Bound by Service, Made for love

The Throne Room was not a sanctuary. It was a gilded slaughterhouse. The ceilings were so high that it swallowed the air whole, leaving nothing for the girl kneeling on the cold marble, leaving nothing for me. My skin throbbed in a slow, agonizing rhythm. A reminder. The alchemists' basement still lived in my body. Their acid stench clinging to my hair. The places where their needles had gone in felt like a tiny door for a fever I couldn’t escape. I kept my eyes on the floor. The floor was safe and didn’t look back. "She was procured for my household!" Prince Arlo's voice hit me suddenly, making my heart do an unrhythmical dance of fear. He slammed his palm onto the gilded arm of his chair, the sound cracked through the hall like a bone snapping. His face was an ugly red. The red of a man who had never once been told no. "My property! I paid the levy! Bought her in full! You cannot simply declare a piece of stable trash a Princess!" I pressed my eyes harder onto the floor. If he saw my face, he might see the bruise beneath my ribs, the one from three nights ago when he came to the shelter to inspect his purchase and I spilled wine on his boot. I hadn't even cried. I'd learned not to. Looking at royals was a punishable offense anyway. I had nothing left to be punished with, but somehow I suspected they'd find something. "I have chosen, little brother." Gunnar's voice was the opposite of Arlo's. Low. Smooth. The kind of calm that has nothing to prove because it has already won. He didn't pace. He sat with the terrifying stillness of a landslide that hadn't decided to move yet. A fox-like smile curled his lips, a smile that lived nowhere near his eyes. "As the heir, my word ends the matter. Or do you finally have the spine to challenge me?" The hall went dead silent. Even the torches seemed to hold their breath. Then the doors opened, and the temperature dropped. The Queen. The guards crashed to the floor in one synchronized movement, armor ringing against marble. Even Arlo's frantic energy collapsed into a bow, though his breath still came in ragged, hateful hitches. Her Majesty's robes whispered across the floor like the scales of something ancient. She didn't look at her sons at first. She looked at me. Her eyes moved over my tattered tunic and trembling knees the way a butcher surveys a cut of meat, searching for the right place to begin. "Gunnar. This is a farce." Her voice was sharper than the rumors. Slower, too. Each word placed with the precision of someone who knew exactly how much damage a sentence could do. "There are ancient lines that cannot be blurred. She is a maid. Arlo's plaything." A pause. "You cannot put a crown on a mongrel." She said the last part slowly. Rhythmically. Like she wanted it to land in the ears and stay there. And it did. "As king-to-be, I can take anyone I want as my wife." Gunnar rose. He didn't just stand, he unfolded. His mountain of muscle and dark silk blocked the light from the high windows behind him. I found myself staring despite everything, my mouth dry, my heartbeat too loud inside my own chest. He looked less like a man and more like something carved from the oldest wood in the kingdom. For one treacherous heartbeat, the pain in my body faded. Replaced by something I had no name for. "Whether Father lives or dies, I remain heir. That will not change." The Queen's jaw tightened. "I have spoken, Mother." His voice settled into the room like stone settling into the deep sea. "Whatever she was in the dirt… she is mine now." He gestured. A guard stepped forward and handed him a sack of coins. The metal inside announced itself loudly, recklessly, the way money does when it knows it has just ended an argument. Gunnar dropped it onto his brother's armrest. The clang rang through the hall like a final word. In the corner of my eye, I saw Tylo. The man who had sold me. He was a ball of sweating rags on the floor, practically pressing his lips to the marble. The Queen waved a single dismissive hand and Tylo scrambled out like a rat who had just remembered it had somewhere else to be. He didn't look back. No one ever looked back for me. An iron grip closed around my wrist. Gunnar didn't lead me. He anchored me. He began to stride toward the grand staircase, his legs twice the length of mine, and I stumbled, my bare feet catching the marble, my shoulder screaming as I fought to keep up. We moved into the silence of the royal wing. Gold everywhere. Tapestries thick enough to sleep inside. The kind of luxury that sits heavy on your chest when you've spent your life breathing dirt. Gunnar didn't look at me. He muttered it under his breath, low, almost to himself, the kind of words a man says when he's forgotten the thing he's dragging is capable of hearing. "What am I even going to do with this dirty, tattered piece of meat?" I kept my face empty. It was a tactical move. A trophy snatched to spite his brother. I had known that from the moment he pointed at me in that hall. I had told myself it didn't matter. That I was used to being nothing. "You took what's mine!" The scream tore through the silence. Arlo stepped out from behind a marble pillar, his face distorted, trembling, pathetic with fury. The dim corridor light caught the silver edge of a dagger in his hand. I looked at him, really looked and didn't see a warrior. I saw a child who had broken every toy he'd ever owned. That made him infinitely more dangerous. "Is there something about her?" Arlo's voice cracked. His eyes darted between Gunnar's face and mine, hunting for an answer neither of us gave him. "Something the alchemists found? Is that why you're stealing my scraps?" Gunnar stopped. His grip on my wrist tightened until I felt my bones speak. He looked at the dagger. Then at Arlo's sweating brow. "If you want her back, Arlo," Gunnar's voice dropped to just above a whisper, pulling me flush against the cold metal of his armor, "You'll have to cut her out of my hands." Arlo raised the dagger. But the torch on the wall behind Arlo, the one bolted into solid stone, cracked clean off its bracket and hit the floor between us.