To the Princess Bound (Terms of Mercy)

by Sara King

  “Get off my bed!” Victory cried, horrified that he was touching it with his naked body.

  He gave a huge, pleased sigh and leaned his head back against the wall. “It’s just as nice as I thought.” Giving a pleased smile, he said, “Cushiony.” Then a small frown as he looked down at his feet. “But mine is still better.”

  “Your posterior is touching my pillow,” Victory said, aghast.

  “Good thing you let me relieve myself, then, eh?”

  Victory was so furious with his audacity to ignore her commands that all she could do was blurt, “You lived in a village. How could your bed possibly be better than mine?”

  He slid his head sideways along the headboard to look at her. “I’m not a midget.”

  She blushed furiously. “I’m five-one.”

  He gave her a flat look. “I’m not.”

  Indeed, he was approximately the same size as an aurochs. “Uh,” she said, embarrassed, “Maybe I can have Kiara arrange something larger.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, his blue eyes surprised. “You mean you’re gonna let me sleep in your bed with you?”

  Victory flushed burgundy. “On the floor,” she growled. “Something on the floor.”

  He sighed and turned to look at the room opposite his toes, seemingly picking through the lavish furnishings and statuary, evaluating them. “You have a pretty room,” he said. “I like all the mermaids.”

  Still on the floor, Victory blushed. Reluctantly, her eyes flickered to the thousands of statues she had collected before her departure to the Academy. Porcelain, gems, and polished stone glittered back at her from hundreds of different lighted nooks, shelves, and backlit glass displays. “I was still a child when I left,” she said softly. “I haven’t had time to redecorate.”

  The Emp gave her a look that said he understood much more than Victory wanted him to. Victory looked away in shame. Eventually, he said, “So even Royal Princesses of the Imperium have to eat, don’t they? Are they going to feed us?”

  Victory realized then that he didn’t speak Imperial. Grimacing, she said, “Apparently, my father decided that, if I wanted to eat, I would have to leave my room to do it. He ordered my maids to stop bringing me food the moment they welded you to my waist.”

  Dragomir frowned and jerked his head around from where he had been eying a gold-thread-and-mohair mermaid tapestry. “Is your father insane?”

  Yes, Victory thought, at the same time she said, “Of course not. He’s just…” She hesitated.

  “…a callous brute,” Dragomir finished for her.

  Victory stared at him, stunned that he could be brazen enough to speak harsh words about her father in his own palace. “Did you just insult the Adjudicator?”

  “From everything I can tell,” Dragomir said, nodding at the chain, “I just stated a fact.”

  Swallowing, she glanced at the door, then said, “When did you realize you were an Emp?”

  Dragomir shrugged. “Didn’t really realize it. Mercy’s not like the Imperium. There were a lot of us before you showed up.” He gave her a quick sideways look. “Being an Emp was like having red hair, instead of black or brown. Like being good at sports, or arithmetic. Instead of reading books, I was good at reading people. I could look inside, see what made them tick, and help fix things that had gone wrong.”

  Victory felt her curiosity rising again. He had information she had wanted her entire life, and it was all so tantalizingly close… “Do you really see…energy?” she whispered.

  “All around me,” he said.

  “And mine?” she insisted again. “You see that, too?”

  “Of course,” he replied, looking a little exhausted. “I’ve been dealing with it all day.”

  Victory’s curiosity was piqued. She eyed him and moved a little closer. Again, she asked, “What do you see?”

  “When?” he asked. “When I’m just looking at you, or when I’m centered and pushing my consciousness outward?”

  “Uh,” Victory said, “Both?”

  Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly and his body relaxed. He glanced up at the air around her head, then his gaze went to her forehead and moved slowly down her body, stopping at her feet. After a moment, his gaze seemed to clear and he blinked. “I’d say you’ve probably got asthma or heart problems due to the chunky energy around your heart-rama, and I can’t tell without getting inside, but not all of it seems to be fresh. Some of it is much older.” He gestured at her torso with his chin. “I’d say you get ulcers a lot from the feelings of helplessness that got balled up in your liver rama. Your periods are probably either very sporadic and unpredictable or incredibly heavy and painful, due to the heavy residual fear that’s stagnated there. Your core rama is completely closed—no real surprise, there—so you probably experience repeated yeast and bladder infections. Your legs might not circulate well in cold weather, and the joints of your ankles are currently hurting you—I’m guessing because you were probably chained by your ankles, and your subconscious mind felt that they betrayed you—the normal gi-flow there is completely disrupted. Oh, and because of that, your feet are probably cold. All the time. You probably get things like plantar’s warts and fungal infections.”

  Everything had been so right-on that it made Victory freeze. She had heart palpitations and trouble breathing at night. When she ate more than a handful of food at a time, she started getting ulcers. Her periods were heavy—very heavy—and painful, leaving her entire abdomen wracked with cramps for days on end. She blushed at his dead accuracy concerning the workings of her internal plumbing, then grimaced and looked down at her ankles.

  As always, they were throbbing. Most of the time, she completely forgot about the ache; she’d been dealing with it so long that she had learned to ignore it. When her attention was returned to it, however, it came back in full force, as if to get back at her for forgetting it was there.

  “The ankles would be easiest for me to help,” Dragomir said, watching her. “But I’d have to have my hands free.”

  Victory blinked. “Why?”

  He gave her a sheepish grin. “A master can manipulate and dissolve old gi with just the power of his mind, but I find I work better with a crutch.”

  “Your hands?” Now that he had mentioned it, her ankles were throbbing like someone had cut them off at the widest point. The doctors had prescribed arthritis medications and pain relievers, but none of it had helped.

  He wiggled his fingers behind him pointedly. “There’s a smaller rama in the palms of the hands, though they’re not so much a gathering center, as a conduit.”

  “I’m not freeing your hands,” Victory said. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  Dragomir stared at her for a long moment, then sighed and clunked the back of his head against the mahogany headboard once more.

  But now that Victory was thinking about them, the sharp throbbing in her ankles were excruciating. She lowered herself to the floor to get the weight off of them. It worked, but only for a moment. She winced, trying to put her mind elsewhere.

  “I could help,” Dragomir said, still staring at the ceiling across the room from his feet.

  Victory glanced at her ankles, then at the huge slave seated naked in her bed. Her joints hurt, but when she looked at the man’s huge hands, she knew he could hurt much, much more. “If I release your hands,” she finally demanded, “what would stop you from wringing my neck?”

  “Well, the four Praetorian Guard standing watch outside your room, for one,” he said. “If I kill you, I’m dead. That simple.” He glanced at her, his blue eyes sincere. “Look, Princess. I told you once already, but I’ll say it again. If I was gonna kill you, I would’ve done it already, in some way that was not traceable back to me. The line of gi running to your heart, maybe. You’re so afraid of men you had a heart attack… Or the lines following the veins in your brain. A little tweak could make one of the blood-vessels weak enough to explode when, say, you take your next dump.”

&n
bsp; No wonder the Imperium wants to get rid of them, Victory thought, in horror.

  “But I’m a healer,” Dragomir said. “I help people. That’s why I’m here, this life. That’s why I didn’t join the rebellion. That’s why your brother’s still breathing, after torturing an innocent man for three days straight.”

  “Matt didn’t torture you,” Victory said, automatically defensive of her twin brother.

  Dragomir gave her a long, piercing look.

  She swallowed. Quickly, she said, “How do I know you’re not just trying to get me to untie your hands?”

  “I am just trying to get you to untie my hands,” he laughed. Dragomir leaned forward and shifted his arms behind him, a pained look on his face. “My goddamn wrists and shoulders hurt like hell. I’m willing to work on your ankles, in exchange.”

  Well, at least he’s honest. Victory glanced down at her ankles. The joints now felt as if someone had poured raw acid into the cartilage, and the piercing heat was working its way into her feet.

