“But what about my husband?” I stared back and forth, my face empty. It must have seemed to them that I’d lost my wits, and I didn't care that they were squirming. “You talk like I’ll be playing the dutiful daughter, but I’m a wife now. Shouldn’t I be a wife?”
And now none of them wanted to look at me.
The ferret-minister cleared his throat, put on a false air of soothing. “Well you don’t have a husband right now, but it’s…er…possible that some sort of betrothal could be arranged. There are single men among the knights, and you could be given a place within the castle?—"
“So you want to give me away again.” I didn’t know if I was going to laugh or scream. “Give the toy away, snatch it back,give it away again. Like a child who doesn’t know how giving works.”
His nerves frayed. “Young lady, we have been patient, but you are before the baron of Belnor. You will hold your tongue?—"
“Aldous,” my father said. “That’s enough. My daughter has been through a lot.” He waved a hand, and the guards that had been starting to step forward moved back to the wall. There were only two of them today, and the one servant. Father turned his gaze back to me. He looked uncomfortable, still. I was always going to be a reminder that he’d sold his flesh to orcs, wasn’t I? Before, I’d been a reminder that he’d cavorted with whores in the lower city, the feral child he’d made, and now I was a reminder that he’d sold his child. The way his eyes went sad and his gaze stuck on me brought bile into my mouth. He nodded, once, the closest thing to an apology I was likely to receive. “I know this must be confusing for you. But you’re home now. Aldous has been reprimanded about what happened. You can leave this in the past, and stay in your place here.”
He was just a man, this graying figure. He was just another man, like the ones in the warrens, like the people Khal saw good in. Maybe there’d been good in him once. Surely the horror that rolled through me looking at his bland face, this echo of childhood terrors, should be misplaced.
Surely it was wrong to want him to die screaming, and to want him to say it was all a lie and he loved me. But maybe wanting hope wasn’t what was broken. I’d seen good in the world, now. I’d met at least one person who’d never sell me, probably more. Piotr would never have sold me. Probably even Vrathgar would have fought for me. Khal’s people weren’t like this man, weren’t like the ones here. And maybe it wasn’t me who had been broken, yearning all those years. Perhaps it had never been me who was broken at all.
“Did you know he’d paid the orcs in colored water?” I lookedat the man on the low throne. “Did you know the potions he gave them weren’t real, when he handed me over to them?”
He hesitated, his hesitation an entire answer. His face was sad. “I’m sorry, Rowena. Things…” The minister was glaring, beside him, and the baron of Belnor waved his ineffectual hands. “Things were difficult. We make hard choices, in war.”
I nodded, inhaled, and it stung, it stabbed deep into that child inside of me, but it didn’t hurt as much as I’d imagined. “I suppose I’ll have to put it behind me,” I croaked out. “Since there are such easy choices to make now.”
He smiled sadly again, and I hoped the revulsion didn’t show on my face. The minister beside him cleared his throat. “Yes, well, now if we could begin?—"
“You were a father to Thea, sometimes,” I interrupted. “I think she loves you a little. I…” The smile wiped off his face as I said it. “I think maybe I did too, once.” They were quiet, like they couldn’t decide if I needed to be restrained again, like they couldn’t remember if they had that authority over a sorceress. “I just wanted you to know that my mercy is for her. We’re done. I couldn’t care less about you.”
Anger twisted his expression into something ugly, something fitting, and it was a relief to see that puppy-eyed falseness leave. It was a relief to see him as he was, as he should be, for a fitting goodbye. “You need to remember your place.” He gestured to a guard.
“I do. It’s next to my husband.” His man was coming towards me, and I threw out a hand. “Stop.”
And the guard stopped with one foot raised, his eyes bulging, frozen in space, his hand out towards me.
I looked back at the pallid man on the throne, whose face was growing even more white. “You live at my sister’s discretion,” I said. “Do you understand? You live for her. If you ever deal falsely with her or with my husband’s people again, I will burn this place so completely they can’t reuse the stones.”
The minister spoke again, outrage. “Miss Rowena, this is inappropriate?—"
“Weren’t you punished for selling someone without his permission, minister? Wasn’t he very angry at you? Or are you still just a convenient meat shield so he can pretend his sins aren’t his own?”
My father tried again. “If this is about wanting a husband, you could choose from?—"
“Oh, I get to choose now?” I took a step closer, and the stupid man’s eyes bulged on his throne. “You know I can burn this place to cinders, cook you in your clothes, so now I get to choose? How little, and how late.”
The other guard pulled out his blade to rush, and I threw out the other hand. “Hold.”
He held, his sword in the air and his mouth open, like a little toy soldier. I wasn’t even tired.
“I’d thought about demanding a dowry from you, making you pretend to be even that much a father. But I’ve changed my mind. I want nothing from you. Only the assurance that you’ll let me go.”
“Young Miss,” the minister hissed. “This is not a negotiation. You are in your father’s house?—"
It made sense that the power was harder to control when my emotions ran high. This had started when I was frightened, when I had been a child in danger, when I’d wanted or needed much. And maybe as much as I told myself that this conversation and these people didn’t matter, the fear in my body from so many years would bring power lashing to the surface.
I staggered back a step as my thoughts opened to theirs.
The bitch, this little bitch-
God above, she’s going to burn us! She’s going to burn us and it was almost a holiday! I was going to see Beatrice-
I hate him, and I hate his daughter and I hate this entire stupid, ridiculous farce…
