Author's Note: This chapter is slight departure in tone from the previous so I wanted to give you a bit of a head's up. Early in the chapter is a short and completely non-erotised scene featuring domestic violence and some descriptions of wounds. If that's something that you need some space from in your life right now you can skip the couple of paragraphs that I've marked with '---' before and after.
The sex scene (no spoilers!) that appears in this chapter has a distinctly more S&M feel than in previous chapters, but if that's your thing then you're not likely to find it particularly out there. (It's more of a warning for those who prefer to skip all the squishy character development and plot stuff that I love.)
Okay, I think that's all the check in we need. Your feedback is received gratefully as ever.
Love, Betty X
***
I had not known that it was possible to hate a place.
A person, an idea, a chore; certainly. But a place? My whole life's experiences had been made up of sturdy grey cottages in scenes of pastoral farmland, dewy meadows, meandering burns and dense pine forest. A hot sunny day was a rare happening, and it meant only the race to bring the harvest and laundry in before the storms that followed.
What I would have given for a goddamn storm!
The days in Azure were tiresomely long, dry and impossibly hot. I often felt faintly sick. I could not adjust to any aspect of the castle.
All the foods tasted like horseradish and ginger - yet stronger -- and scalded my mouth no matter how long I let them to cool.
I paced my room like a colt box-walks his stable. The finery that had so impressed me became simply the matter-of-fact surroundings of my everyday; and I could find no pleasure at all in marvelling at the painted tiles and splendid craftsmanship. I wanted only for wet strawberries and sweet showers and my mother's patched quilt.
My routine grew purposeless and slovenly. I would lay on my bed dozing crossly through the heat of the day, then as the cooler evening approached I would head to the library. There I would continue my futile search for a book of scryglass instructions written in my native language, until the night grew winter-cold and I would shiver my way back to my chamber as ignorant as I was before I began the whole endeavour. Then the night would creep coldly by, while I lay restless and irritated having napped away the proceeding day. Sometimes I thought of Kasita's soft body sleeping beside me. Sometimes I relived the Prince's growl in my ear, 'I can put fire on your skin and diamonds in your eyes.' No matter whom I thought of, guilt tore the pleasure from the memories.
But lonely as I was, I did not speak with anyone at all. Incubus guards clad in gold armour might nod as I passed them, but I never saw Maya or Lazuren in this time.
I didn't even dream of him, which was both a great relief and a heavy weight. I felt myself to be nothing but a deep well of melancholy.
Until, some wretched string of time later, I did what I ought to have the very first night that I was held there.
Disinterested and without expectation I wrote out my sister Mildred's name on the scryglass and whispered. The glass immediately came alive.
I saw Millie, in her kitchen, bouncing a chubby, wailing baby upon her hip while she stirred a pot of broth with her other hand. My latest nephew or niece had reached the world in good health. Fresh tears sprung in my eyes. I would never meet them. I would never see any of my four sisters' children grow.
I inspected the image closely. Millie did not look well. Her eyes bore blue shadows, her skin was too pale and her hair was greasy. These things might only have been the ordinary consequences of renewed motherhood; but I knew my sister well and had never seen her so depleted.
---
From the edge of the glass, her husband, Willem, entered. His misaligned hands were still embroiled in yellow bandages. She stretched her lips into a smile, though she could not keep the distress from her face. She spoke, but the glass offered no sound. He bellowed back at her. Hurriedly, she pressed her babe into the arms of her eldest child and set to work at unwrapping the spoilt fabric from her husband's fingers. The swollen wrists and hands were something sickening and putrid to behold. I saw the smell of them in Mildred's expression. The bones had healed dreadfully, fused where they ought not to be. The skin was raw, purple and black, seeping thick fluid. Any common villager could have told you that without amputation the brute would surely die, and soon.
But my sister poured vinegar on the broken hands and wrapped them back up inside the same foul cloths, while her husband cursed through gritted teeth. His suffering was enough that I wept with shame for my actions. I hated him bitterly. But I had hate enough for myself also. No person should live in such condition.
When the task was done, Mildred spooned broth into his mouth while her children took care of one another. She burnt his lips. He spat. He roared. He rose. The children scattered from the room. He kicked Millie in her shins. In her stomach when she doubled. He kicked her over and over.
I forced myself to bear witness, but I cannot stand to retell it any further.
---
When it was over, I hated Willem all the more. My anger was boundless: I ought to have murdered him! I garbled the nonsense spells that witches reach for when we know prayer is useless to us. I condemned him to an instant death that would feel like a slow one. I promised to unleash a vengeance so terrible that devils would tell of it with wide eyes. I was so impelled by my rage that I snapped the scryglass clean in two.
The image fell from it. I screamed until my throat was burnt out of voice. My sister was hurt and I could not help her... I was powerless.
I never should have hid in the forest. I should have gone back to her.
***
I vowed to change. No matter the heat of the day, I went to library at first light and studied diligently into the late evening. I no longer combed the shelves looking for texts on scryglasses. Looking on uselessly served only to torture myself. I was haunted by Mildred's fate, which in the details was almost as Kasita had warned. No. Not Kasita. I had the realisation the moment that the glass flickered under my sister's name.
Kasita could not be her true name.
That was why the spell had not worked. She had lied to me. Directly. Explicitly. Even with my own hideous transgression, the naked lie she had told me stung fiercely. I felt myself released a little from my lingering love for her. But it was not extinguished entirely.
I did not know where to begin in seeking my means of escape, so I endeavoured to know everything. If it was scribed in my tongue, then I read it from cover to cover.
Though inside I still felt that I was nothing but ash and sun-bleached bones, the occupation busied my mind enough that I could sleep at night. I entertained the dimmest hope that one day, I would go home.
The library was always empty. Sometimes I wondered whom it had been built for, with no other visitors than myself. But on this day, sat upon a bench at a long table, a book of translations open upon a stand and surrounded by an array of papers, was my Prince.
My heart pulsed with ardent joy! How I had missed his handsome face!
Coloured light shone through the stained windows and tinted his beautiful blue skin with neat rainbow squares. A diamond of cerise light rested upon his sumptuous lips. His jewellery glinted. His eyes shone. He appeared perfectly contented and serene.
