"Get. Out." Each word is bitten off, precise. "Corvask will take you back to your quarters. We'll try this again when you've remembered your place."
I should feel victorious. I pushed her, made her lose that iron control. But looking at her now, at the fury barely contained beneath her surface, I realize I might have made a mistake.
A big one.
Corvask appears at my elbow as if summoned by magic. "This way," he says, his tone harder now.
I let him lead me out, but I can feel Primsyn's eyes on my back the entire way. Burning. Assessing.
Primsyn
Coward.
The word echoes in my mind long after Oliver left my study. I stand at the window, staring out at the gardens without really seeing them, my hands trembling.
How dare he? Howdarehe judge me, lecture me about changing society when he knows nothing of how this world works? He's been a captive for a week. I've lived in this system for forty years.
I could have him whipped. Should have him whipped. Any other household would beat the defiance out of him within days.
But I won't. Because he's right, in a way I hate to admit even to myself.
Iama coward.
I've never questioned the system, never pushed back against the council, never tried to improve conditions for the humans we keep. I've simply accepted it as the natural order. Lactari need human fluids. Humans are captured and used. That's just how things have been for the last hundred years.
Except it doesn't have to be.
I sink into my chair, pressing my fingers to my temples. This human is going to drive me mad. One night and he's already under my skin, making me question things I've never questioned before.
You're more than that.
I shouldn't have said it. He's livestock, nothing more. I need to remember that.
A knock at my door interrupts my thoughts.
"Enter."
Corvask steps inside, closing the door behind him. "Madam. If I may speak freely?"
"When have I ever stopped you?"
"The human is proving...difficult."
Despite everything, a smile tugs at my lips. "Yes. He is."
"Perhaps a different approach is needed. He clearly doesn't respond well to authority."
"No. He responds to it perfectly. With defiance and rage." I stand, moving back to the window. "That's exactly what I wanted."
Corvask is silent for a moment. "Madam?"
"I bought him because he's difficult, Corvask. Because he fights. Because he makes me..." I trail off, not sure how to finish the sentence.
"Makes you feel," Corvask supplies quietly.
I glance at him, surprised. My steward has been with me since before my husband died. He knows me better than almost anyone.
"Yes," I admit. "He makes me feel. And I haven't felt anything real in so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like."
