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1031 Words
~Lena~
I wake up to hands on my skin.
Cold. Rough. Impersonal.
The servant doesn’t speak — they rarely do anymore. Maybe they’re afraid of me. Or maybe silence is easier when you’re surrounded by ghosts.
“Wake up, Princess,” she whispers, as if the title means anything.
I don’t answer. I stare at the ceiling — painted stars frozen in time. They’re the only things in this place that never change. Not like my body. Not like my mind.
Those have both been broken. Reshaped into something unrecognizable.
I’m tired. Of waking. Of breathing. Of pretending I’m still alive.
They strip the sheets. I curl instinctively, too slowly to matter. She pulls me up, her fingers brushing across bruises — old ones fading yellow and green, fresh ones purple and throbbing.
He was angry again. I don’t know why. I never do.
Sometimes it’s because I looked at him too long.
Sometimes because I didn’t.
They bathe me in silence. Warm water, numb skin. My body feels like something I rent, not something I own. A cage of flesh and memory.
They paint my face, braid gold into my hair, cover the damage with powder. Dress me in silk like a doll going on display. A sapphire necklace glints at my throat like shackles.
The crown is light. Decorative.
It makes me want to laugh.
Royalty, they call me.
Royalty in chains.
I’m led to the balcony, a puppet with a painted smile. The crowd gathers below, distant blurs of gaunt faces and hollow eyes. They cheer — not from hope, but fear.
Just like I do.
Uncle Raymond raises his hand in a familiar, rehearsed motion. “Peace and prosperity,” he declares, voice smooth as poison.
Liar.
There’s no peace. No prosperity. Only suffering wrapped in silk and sold as stability.
The land is starving.
Crops stolen before they ripen. Farmers left with dust and hunger. Bread costs more than a man earns in a week. Children beg in gutters while soldiers eat roast quail at the palace gates.
And still, the taxmen come — vultures cloaked in steel. If the people can’t pay, they’re beaten. If they resist, their bodies are nailed to the edge of town as a warning.
And I… I stand beside him in silence, draped in riches bought with their pain.
My smile slices my cheeks. I wonder what would happen if I screamed. If I leapt from the balcony.
Would they mourn me?
Would they even know I’ve already died?
They say my parents died in a tragic accident. That Raymond took me in out of mercy.
The mercy included luxury. Gowns. Jewelry. Feasts.
And hell.
The palace is a place of gold and marble, but the people who keep it running walk on broken glass.
The king’s rage is legend. One wrong look, one spilled drink, one breath too loud — and you’re gone.
Beaten. Whipped. Fed to his dogs if he’s feeling theatrical.
The dungeons are always full. There’s a room with no windows, where screams echo through the stone. Even guards come back pale.
The women suffer worse. Chambermaids, kitchen girls, handmaidens — no one is safe from the king’s lust. He calls it entertainment. As if their bodies are gifts.
They don’t cry anymore. Just go limp. Then clean up their blood in silence.
No one saves them. No one dares.
Once, a stablemaster tried. Defended a girl who wasn’t even fourteen.
Raymond had him ripped apart by his hounds.
And the court applauded.
Then there’s me.
Princess Lena.
The king’s puppet. His possession.
His favorite toy.
“Ungrateful girl,” he spits. “I took you in. Your mother left you to rot.”
“No man will ever want you,” he says while touching me. “You’re already mine.”
When he forces himself on me, he makes me call him *My King.*
He says it reminds me of my place.
I close my eyes. Leave my body. Pretend I’m someone else. Somewhere else. Someone with teeth. With fire in her chest. Someone who fights.
But when I open my eyes, I’m still here.
Still in this bed.
Still broken.
And he is still smiling.
There’s something inside me.
Something ancient. Wild. Restless.
I’ve felt it for as long as I can remember — a stirring under my skin. A pulse beneath my ribs when the moon is high. A heat in my blood when I’m angry or afraid.
But I’ve never shifted.
Not once.
Girls in the villages come into their wolves by thirteen. Some younger.
Me?
Nothing.
Because here, in this tower, I’m not allowed to become anything.
The king made sure of that.
I’ve heard whispers. Fragments of a prophecy. Bits of truth they never meant me to know.
“Keep her weak.”
“She must not awaken.”
“She cannot rise.”
Sometimes I hear the word *twin.* But I’ve never had a sister. Never had anyone. Just stone walls, bruises, and this gnawing feeling that I’m more than what they’ve told me.
That I’m dangerous.
That I’m meant to be.
He knows something. Something I don’t. When I scream or fight or let my rage slip through — he looks at me with fear.
Not anger.
Fear.
And that terrifies me more than any beating.
Because if he’s afraid of what I could become… then what am I?
At night, I dream of snow and blood. Of claws and teeth. Of a voice inside me howling to be free.
Sometimes I see fire.
Not around me — within me.
Like my soul is wrapped in flame, waiting to ignite.
But every time I reach for it, something holds it back.
Chains around my heart.
Hands on my throat.
His voice whispering
“You belong to me. You are nothing. You are no one.”
I don’t know the full prophecy. I don’t know why he keeps me alive.
But I know this:
The wolf inside me is real.
And one day — when the chains snap, when the flame rises, when I finally remember who I am…
He won’t be able to stop me.
No one will.
- Writer
