The word hung in the air.
‘Kneel."
My knees didn't move but my body simply refused to process the instruction for several long seconds, the way a person stands frozen at the edge of something terrible before the fall finally takes them.
Then Ragnar's grey eyes narrowed and my knees hit the floor. I felt every eye in the room settle on me
I kept my chin up,I would not give them my eyes on the floor.
The punishment was announced the following morning.
Elder Marcus read it aloud in the eastern courtyard while the household staff assembled in uneven rows across the open ground. The sky was pale grey overhead, the kind of colorless morning that felt indifferent to whatever happened under it.
Public reprimand. Three days of isolation duties. Restricted residence access and the one that
