He meets my eyes, touches his lips, and rubs his fingers together.Our secret ritual, a way for him to send me a kiss from afar, knowing we could never touch lips until we were wed.
I recognize his silent promise. One day soon, we will make it better, together. It should comfort me. It doesn’t.
Under Ryker’s father, the old king, duennas locked every unwed noblewoman’s door after dusk and were the only ones allowed to hold the keys. There were no mixed carriages unless married, no private letters— every word passed through the family seal desk and was copied for the archives. Male servants never attended to women, no matter how urgent the task, even when a horse bucked or a carriage wheel splintered, servant girls were sent to fix it, fumbling through work meant for trained hands.
Then, at my urging, Ryker loosened the rules with his first decree, and the girls seemed to breathe again. But freedom breeds proximity, and proximity tempts fate. That’s how Brienne met her riding master. And that’s why I can’t shake the guilt of having made it possible.
It shouldn’t be this way, freedom shouldn’t come with shame.
Then, the air in the courtyard shifts, this time heavy with reverence. The Chastity Warden approaches the pole, and dread curdles in my stomach.
He is a slender man wrapped in green robes. The sigil of Demetria, Goddess of Forest and Time, is stitched over his heart: two mirrored leaves forming an hourglass, their stems twisting.
A thick leather whip coils through his arms.
As he stops behind Brienne, his thin fingers reach for the monstrous wig perched atop his head, woven from the red strands of every cursed woman he has punished like a crown of suffering, built lash by lash, cry by cry.
A question pierces me, parasitic and sharp. Are my mother’s locks tucked somewhere in that nest of madness?
I shove the thought aside. Not now. But the promise I made to myself a long time ago is ironclad. I will find the one responsible for her ruin. And I will make them pay it threefold.
The warden snips a lock of Brienne’s red hair and tucks it away. Disgust courses through my veins at the gesture, and I grip the edge ofmy seat until my fingers ache.
The kingdom had long since scoured the red color from daily life: no red in clothing, no red in furnishings, no red at all. The shade was too vivid a reminder of the Crimson Tether curse, and so it was despised. Before me lies a sea of white silks, golden wigs, black coats, but not a hint of red to be seen… except for Brienne’s hair, the fiery blossoms spilling across my lap and that damned wig on the warden’s head.
Zyrel steps forward. Without ceremony, he unlatches his snare rod and hauls Brienne to the iron pole. With brutal efficiency, her gloved arms are yanked above her head and fixed to the hook at the top.
My heart slams against my ribs in a violent rhythm, each beat laced with helpless anticipation.
Zyrel rips the back of her dress, baring her pale skin.
Brienne’s scream cuts through the square, high and raw. And just like that, the month before my marriage no longer feels near, it stretches into an impossible distance. My grip on the chair loosens until my stiff fingers finally let go. The cry shatters the stillness I’ve been hiding behind. The fury I’ve kept locked beneath duty surges free, rushing through me like fire in dry grass, until all that’s left is rage and the need to act.
How many more girls will suffer in the weeks before I become queen?
How many more deaths will stain my conscience before my family’s name and the crown together give me enough power to challenge the Church?
“Just close your eyes,” Mael murmurs from my side, as if he’s plucked the thoughts from my mind, as if he understands why my breath trembles. “It’ll be over soon.”
But that’s the problem. It won’t be soon enough.
Even after Brienne goes quiet, her scream still rings in my ears. It burns through every excuse I’ve ever made for why I had to stay quiet, to be patient. Sitting still becomes unbearable, and before I know it, I’m on my feet. Heat floods my chest, thought blurs, and I’m moving—finally doing what I should have donelong ago.
I think I hear Mael laugh, soft and disbelieving, but I don’t turn back. I don’t stop for my duenna’s shrill protest, nor do I pause to consider what I am doing. My legs are already carrying me forward, toward the pole, toward the warden, toward the raised whip.
No one stops me.
The distance is too small, the guards are too stunned, too slow to grasp what I mean to do. I’m not even sure of my intent myself. I only know that Ryker and I spoke of change. And I refuse to wait for it a moment longer.
The warden remains unaware, his focus riveted to Brienne’s exposed back. He raises his arm, the whip coiled and ready, the leather glinting like a serpent in the sun.
I throw myself at him.
Not with finesse, there’s no strategy in it. Just raw momentum, shoulder-first. I crash into his side and catch his arm mid-swing. The force of it jangles up my spine, and I feel the blow start to land anyway. Brienne screams and thrashes, as it clips her across the ribs, a shallow lash, but not what he intended.
He stumbles a step, whip arm suspended in the air, face twisted in fury and disbelief. I meet his eyes, panting, and realize I’m still clutching the blooming carcass in my left hand. My right grips his wrist tightly, my knuckles white.
“There will be no lashing today,” I say.
