Save me, she thought to him.Let me come back to you.
But she didn't go anywhere. She stayed in that room by herself for hours. Or perhaps it was days. She didn't know. Rose stared at the door until it opened.
A woman walked through it, although she wasn't someone that Rose recognized. This wasn't a priestess. She was just a regular maid with her eyes on the floor as she skittered toward Rose and held out a robe for her to put on. "The king has requested you wear this."
"Why?"
The woman didn't respond. Almost as though she was afraid to have any sort of conversation with Rose, which could only mean that she was trapped here too.
So she took the robe, but then whispered very quietly, "If you know a way out of here, I will help us both escape. Together, we could manage. We can get out of here."
"What is your magic?" the maid whispered, as though that would make a difference.
Rose shook her head. "I have none."
It was a lie. But her magic was entirely useless. She could disappear into her mind, certainly. She could create worlds in her own head and not remember a thing of what happened here. But that was all she could do. Rose's magic was impractical, unless she wanted to be a doll for the rest of her life.
The maid shook her head. "You're on your own, then. I won't risk my own safety for someone with no magic."
And then she left.
Helplessness threatened to swell over Rose’s head, a tidal wave of disappointment that she feared she could never control. Rose had known it would be hard to get out of here. She'd tried for years before giving up and devoting herself to learning with Rhydian.
But even now, it was hard to imagine just how stuck she really was. She still had that spark of hope in her chest that burned brightly. It would never let her sink into despair. Not yet, at least.
So she put on the robe. It was an ephemeral piece of clothing, stunning and light as she drew it over her shoulders. Entirely see-through, it showed her body off to all who would look at her. Not that she minded. Rose had never cared if someone stared at her. Even before the time when her body had been passed from man to man, she had wanted people to look at her.
How naïve she had been. If only she could go back in time and tell her younger self that such vanity would end her life as she knew it.
Rose stood in the center of the room, waiting for someone to collect her. She didn't have to wait long. The door burst open as though the guard was hoping he would catch her changing. He certainly looked disappointed that she was clothed, although his eyes still lingered on her bare arms and the shape of her body revealed beneath the robe.
"Come on then," he hissed. "We're already late."
A part of her wanted to quip at him. Whose fault was that? If they were late, and it had nothing to do with her getting ready. She'd taken maybe a few minutes getting this robe on.
Wherever this rebellion came from, it felt good to indulge the thoughts. She imagined herself walloping him over the head with a nearby vase as she followed him out into the hall. The decorations were utilitarian at best, clearly a servant’s area, not something that any royal would ever see. Not a single window in sight.
Rose didn't even know how long it had been since she'd seen the sun. Years, certainly. Perhaps a startling amount of them that she hadn't bothered to count.
The halls were strange. They moved in a serpentine pattern, graceful arcs intermingling with each other. It was worse than any labyrinth she could have imagined. This place was a rat’s nest of hallways that all merged and mingled and then split away from each other.
Truly, unlike anything she could have imagined. Then the guard stopped in front of a doorway and grabbed a bag that was hanging on the handle.
"Turn around," he said gruffly.
This new part of her, the angry part that wanted to fight, wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. She didn't know what the bag was for, but what did it matter? This life wasn't worth living, anyway. If he would just hit her, get angry at her, smack her around a bit, then she could disappear from this realm and do whatever she was told to do here.
He must have seen the thoughts reflected on her face because he growled out, "Don't even think about fighting. I've been informed not to hurt you, but I can still make this unpleasant for both of us."
How he was going to do that without hurting her, she had no idea. But so many years of training made her turn around and give him her back.
The bag came down over her head. Just as she’d feared it would.
He grabbed her arm roughly, shoving her down a corridor where they did not want her to see the end. Rose's world narrowed to her other senses. The sharp feeling of his hand gripping her arm. The strange sensation of a cold wind trailing down her spine. For a moment, there was only the sound of their footsteps and her breath until a cacophony of sound suddenly burst around her.
A crowd. A massive crowd of people, all talking and murmuring with each other. She'd heard such dulcet tones before when she was still living with the priestesses, but never since she'd been here. These were the sounds of a calm crowd, not of the people she might have expected.
Was the king selling her? Perhaps. She could imagine that he would want to get one final use out of her, but she couldn't imagine why he would need more money. So that must not be it.
