Alpha's Last Regret

Chapter 5: Three Years Inside

Three years had passed. Isabella still lived inside the stone room. The door stayed locked from the outside. Iron crossed the small window. A cuff at her ankle held a short chain that scraped a pale circle into the floor. She could reach the window and no farther. She could see a thin slice of sky and nothing else.

Most mornings she stood in that slice of light. She warmed her palms for a few minutes, then stepped back when the sun moved. She learned where the beam landed at the second bell and where it slid by late afternoon. She counted clouds to keep the hours steady. On quiet days, the room felt like a held breath that never came out.

Lisa came with food at regular times. She set the tray down straight and folded the cloth with care. She spoke in a soft voice. The guards in the hall listened to every sound that carried, so she chose small words. She was careful and tidy. She cleaned, and she kept records, and she tried to be kind. Kindness helped some days. On other days, it hurt in a way that did not show on skin.

“Please drink," Lisa would say, turning the cup so the handle faced Isabella. “Please eat."

Isabella ate enough to stand without swaying. She drank enough to keep her thoughts clear. She would not let hunger choose for her. There were few choices left, so the ones she had, she kept.

Lisa sometimes brought small news to stretch the room. The garden had foxes. A young guard married a baker's daughter. The south wall needed repair after a storm. Isabella listened because it pushed the walls back for a minute. After the next minute, the walls slid in again.

Some afternoons Lisa placed a peach or a plum on the tray, first fruit of the season. The smell of sun still clung to the skin. Isabella wanted the fruit. Wanting it made her angry. She set the peach aside and pushed it an inch away from the edge of the blanket.

“He asked the cook to send those," Lisa said once. “He said they might please you."

“They please no one," Isabella said, though the scent made her mouth water.

“You could eat them for yourself," Lisa said. “You don't have to let them mean anything."

“Everything he does tries to mean something," Isabella answered. “Even a peach."

Lisa was quiet. Then she nodded, and the tray rattled a little as she lifted it. She had learned when to stop asking.

The days were long but not empty. Isabella kept herself busy in small ways. She washed her hair and braided it tight against her head so no one could use it to drag her. She stitched the sleeves of her dress so they would not tear at the first rough hand. She rubbed ointment into the raw skin at her ankle until the red glare softened. She stood at the table with a book of herbs or a page of figures and made herself learn, line by line. Sleep came hard some nights and not at all on others. When it did come, it brought only a thin rest and the same gray room on the other side.

From time to time a chest arrived, carried by two guards. Lisa would lift the lid and blink at the shine inside. There were dresses sewn from fine cloth, combs of pale wood, bracelets shaped like coiled rivers, earrings like small moons. Isabella looked once and turned away. She wanted none of it.

“Hold the chest," she told Lisa.

Lisa set her hands on the rim and held fast. Isabella took up the first piece she found and threw it out the window. Metal rang against stone below. More followed: a belt of bright discs, a handful of rings, a string of white stones. Lisa gave a small sound each time, as if the window itself might complain.

“He will be angry," Lisa said, voice tight.

“He was angry when he came in armor," Isabella said. “The rest is noise."

The food did improve. The bread arrived warm. The soup was rich. But Isabella did not mistake the menu for mercy. At night, the lock sometimes turned, and heavy steps passed her door. On some nights the steps stopped. Those nights stayed behind her eyes even when they were over. She did not speak of them. She did not cry. She kept her jaw set and counted the boards in the ceiling until the counting steadied her breath.

Lisa avoided certain words. She did not say “escape." She did not say “freedom." She kept to practical things: water, salve, clean cloth, books with safe pages. She asked if Isabella slept. She asked if the cough had returned. She measured, in her quiet way, whether the woman in the room still held to herself.

“Do you need another blanket?" Lisa asked one cool evening.

“No."

“More tea?"

“No."

“Then I will leave you to rest," Lisa said, and she did, closing the door with the small, careful turn Isabella could recognize in her sleep.

