“I hereby call off your betrothal to Bjorn.”
Saga’s heart felt as if it had grown wings—as if it might fly circles around the ceiling. She was quite proud of herself for smothering her reaction. But Bjorn was not so impassive. The sadness in his face was like a blade between her ribs.
He couldn’t possibly have wished to marry her, could he? But Saga had no time to ponder it. As her eyes settled on Signe, her blood chilled.It seemed there was more.
“Instead, you’ll marry Magnus,” said the king.
The room tilted on its axis, her heart careening in her chest. Saga gripped the edge of the table, trying so hard to maintain her passivity. But as Magnus pried her hand from the table and clasped it in his, she felt herself shattering intopieces. Not him. Anyone but him. Magnus’s thumb swiped over the marks he’d placed on her skin with a low grunt of approval.
“A better match for you, darling,” continued Signe, her face as calm as if she were discussing the weather. “You need a firm hand to keep you in line. And Magnus is the perfect man for the job, aren’t you, Magnus?”
“I think this will be an agreeable arrangement,” he said coolly, stroking her hand once more.
“It’s time you settled, Magnus,” said King Ivar with a knowing smile. “Time you had a family.”
Dazedly, Saga wondered if she’d be violently ill on the table. She wrenched her hand free from Magnus and pressed it to her rapidly throbbing temples.
“We shall expedite the wedding,” Signe was saying, though the words were muffled as if she were underwater. “No need to draw things out. We can arrange a lovely ceremony on short notice. How does a week from now sound to you, Magnus?”
“Perfect.” His hand fell heavy on Saga’s thigh, and she flinched at the contact.
They spoke of her as if she wasn’t even there. Like she had no say. And she didn’t.
She pulled Magnus’s hand from her leg, and he chuckled, making her entire body tense. The sound was a promise—of torment, of violence, of games she’d lose, over and over.
You deserve to be punished.
The hum of conversation picked up around her, but white noise filled Saga’s ears. Her breaths sawed in and out. She did not want to give Signe the satisfaction of seeing her undone, but Saga was no longer in control.
The man who’d branded her body and called her property would soon be her husband.
The daymeal was served, and Saga drank four cups of róa. But she knew there would be no sleeping draught in the drink. There would be no escape. They’d fled in the night. Left her behind. Tears tried to scrape forth, but she kept them trapped through sheer will. She had vowed there would be no tears. She had this one thing left.
The daymeal stretched to torturous lengths, but by some miracle, Saga survived. At last, the royal family stood, and she followed on numb legs. How she made it back to her chambers, she could not say.
Her guard settled into his chair outside her chamber doors. Standing in her empty room, Saga took stock of her situation—she’d lost her freedom, her possessions, her hope of escape. And soon, she’d be handed over to a monster.
What Magnus had done to her hands was only the start. A fresh wave of nausea churned through her as she considered what else he might do.
Saga stared with unseeing eyes at the heavy oak doors of her balcony. She pushed on the iron ring and stepped into the crisp morning air. The stone balustrades warped before her as her body reacted to being outdoors, tightness wrapping around her middle, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. Everything was wrong, so wrong. Up was down, right was wrong, She stepped forward again, again, again.
Punished, echoed through her skull as her heart pumped violently in her chest.
“Yes,” wheezed Saga through the tension in her chest. Birds were screaming, the iron forge sizzling in her ears. Her hand wrapped around cold, rough stone. The balustrade. She reached it and looked below to the stone courtyard.
Her body moved; her mind unthinking. Gripping the stone wall, Saga pulled herself up to stand on the rail. The ground below lilted back and forth, like the deck of a ship, and Saga steadied herself with a hand to the wall.
A call from below—Klaernar on the stone walkway, looking up.
She stared down, her skirts whipping in the wind.
Third floor of the palace. How long would it take to fall? The span of two heartbeats, perhaps three? Her vision clouded, and she closed her eyes.
No tears.
Saga thought of her family, tried to picture her mother and her father in her mind, but like the perfection she chased in her sketches, the images were never quite right. The coil of her mother’s hair was off, the arch of her father’s brow wrong. Her parents blurred until they were no longer an image, but only a feeling. Warmth. Safety. Love. Things she hadn’t felt in far too long.
Saga was scared, but sure. In a moment, she’d be free. She’d stretch her wings and fly from her cage. No one could hurt her where she was going. No one would ever hurt her again.
