by Sara King
Finally, Dragomir settled himself on the floor, still wet and covered with goosebumps, watching her au for some sign of change.
It came four hours later, when her mind-rama slowly began to open again, and the energy mass that was her consciousness began to slide back into place at the seat of the brain. She heard her sharp inhalation, saw her eyes twitch to the blankets.
For a long time, he said nothing, dreading the next words he knew were coming out of her mouth.
“I’m having the Praetorian replace your cuffs.” Her voice was cold, calculated, utterly emotionless.
Dragomir hung his head. He said nothing.
Without sitting up or moving in any way, Victory said, “If you touch me like that again, I will tell the Inquisitors about you and take a front seat at your execution.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She didn’t respond. She sat up and raised her voice in Imperial.
A moment later, two Praetorian marched inside. Dragomir didn’t struggle as they grabbed his wrists and wrenched them behind his back. He felt the cold bite of steel snap shut around them and he closed his eyes against tears. “I’m sorry, Princess,” he said.
She ignored him completely.
Victory let her chambermaids dress her, no longer caring about the slave on the floor. He hadn’t moved in hours, nor did she care. For all intents and purposes, he no longer existed for her—he was a piece of furniture, that was all.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, once Carrie and Jolene had curtsied and taken their leave.
Victory peered at her reflection in the mirror, tracing the dark rings that were the only remaining outwardly physical sign of her years of captivity. Her body had regained its lost weight, her skin had lost the sickly boils, her hair had started growing again. It was just the rings, dark and brown, that was a daily physical reminder her of six years of starvation, torture, and rape.
“I’m sorry, Victory,” he said, for the thousandth time.
Picking at a stray hair to rearrange it behind her ear, Victory said, “You may refer to me as mistress or Your Royal Highness. I hear that word uttered from your lips again and I will have my Praetorian come in here and gag you.”
Setting the mirror down, she turned to the nightstand. On it, she found a porcelain figurine of a beautiful mermaid, swirling amongst a school of fish. The workmanship and detail were exquisite, the piece an acquisition from an Imperial museum. She picked it up, thoughtfully. Then, twisting so that it was hovering over the bare marble floor, dropped it.
The white porcelain shattered over the black stone with a thousand tinkling shards, and the slave winced where he sat on a rug. “That was pretty,” he said.
“It was useless,” she said, picking up another one. This time, it was of a mermaid playing a harp. She turned and dropped it with the other.
The slave watched the second statuette shatter and turned away. She felt a warmth begin tracing around her, trying to cradle her.
Victory seized a third statuette and, whirling, flung it at him as hard as she could manage.
It missed, streaking past his head to shatter on the wall behind him. The slave jerked, his eyes flashing open, startled.
“Don’t,” she said, trembling in her fury. “Don’t ever do that again.”
He bowed his head to look at the floor between his knees. For a long time, he said nothing, and Victory went back to relieving her room of unwanted pieces of her past.
Behind her, he softly said, “You were a mermaid, many lifetimes ago. You enjoyed that life very much.”
Victory stopped, a statue in one fist. She turned to him, slowly. “What did you say?”
He must have seen the rage, there, because he lowered his head and whispered, “They were a genetic mutation created to help colonize a water planet.”
“Let me guess,” Victoria sneered. “You were in that one, too?”
His lack of response was all she needed. “Stop lying to me!” she snarled, hurling the figurine at him. It caught him full in the chest and he grunted. The tiny statue fell into the rug between his knees, where its delicate tail snapped off and tinkled across the floor. She turned back to her dresser and, with her arm, slid her entire collection off of the surface, flinging it across the room in a scream of rage.
There came a gentle knock on the door. “Are you all right, Princess?”
“Stay out!” she screamed. She went to another shelf, threw the mermaids across the floor, and went to another. She went to every shelf, every open surface, and swept the clutter of useless artifacts of her past onto the black marble floor. Then she plucked up a wooden mermaid statue that hadn’t shattered on impact and threw it across the room. It bounced harmlessly off of the wall, skittering under the bed. In a fury, she snatched it out from under the bed and started toward the fire with it.
Just before she threw it in, she hesitated. It was an ironwood carving of a mermaid reading a book, something that her mother had given her in the last months before she had packed up to fly to the Academy.
Victoria felt her hand spasm around it. Mother, she thought, remembering her loving arms, her warm embrace. Her mother had died within the first year of Victoria’s captivity. Heartbreak, her maids had said. Sorrow that ate at the heart. The doctors hadn’t been able to establish a cause. She had simply…died.
Victoria glanced at the destruction behind her, then again at the statue.
Slowly, her legs gave out beneath her. She sank to the floor, clutching the statue to her chest. She closed her eyes and leaned over it, a low moan of despair sliding from her lips. She felt tears of loss, then, the first tears of loss since she had realized she was in her own bed, her body an emaciated jumble of bones and protruding ribs.
Mother, she thought again. She had asked for her repeatedly in those first few days. She had called out her name in her sleep, babbled it in her bouts of terror. They hadn’t told her she was dead until she’d been home almost a month. By then, that last avenue of hope had closed, and, without her mother’s shoulder to whimper her fears into, she had simply retreated further into herself.