  “Basically, what I’m seeing,” Dragomir said, “Is that you cut your own feet off, mentally.” He cocked his head at her. “Did they use ankle shackles?”

  She grimaced and looked away.

  He nodded. “My guess is that you hated your feet for keeping you trapped, so you forgot that they existed. Gi flows according to thought, so it started puddling just above the middle of the ankle bone. What I would do is start re-establishing the old pathways, help pull it down into your feet.”

  “I didn’t ‘hate my feet,’” Victory sneered, but it felt like a lie on her lips. “That’s nothing but delusional Emp garbage.”

  Dragomir shrugged his big shoulders. “If you want to deal with the pain without my help, that’s your prerogative. You have me bound and helpless, after all.” He yawned and, leaning back against the headboard, closed his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Going to sleep.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Victory frowned. “I’m talking to you.”

  “You’re not interested in anything I have to say.” Dragomir said, “So I might as well just keep it to myself.”

  “I am interested,” Victory blurted. So interested it hurt. “If I were to release your hands—and I’m not saying I’m going to—what insurance would I have that you would allow me to shackle them again, once we were done?”

  He sighed, deeply. “My word, I suppose. Though it won’t be necessary, I swear to you.”

  Victory watched him carefully. “You are telling me on your honor that, if I free you, you will willingly allow me to put you back in shackles at any time?”

  “I’m saying it’s hardly necessary, but yes. If it would help you sleep better tonight.”

  Victory grimaced. “I’m not going to sleep tonight, thank you.”

  He raised a heavy eyebrow at her. “Why not?”

  The question was so absurd that she just gaped at him, then laughed. She gestured at her bed. “Because there’s a…a…”

  “Huge naked man practically the size of a house sharing the room with you?”

  Victory lowered her hand, nervously, once more reminded of the fact that she was trapped in the room with a male. She felt the old panic begin to rise, and she took a step back, tightening the chain.

  “Have you thought about the fact,” Dragomir said, “that for most of the last couple hours or so, you’ve been chatting with me like a normal human being, instead of screaming and cringing and trying to run away like a scared little kid?”

  Victory flushed, anger wiping the panic away. “I am the Royal Princess, and you will not speak to me like that.”

  Dragomir snorted. “Right now, I couldn’t care if you were the Royal Turd Receptacle. My arms hurt, I’m hungry, I’m naked, and I’m being told I’m an idiot even though it’s obvious I know what I’m talking about. It’s making me more than a little cranky.”

  Victory stared at him. “You’re an uncouth ass,” she managed finally.

  “Yeah,” Dragomir said, “but until we figure out how to get this chain off my neck, I’m your uncouth ass, so get over yourself and unshackle me, all right? I’ll fix your ankles, you’ll feel better, then we can go to sleep.”

  Victory narrowed her eyes at him. “Or I could have the Praetorian string you up for the night.” She gestured at the eye-bolt in the top of the headboard, which had been made for just that purpose.

  Dragomir tilted his head back to look at it, then sighed. “That, too.”

  But Victory’s curiosity was eating at her. The idea of being able to heal someone with a touch was beyond anything she had ever been taught. The doctrine of the Imperium was one of hard science and time-tested medicine—the romantic mind-over-matter philosophy of the Liberated Assemblage of Planets was one of the reasons why it fell apart. Too much hand-holding idealism, not enough practicality and discipline.

  Yet this Emp was sitting not eight feet from her, telling her the Imperium was wrong, and claiming he was willing to prove it.

  …All she had to do was pull the key from between her breasts and unlock his cuffs.

  “What do you know of my past lives?” she asked, trying a new approach. “Was I ever poor?”

  Dragomir looked at her, then snorted. “Most people ask if they were ever rich.”

  “Was I?”

  He looked at her a long moment, then sighed and closed his eyes. “Only about a few thousand times,” he said, after a moment. “Which life of poverty are you interested in?”

