect to again,” and “Are you delusional?”fought for response.But I hadn’t even attempted to remove the muzzle.I shook my head and looked away.
“You haven’t eaten in days, my dear.”
Now I was her dear.I wanted to laugh, but that sounded like too much effort.
“I felled the deer myself yesterday.”She lifted a bite of meat on a two-tonged fork and waved it in front of me.“It’s fresh.”
It smelled divine.
She put the fork back down on the tray and beckoned me forward.
Hunger weakened me.I slid toward the edge of the bed and bent my head down so that she could remove the muzzle.I was too tired to fight, but I wasn’t too tired to hate myself for my weakness.
She set the discarded muzzle on the table when it fell away.I stared at the bit of padded leather and then glared at her.
“I was only looking after you,” she said.
She lifted the fork again and offered me the bite.I took it and hated myself for taking it.
“If you behave, I will see that you enjoy everything that you should have already been enjoying.”
“Except as a monster.”
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said.“But no one likes a powerful woman, and I needed a lesson to be learned.”
Power was one thing, but unnecessary cruelty was another.
“Then give me back my wedding band.”
“Firebirds don’t wear wedding bands.”She skewered another bit of meat off the tray.“But I can indulge you in everything else now.As a lesson, I needed to be harsh so that everyone could see what happened to those who displeased me.But since you are now a beloved pet, I can spoil you.”
“Did I not get my point across?”I held out my bandaged wrists.“I would rather be dead.”
“Let’s get your strength back,” she said, ignoring my bandages and my gesture.“And then we can see about everything else.”
“I want my body back.”
“That was rash, wasn’t it?”Her face fell into an expression of deep contrition, not a look she often wore.“You have said such horrible things to me, embarrassed me in ways I never wish to recall.”
I said horrible things to her?I embarrassed her?After how she treated me these past months?
“I should never have done it,” she said at last.
“Undo it then.”
“Alas, my dear, I am unable.I set it in motion, but it is cast by The Kind and Fair.”
“Convenient.”
“For all that you think me heartless, there is a way out.”
Like her challenge between The Kind and Fair and the Great Holy, probably.Chances slim to impossible.But still.A way out.Any way out.
“Which is?”
