Valentina took me back to my old cell — cold, dark, and heavy with the stench of iron and filth. And just like that, my old life resumed, as if nothing had happened. As if I was never given a glimpse of warmth, comfort, or the illusion of love.
The chains were placed back on me — rusty cuffs around my wrists and ankles, with a thick metal collar digging into my neck. The weight felt familiar now, like an old enemy I could never escape. I resumed the duties of a slave, duties I knew too well: scrubbing the palace floors until my fingers bled, fetching water from the far well with buckets heavier than my own body weight, cleaning the livestock pens, tending the royal gardens under the burning sun, washing clothes, and sometimes standing still for hours as a human decoration during royal fea