  Victory’s eyes widened. “A few thousand?” she breathed. As a child, she had idly entertained the fanciful thought of ten, maybe a dozen.

  Dragomir lifted his head to squint at her. “You say that as if you are surprised.”

  “I am,” she managed. “I guess that’s why I was born a princess, right? Because I’ve had so many?”

  Dragomir snorted. “Princess, pauper… Your spirit gives you what you need at the time to grow. You, apparently, needed to grow up wealthy and secure, then have your world shattered by a bunch of small-minded assholes.”

  Victory’s mouth fell open at the sheer audacity. “Are you trying to insinuate that I was…” she swallowed, unable to say the word ‘raped’, “…kidnapped because I wanted to be?!”

  He gave her an analyzing look. “Actually, you were probably pretty nervous entering this life, knowing what would befall you. But we’re always growing, ever-changing, and we do what we need to do to keep expanding. Like jumping in a cold creek because you know you need a bath.”

  She gave him a dubious look. “I’ve never jumped in a creek.”

  He stared at her as if she’d grown bat ears. “We’ll have to change that.”

  “I thought you just said it was cold,” she growled.

  “It is.” He grinned. “But it’s fun.”

  Victory lifted her chin. “They are infested with bacteria and protozoa.”

  “Germs and whatnow?”

  “Bugs,” Victory said, not about to try and explain the characteristics of an entire phylum of organisms to an uneducated post-colonial primitive.

  He grinned. “Oh yeah, there’s those, too. Some as big as your toe.” He wriggled his big toe and held it up for her to see.

  “Your feet are dirty,” Victory said, disgusted at his black soles.

  He set his foot down and gave her an irritated look. “Well, normally I wear socks, but somehow I seem to have misplaced them, along with the rest of my clothes.”

  Victoria stared at him, unable to comprehend his sarcasm due to the sheer audacity required to deliver it so perfectly. “Are you mocking me?”

  He gave her an innocent smile. “You have an extra pair of socks?”

  She snorted, despite herself. “It would take half a rhino skin to clad feet like those.”

  He gave her another bewildered look. “A whowhatnow?”

  “It’s a very large single-horned ungulate native to the Old Country. Not many w
ere exported during the Building Times due to their general bad temper and lack of serious domestication potential, so they’re considered an exotic and are protected under the Natural Species Act. We have a pair in the menagerie, if you wish to see them.” Then she caught herself, frowning. “Well, we had a pair, but that was six years ago.”

  He was still staring.

  “I’m saying you’ve got big feet,” she said. “And that there’s no way in the Twelve Pits of Hell that I’m going to let you destroy a pair of my socks.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Guess I’ll just have to destroy your blankets, instead.” He pulled his legs up and started rubbing the soles of his feet on the covers.

  “No!” Victoria shrieked, rushing forward, shoving his knees back down. “Ugh!” she cried, staring at the streaks. “That’s so disgusting! I have to sleep in that!” She grabbed a pillowcase, yanked it off, and started rubbing at the smear.

  He chuckled and thunked his head back against the headboard.

  Only then did Victoria realize she was within a foot of a large, naked man, and that she had left her golden mermaid on the floor behind her. Panic surged within her, cold and icy, and she slowly put down the pillowcase, every inch of her screaming at her to get the weapon back in her hands.

  “Not gonna hurt you,” Dragomir said, almost idly. He wasn’t even looking at her. “Now stop being a royal chickenshit and figure out how to get me something to eat. Or you plan on starving me to death, as well as leaving me naked and sockless?”

  Victoria frowned, indignant. “You act as if you think this was all my idea. I had nothing to do with your capture, and if I had had the choice, I would have left you in the wretched little hovel where you belong!”

  “Good,” he said, “Then we’re on the same page, because personally, I find all the wealth you stole from this planet a little tacky. I mean, hell, even your toilet’s got gems in it. Who needs emeralds in their toilet? That somehow help you concentrate? I mean, come on.”

  Victory found herself so furious she could only sputter. “You—you—” She froze, realizing that he was grinning.