Victoria cried, then. All the tears that she had waited to shed in her mother’s arms, they came pouring out of her in a wave of grief and loss. I miss you, she thought, I miss you so much.
She felt the soft golden warmth blanketing her again, but she ignored it, too carried away by her anguish to care.
When she could finally find the will to wipe the tears off of her face, she called for her chambermaids and watched in a numb silence as they swept up the scattered remnants of her childhood collection. Many of them had been priceless relics from before the Fall, and she felt a pang of loathing at herself for destroying such treasures in a tantrum.
She knew what her mother would say. She would shoo the maids out of the room and make Victory clean it up herself. Then she would order her gifts from family and suitors diverted, donated to some charity while Victory suffered through an empty room for a year or two.
Victory pushed the grief back down and stood up, a new strength flooding her. She wasn’t a child anymore. The last six years had taken that from her as brutally as the blue-eyed weasel had taken her virginity. She was done hiding. She was going to find her father and tell him he could take this slave off of her or she could cut off his head and remove the collar herself.
She was also going to find Matt.
Pacing to the doorway, she gave the slave just enough time to get to his feet before yanking the door open and striding through it, forcing him to struggle against his hobbles to keep up.
She found her father first. She pushed through the outer hall, ignored the two male house Praetorian standing at attention outside his chamber, and threw the doors open, despite the babbling protests from his butler.
“Father!” she snarled, storming up to him, where he was working over his desk, a goblet of wine at his right hand. “You will take this man from my waist. Now.” She grabbed the chain and tugged hard, making the
man on the other end grunt and stumble.
Her father took his time in finishing the marks he was making on his ledgers before carefully setting his pen aside, taking off his reading glasses, and looking up at her. “So,” he said. “The rabbit has finally come out of her hole.”
Victory narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare call me a rabbit, you insensitive pig.”
Her father raised both blonde brows. “And quite feisty, it seems.” He leaned back in his chair, reaching for his wine. “Tell me, dear. Are you quite done with your tantrum?” He took a sip, eying her over the lip of his glass.
“That was not a tantrum, father,” Victory said, so full of rage that all she could get to come out was a whisper.
Her father cocked his head, a smile playing upon his lips. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
Victory swallowed her fury and tried again. “You are going to remove this slave from my belt.”
“My dear,” her father said, swishing his wine, “You’re trembling.”
“That’s because,” Victory managed, “I’m trying very hard not to slap that smile off your face, you pathetic old man.”
Her father’s gray eyes darkened to the color of storm clouds. Slowly, he put his goblet down and leaned back in his chair, idly tapping his fingers upon the tabletop. “Though I must admit that this latest change in your demeanor better behooves a Princess of the Imperium than a whimpering coward,” he finally said, “It would be in your best interest to watch your tongue, girl.”
“I am a woman, not a girl,” Victory snapped. “I haven’t been a girl since a group of rebels took me off my ship and raped me until I had their seed puddled between my legs.”
He gave her a distasteful grimace. “That disgrace would never have happened to Matthias.”
Victory could only stare at her father in utter flabbergastation. “Are you trying to imply I could have stopped them?” Her voice was a tight whisper of rage.
Her father snorted. “He would have fought to the death before he surrendered to rebels.”
For long moments, Victory found she could not speak. She was so utterly furious that she couldn’t even think of a way to form a response.
Casually, her father continued, “Women are not meant to rule. They don’t have the heart for it. If the Imperium didn’t have such strict rules regarding succession, I would have put your brother in your place twenty years ago.
“I am the next Adjudicator,” Victory snarled. “Whether you like my brother better or not, it is going to be me, and you are going to die knowing I’m taking your place.”
She thought she detected a hint of amusement in his face. “My,” he said. “You are feeling better, aren’t you?”
“I’m fixed,” Victory snarled, slamming the chain onto the table between them. “Take it off.”
Her father met her eyes and watched her closely. “No, I don’t think you are.” He leaned forward, smiling, and tapped her upon the side of the skull. “That frightened little child is still in there somewhere, hiding, waiting for a chance to get out. Until you’ve burned her silly antics from your memory, you’re still going to lapse into tantrums.” He leaned back, waving a dismissive hand. “Give it a month or two. Then come back to me.”
“It was not a tantrum!” she screamed.
He tisked. “That’s not what your staff tells me, when I caught them disposing of your collection,” he said, and tilted back his goblet to drain his cup.
Victory slapped it out of his hand, hurling wine and goblet across the room.
Her father tensed, looking down at the crimson spatter upon his embroidered silk shirt. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then, very softly, he said, “You walk a very delicate line, Victoria.” His voice was cold, emotionless. In her childhood, that voice had terrified her. Now, it only made her laugh.
“What are you going to do to me?” Victory laughed. “Throw me in a cell? Starve me? Disgrace me in front of the masses?” She flicked a bit of wine spatter from her arm. “Sorry, father. You’re too late for that. It’s been done.” She gave him a cruel smile. “I will see you at dinner, you disgusting waste of human flesh. I’m sure I can find some interesting stories to tell your guests.”
