Junia reminded herself of her history as the soldiers walked her to the throne room. By the end of the day, she would have taken her place alongside the great martyrs of her kingdom, the noble dead who had been usurped by traitors or foreigners. When her line was gone, the realm would suffer for it. She could do nothing to prevent that, but she could hold her head high as the villains slew her, confident that the gods would one day have their revenge upon the false king.
She paid no heed to the other soldiers in what had once been the throne room. For all the destruction wrought by the invading warlord's army, someone had taken the time to put this room mostly to rights again. The fiend who led her enemies had pretensions of royalty, after all, and must have wanted to feel as if this palace was truly his own.
And it was then that Junia finally saw the warlord who had laid her country and her life to ruin.
It was certainly a lie that he was a god's child, but Junia could reluctantly see why the gullible might believe it. He stood a full head taller than most of the men around him, and his shining flaxen hair and nearly-black eyes would look quite striking in any portraits. Junia met his eye without flinching nevertheless. A fair face and a commanding voice did not turn a brutish warlord into a true king.
"They said you were beautiful," said Lucius the Golden. "They did not do you justice."
Junia stared at him silently.
"Come now," the barbarian continued. "Where is your courtesy? Won't you spare a smile for your bridegroom?"
She felt an absurd urge to laugh. It would have made more sense to cry or scream, but Junia could only think of how foolish she'd been not to see this coming. Wiping out an entire royal line will rid you of your rivals, but to leave one alive to grant you legitimacy solves even more problems.
Junia struggled for words to match her outrage.
"You have not earned my courtesy, whatever you call yourself," she managed to say. Her words scarcely seemed to reach Lucius's ears, for he simply turned and offered her a goblet of wine (plundered, no doubt, from her own castle's stock.)
"A toast to our marriage!" he said with mocking good cheer. Junia stared at him, unspeaking and unmoving. For a moment she thought her icy demeanor might have chilled him. Perhaps he was faltering. It was a foolish wish, but for just an instant she thought she might have won a minor battle.
Suddenly, Lucius's act of gentility ceased. He seized Junia by the back of the throat, and when she screamed in surprise, he held the goblet over her mouth and poured the contents in. She struggled and sputtered, but ended up swallowing some of the wine nevertheless. He cast aside the goblet with a clatter, and this time he seized the top of her dress. It came off with one quick rip from hardened war-worn hands, bearing her breasts both to Lucius and to all the men around him. Their faces swam together in Junia's vision, but she could hear their whistles and jeers, their calls of appreciation, and in one case even speculation about how much she might have gone for at an auction.
Junia uselessly raised her hands up to bat away her assailant's hands, but he easily caught her wrists in his grip. It wasn't only his greater strength and speed that defeated her, Junia realized- she was unsteady on her feet and having trouble keeping her balance. That wine...She'd had wine many times before and never been so affected.