Once, in the third spring, Isabella stopped waking at night with tears on her face. The tears had been useful for a time. They cleared the sharpest edges so she could rest for an hour. Then they stopped helping. She folded them away. She folded away the version of herself that had believed in a man with gray eyes and an honest laugh that had not been honest at all. She kept what would be useful: the names of the hills, the way rope holds, the calm voice she used for wounded bodies, the patience to wait for a breath and the next and the next.

“Do you hate him every day?" Lisa asked once. She said it in a voice that could barely be heard beyond the bed.

“Yes," Isabella said. The word was simple. “Every day."

“Even when he tells the cook to cut the fruit small because your hands shake sometimes?"

“Especially then," Isabella said. “He sets his hand on both sides of the scale and calls it fair."

Lisa bowed her head. “I understand."

“You do," Isabella said, and meant it. “You see what he is. You still live here because this is where your life is. That is not a sin."

Lisa flinched. “Don't make me small."

“I am not," Isabella said. “I am saying this place is large and it eats people if you let it. We will not let it."

They let that truth sit between them like a stone on a table. They did not pick it up. They did not throw it. They only looked at it for a while, and that was enough.

The lock had different sounds, and Isabella knew them all now. Lisa's key turned smooth and slow. A guard's key was quick and neat. His key came with a warning in the step that followed. It moved like a line drawn through air with a ruler. She could tell the difference from across the room, in the dark, with her eyes closed.

On an ordinary afternoon, the courtyard was louder than usual. Voices rose, bright and careless, not the flat voices of men at duty. Boots ran across stone. A laugh carried up the wall. Isabella looked at the door and then at Lisa, who was tidying the tray.

“What is it?" Lisa asked, frowning.

“Noise," Isabella said. “Real noise."

The key scraped fast and clumsy, not Lisa's turn and not his. The bolt slid with a little bounce. The door swung open hard enough to knock against the wall. Two guards entered first with their faces set in a look that mixed pride and worry. Between them came a young woman dressed for a show.

She wore white boots to the knee and a short blue coat with silver trim that lit when she moved. Her hair shone like a new coin and was braided into a high crown that pulled the skin at her temples. A light scent went before her, a sweet powder layered over too many flowers. She smiled at the room as if it existed to frame her.

Lisa stepped forward on instinct. “Miss, you can't—"

A guard caught Lisa by the arms and barked a warning. Lisa twisted, breath tight. “Please. You cannot be here."

The young woman did not look at Lisa. She looked at Isabella, at the chain, at the quiet face, and at the circle in the floor. She seemed pleased to find what she had come to see.

“So," she said in a clear, bright tone. “This is the room."

Isabella kept her hands at her sides. “Who are you?"

The smile sharpened. The young woman lifted her chin the way a person lifts a cup for a toast. “Sophie," she said. She let the single name sit a heartbeat and then added, “Daughter of the beta." She watched Isabella's face and did not stop there. “His fiancée," she said, with a kind of sweet pride. “And his future Luna."

The room went very still inside Isabella. Outside, the guards shifted their feet on stone. Lisa made a small sound that might have been a breath or a prayer. The chain at Isabella's ankle moved until it kissed the edge of its pale circle and then went quiet.

Sophie's smile grew as if she had placed the last word in a sentence and found it balanced well. She stood straighter, pleased with her own light. “I came to introduce myself," she said. “You should know who I am."

Isabella did not answer. She did not look away.

Sophie's eyes glittered, hungry for a reaction. She waited. The silence held.

“Good," Sophie said at last, taking Isabella's stillness as a kind of victory. “Now you do."

She turned toward the door, her boots clicking a neat rhythm on the stones. The guards moved with her. Lisa trembled and looked back at Isabella, and Isabella gave one small blink to show she was steady and breathing.

The door closed. The lock turned. The thin slice of sky at the window did not change. The peach on the blanket sat round and bright and untouched.