Then she turned and stormed from the room, dragging the slave with her.
She found her brother reclining on a couch in the sunroom, enjoying the afternoon rays as he looked thoughtfully out over the valley below, a pitcher of mead on the table beside him.
“You!” Victory shouted, stepping past his Praetorian. “How the hell could you let him do this to me?!” She jerked the chain at him, making the slave stumble behind her. “Were you a part of this madness? Whose idea was it? His or yours? Did you actually think it would work?!”
Matthias scrambled to his feet, his green eyes wide and shocked. “Victory, you’re—”
She bowled over him. “I know you had something to do with it. I know you picked him. I know what he is.”
Her brother’s eyes widened and he glanced at the slave. “He told you?”
Victory narrowed her eyes. “I want him gone, Matt. Send him home goddamn it.”
Matthias gave her a nervous look. “I could find someone else. A non—” He glanced at the exit and lowered his voice. “A normal man.”
“That,” Victory snarled, “Is not the problem.” She yanked the slave closer, forcing his big bulk to bend down beside her. “The problem,” she snarled, “Is that there is something slow and heavy connected to my waist, and it is limiting my freedom of movement.”
Matt looked uncomfortable. “I just got a courier from Father. He said you are to remain in the belt for three months.” He glanced at the Emp. “I could switch him out, though, if he has displeased you.”
Victory screamed and kicked an ancient ceramic pot off of the end-table, spilling plant, soil, and decorative statuary onto the floor, breaking open the root-ball contained within. Panting, she picked up the plant by its long wooden stem and, wielding it like a bat, started slamming it into the wall, throwing dirt and leaves everywhere.
Matt caught her wrists gently. “Victory,” he whispered, when she dropped the plant and started kicking at it. “Dear,” he said, tugging her away from the plant. “Should I call for a doctor?”
“I don’t need a doctor!” she screamed, shoving him. “I need this slave off of my waist!” She grabbed the tether and held it out to him, fury burning like fire within. “I know you can do it, Matt. Take it off. Now.”
Matt gave the chain a nervous look. “You know the way Father thinks. If you find a way to take it off, he’s only going to make it worse.”
In a scream of frustration, Victory picked up the pitcher of mead and hurled it at the window. Instead of cracking the bullet-proof glass, however, it simply shattered against the barrier, mead and stoneware dripping down to the window-seats below. Furious, Victory slammed herself backward into the seat that her brother had just occupied and kicked the coffee table out of her way.
Matt watched it go crashing across the room, his nervous look growing. “Did the slave do this?” he asked.
“The slave did nothing,” Victory snarled.
Matthias’s face seemed to fall. “Oh. But I heard—”
“Your reports were wrong.” She stared at the opposite wall, feeling bad about the plant, not wanting to destroy anything else, yet boiling with anger inside. Years and years of fury, all twisting within her like a cyclone. She was finding it hard to breathe through her hatred.
“Perhaps,” Matthias said, gingerly taking a seat beside her, “He truly did help, after all? You are out and facing the world…”
Victory gave him a cold look. “That was my doing. Not his.”
“Oh.” Her brother looked confused. Then he seemed to search for words before saying, “Is there anything I can do for you, then? Aside from relieving you of your burden? Not even I am willing to brave Father’s wrath for that. The courier said he was having trouble dictating, he was so angry.”
“Good,” Victory said, feeling a small flash of triumph at making her infamously cold and analytical father angry, despite the desperation rising from his edict.
“It’s not wise to make him angry,” Matthias said. “He has a long memory.”
“I couldn’t care less about making him angry,” Victory snapped.
“I can see that,” Matt said. He looked concerned. “Do you want me to call a doctor?” he asked again.
Victory turned to him and met his eyes. “I don’t. Need. A doctor.”
Her brother blinked and looked away. “Sorry. You’re just…” He swallowed. “Not what I expected. Last I heard, you collapsed into a ball when father walked into the room and had his Praetorian pound your slave senseless. Now you’re…” He obviously struggled for the right word. “…different.”
“I realized I was being childish,” Victory said.
Her brother frowned. “Is that what Father said? You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Victory frowned at him, reminded of what else she found hard to believe. “Matt, what is Father charging the natives of this planet by way of taxes?”
“Twenty percent,” her brother replied. He gave a small frown.
Victory glanced at the Emp, then at her brother. “How long would it take to get a copy of the reports?”
Matt shrugged. “An hour. Two. Mother would have known. She was constantly hounding the Constable after you disappeared.”
After I disappeared… Victory frowned. “Why was that?”
Matt grunted. “She told me something once about discrepancies in the staff wages.”
The staff wages. Victory once again remembered the ice-blue eyes of the young man from the hall, his scarred bottom lip. His sneer as he looked her up and down.
“What are Mercy’s biggest exports?” Victory asked.
He frowned at her, curious, now. “Is this a test, sister?” he asked, giving a chuckle.
“Tell me,” Victory growled.
“Slaves and stone,” he said, his frown deepening. “Everyone knows that.”
“How many slaves a year?” she asked.
He gave her a curious look. “I’m not sure. Somewhere in the millions.”
