Chapter Two

How does one dress to be handed off to an enemy kingdom? Who had brutalised the only home you had ever known?

It had not taken long for me to decide. I did not change, did not comb my hair or even wipe the streaks of blood from my wrists.

As I walked down the halls of my kingdom, the echoes of the cries of my people carved themselves into the hollows of my mind, to forever be committed to my memory.

My gown was torn, but it wasn’t the usual sort of gown I had worn as my role as Crown Princess.

This one was a compromise. I had not hidden from the war; I had fought to protect those had sought refuge in the castle halls. I had wanted a tunic and breeches, but Eloise had convinced me that the people still needed to see me as Queen.

And for some traditional reason set in stone by ancestors long dead, a dress equated a Queen as much as a crown did.

The crown remained spun in the tresses of hair that had already knotted themselves.

If I was to be trophy, I would be the ugliest trophy possible, the silent sort of defiance he might expect. The sort that was arbitrary.

He needed to think me nothing more than the girl-queen, and I had to convince myself that was not true. That somehow, I could press myself far enough into the corners of that despicable kingdom to be of use. To do something.

I would walk out in a powder blue dress, skimming past my knees, from being torn, with an assortment of differently dried patched of blood, dark splotches of red, of both my people and his soldiers. A coagulation of the war, painted across the simplest of dresses.

The crown remained too.

Freya had not spoken since the war started. But before I left its walls she had whispered ever so quietly, “Keep it on.”

And I would not betray the words of a child who should never have known the colour that rushed through their veins this soon.

“You can turn back,” Eldora, carried the parchment with the agreement. One sign of that and the war was over, “We can fight-“

“No.” my voice was unusually firm, “We may be able to fight,” my eyes cast over to the silent watches. The towns people, the guards that had barely been able to defend the inner castle, standing between the people. The Ardourians, with mournful smiles as the watched me, “But to what end?””

A lamb to slaughter, chartered off to the very ruler that had taken the lives of so many.

The resounding silence was only broken by the hum of the children’s song we had all been taught.

Where the river glimmers and turns

Where the sun dips and mourns

That is where you will find Ardour.

“Where the river glimmers and turns,” I called out, my voice an echo crashing through their voices. The cobblestone path from the palace steps, coated in shades of red. But I did not look at the blood spilt, only the blood that could be saved.

“That’s where you will find Ardour,” they called back, and I felt the tears rush to my eyes. The gates were twists of silver, that when the sun sunk beneath the horizon, it would glow the most delicate of reds.

A reminder of war long ago, so long ago. Gates that were to be dipped in red in commemoration of them, and now the gates would be painted an even brighter shade of silver, so when the Sun fell, when its’ rays cast themselves against the silver, we would see the red again and we would never forget.

Beyond those gates were the battlements of Casacaliyia, with smirks hardly hidden by their armour, laced in that venomous green.

If Ardour was known for its rivers, Casacaliyia was known for its forests that held plants so artfully distilled into poisons, ready to coat their sharpened swords.

“Where the Sun dips and Mourns,” I could barely whisper, but the people they heard, their arms entangled together as they watched their Queen, take those final steps. To a gate that barely held the Casacaliyia back.

“That is where you will find Ardour,” the crowd sang back, a lilt in their voice, that precarious hope, that the war was done. That this was not another ploy to destroy everything we still had left.

Daunte’s face was grim, as he tugged on the chains that would release the gate. It’s sharp jaws that dug into the gravel, unsheathed, and for a moment I imagined, Rhydian Koen’s skull crushed beneath the spokes of metal. A new coat of red to paint the gates instead of waiting for the Sun to set to be reminded of all that we had lost.

“My Queen,” the mockery of his voice latched onto me, a serrated smile as he stepped forward. Hair an inky black that undulated under the midmorning sun, a spill of uncouth colours mixed into one terrifying darkness.

His skin was pale, a far cry from the darker shades of the Ardourians.

