VALORIA WILDEROSE
Today I have breakfast in my room, and for the next four weeks, until another one of those monthly gatherings where everyone will be required to sit and eat together, I will enjoy the silence.
It's something I find myself grateful for—the solace of being alone, much like back home.
Though back then, I was more consumed with the desire to share family meals with everyone than really focusing on how precious what I had was.
I sip on my tea before the door flies open, and Yue runs in from her errand of getting water. Her breathing is rushed, her eyes as wide as the smile on her lips.
"Lady Valoria!"
I'm startled, gnawing at my buttered bread, looking at her in confusion. She crosses the distance between us, clasping my hands in hers.
Her obsidian eyes shimmer like expensive gems.
"This is not the time to be eating, my lady. We should be picking out the very best dresses for you to wear in front of the king, demonstrating your position to the other women so they don't look down on you," she blabbers on about nonsense, leaving me confused.
Why shouldn't I be eating after being left to starve for almost two days? What is there to pick out a dress for?
"I d-don't unders-stand… what's g-going on?"
"Rumors have begun to spread across the castle of how cherished you are by His Majesty!"
I choke on the morsel of food already lodged in my throat, reaching for tea and burning my tongue as I wash it down.
It's a struggle before I swallow and look at her more clearly.
"W-W-What?!" I stare blatantly at her naïve, excited gaze. "Ch-cherished? B-By whom?!"
She, rather than respond on time, hums to herself, spinning around, dancing before falling back onto the bed in a lovesick fantasy already.
"Everyone is talking about how my lady captured his heart with her brave display of tenacity and her elegant wit that swept him off his feet and left him mad in love," she continues, blurting word after word that seem more ridiculous than the last.
Leaving me more gut-wrenched and dumbfounded, I wonder how every bit of suffering I've endured has been interpreted into some sick love story.
"I'm s-sorry… w-what?"
"Do not deny it, my lady," she throws me a mischievous grin, not believing a single word that leaves my mouth. "After I left, you two got busy, didn't you? One of the concubines confirmed it herself—that His Majesty sent none other than her esteemed Lady Calliope, a high-ranking concubine, to tend to your wounds."
I frown.
"A-After inf-flicting that m-much h-harm, it's only r-right I receive t-treatm-ment, isn't it?"
Wounds that were infected and festering, refusing to heal because of my tainted blood.
"He rarely does anything for others himself, and even if he's moved, by some miracle, to act, it's usually the court physician who is sent. Not the talented and beautiful Lady Calliope. Everyone knows her talent in herbs is coveted by His Majesty alone… to use it on someone else, just like that, for no reason, is close to impossible."
"I d-d-don't c-care," I shake my head at the impossible conclusion.
None of them were there that night when he stared at me like cattle primed for slaughter, when I saw that desire to ruin me and felt that bloodlust oozing off him.
None of them knelt beneath him after being whipped for hours as he held that bored, disappointed gaze, like I was a toy he briefly considered discarding.
There was no favor, not a drop of it.
"T-That m-m-man does n-not c-care for me, n-not a m-morsel of comp-passion exists in his h-heart."
"Still, he was here last night—the same night Lady Ivana had won the chance to spend the night with him."
"T-T To torment me, t-to w-watch me break and b-bask in m-my ag-gony," I snap bitterly, correcting her with too much harshness in my tone.
She flinches away with confusion, and I reject it instantly.
How would she understand? How would anyone understand my situation?
Everyone else is too busy scurrying to be acknowledged, to gain his attention and time. Everyone is too power-hungry and overcome with their own desires to think.
How do I convince her—or anyone else—that I am a spy caught in the middle of her mission?
That his 'attention and care' is all to keep me alive long enough to enjoy breaking, picking me apart piece by piece until I've completely been broken?
That his favor is just a sick game he'll play until he's bored of his latest spy pet and guts me in cold blood, wearing my insides as his latest jewelry?
I sigh and swallow, feeling remnants of fear buried in the back of my mind rising again. My skin shivers with a new wave of terror.
Somehow, none of this feels right to me.
A bad feeling curls in my guts, churning and slowly eating me up from the inside, taking my ravenous appetite away from me.
"I n-need some f-fresh a-air," I conclude, rushing for the door, wanting some kind of solace now more than ever.
I have nowhere specific to go; I only know that this wide room seems to suffocate me.
Without a word from Yue, I pull the door wide open, only to be greeted on the other side by a wall of a man.
His build is like Azrael's, though not quite as powerful or intimidating—yet the attributes are clearly there.
His height just barely reaches Azrael's, with black hair cut very short in a buzz cut. Sharp amber eyes watch me emotionlessly, set above pale skin and a chiseled jaw.
He seems older, cold, without a living presence.
I half-scream, startled by his sudden appearance behind the door, like a ghost haunting the hallways.
It takes a moment for me to calm down and catch my breath, to look at him again with great caution.
"Valoria Wilderose?"
"Y-Yes," I whisper.
"His Majesty has summoned you."