But it was the eyes that enraptured you, the wicked mix of ocean blue and the deepest of greens, evergreen perhaps with how it could withhold the coldest of winters. They battled to create a deceiving colour, one that a poet would write about, deigned to pretty words instead of scathing lies.

But there was nothing pretty about the King of Casacaliyia.

He quirked a brow, expecting a show of respect, I was to curtsy, to sink myself low.

I felt the knot in the base of my stomach tighten and tighten as I bunched up the sides of my dress.

“Your choice of clothing,” his voice was colder than it had been before. Eyes raking over my frame landing on the crook of my neck where a bruise bloomed, “And your crown, you must know,” there was a light threat in the step he took, forward, closing distance I wanted to keep between us.

Still waiting form my submission.

I could feel the eyes of Eldora on me, I could imagine her thoughts.

The child who was being difficult.

I knew I needed to be the perfect prisoner, the sacrifice not the weapon.

“You will not need either of those where you are going, Adelaide.”

For one sharp moment, I lost all breath. My name sounded like a curse from those lips, a poison ready to unfurl me. No longer a Queen.

But what was worse was the insinuation were the low chuckles from his soldiers behind him.

No crown, no clothes, the meaning was sordid and clear.

Even more reason for me not to bow. More reason not to remove my crown.

“And yet, you called me Queen,”

Amusement flickered over his features momentarily.

“A tongue like that should be careful. You would not want to offend your King,”

“I will offend no one, I will be what you want me to be,” the admission was more than any bow could have done to convince him.

I held my head high, showed the worth in my eyes as I took the parchment from Eldora. Her fingers brushed over my knuckles, before she let go.

I stepped forward, strides eating the distance between us, until we were only inches apart.

This close to him, I could feel the clench of my heart, the erratic murmurs of blood rushing to my ears, as a sickness clawed itself up my throat.

He tilted his head ever so slightly, a curiosity sparking in those eyes, a humour that was unforgiving, “And what is this?”

“The agreement.”

“And what makes you think you are in any position to decide the terms of as you say,” he leaned forward breath achingly close to the shell of my ear, warm and unwanted, “this agreement.”

“You,” I swallowed the fear jolting through me, thinking of the still singing people, thinking of Freya, as the crown dug into my skull, “Are the one who asked for me. The only thing,” I pressed the treaty into his hands, only two pages long, “Is that you spare my people.”

“And why,” the low drawl was slow and methodical, “Would I spare them?”

“People are what you need to strengthen your kingdom. I may have only been Queen for a matter of weeks. But I have been princess for my entire life. I know how kingdoms work,” my breath was short a I felt both Cascayli and Ardourian hang onto each word slipped between us, “The more people you have the more labour can be done. The more subjects to have, the greater the kingdom. That is what you want, do you not? More land to expand Casacaliyia, what is land if there is no one to work it? What is the blood of innocents, going to allow you to achieve,” and just to plunge the words further I gave in to the very thing I never wanted to do. I bowed, “My king,”

Sinking low, feeling the crown almost slip from my hair. Praying that it stayed in place. For Freya for my father, for my people, I would do anything.

Even bow before a ruthless king.

I felt his glare, I heard the crumple of paper between fists.

I stayed their sunken, too close to the scorching ground, lifting my eyes to stare up at him, revelling in the anger that lurked beneath pupils that to any onlooker should have been filled with satisfaction.

He had what he wanted, the Queen of Ardour bowing before him.

But even he knew from the glaze of my eyes, that this bow was far from the one that he wanted.

The Sun’s dappled rays slanted through the regiments, catching the jewels of the crown, rubies casting an ominous red glow onto his pale face. A canvas for blood, that matched the tatters of my dress, as the gates of my kingdom caught the light, bathed in blood. As the people’s song reached its crescendo.

And words I had prayed for on the cold floors of my room were spoken.

“I accept the treaty. Your people are safe,” the breath was quick to release from where it had been lodged in my throat. Took quick.

His hand reached to encircle my arm in a fetter made of bone.

“As long as you belong to me.”