Life has always had a funny sense of humor when it comes to me.
I don't just mean funny, haha. Not to make it a competition but foster kid, group homes, dyslexia, anger issues, in love with her straight best friend… my life had been a series of punchlines delivered without the set-up, one after the other, and at a certain point you stop waiting for the joke to land because you realize you ARE the joke.
But this? This takes the cake.
Not that I could even call it life anymore. I didn't know what to call it. Purgatory. Limbo. A coma. My own personal hellscape, custom-built, tailored specifically to the measurements of my suffering. Maybe being gay was such a sin that the universe decided that regular hell wasn't enough, and I needed a bespoke one, with medieval set dressing and a horse that kept trying to eat my hair.
That's where I was: in the stables. I'd been preparing for a dungeon with rats and maybe a skeleton in the corner for ambiance. But no. Her Royal Highness, Princess Cruit of Tolamn, had looked at the full range of options available for housing her newest prisoner and chosen the stables, which, given that this was a palace with presumably dozens of rooms, felt personal.
I was handcuffed; they were heavy and bolted to a chain that was bolted to a post that was bolted to the wall. The chain was long enough for me to sit, stand, and stretch out on the hay, but not enough to access the door or the water trough, which the horses could easily reach but remained out of my reach.
I couldn't take a bath, which, while not the worst of my problems, is worth mentioning. By this time, I was a symphony of filth, having slept in straw and sweated through clothing worn since the ball. My body was covered in blood from wounds that the guards kept reopening.
They came in shifts to hit me. They punched me when they brought the bucket of water that I was allowed once a day and kicked me when they passed through the stables on their rounds. Nothing that would kill me; the princess had said no harm, after all. But they were creative enough to interpret that as no permanent damage, which left a lot of room for the temporary kind. Bruises that appeared and disappeared. A split lip that healed and reopened. Ribs that never stopped hurting because they didn't have enough time to heal.
Olc was the worst of them. Olc hit me because he enjoyed it. You could see it in his face when he came through the stable doors: the slight widening of his eyes, the way his mouth settled into a smile. I would call him every name I could think of. I would use each and every one of them. Words that would've made Tess wash my mouth out with soap. Things that were so creatively and elaborately profane that I impressed myself, which was hard to do while I was getting actively hit.
He couldn't care less. My insults bounced off him like rain off a roof. He didn't understand half of them. "Asshole" and "dickhead" meant nothing. "Mouth-breathing troglodyte" went so far over his head that it entered orbit. He just hit me again, as if I would tire myself out.
Then there was the other thing: the possession.
That's what I called it because I didn't have a better word. Moments where my body stopped being mine. Where Cassian had taken over completely and I'd been a passenger. The real Cassian. Whoever she was. Whatever she was, she was still in here. Not gone, pushed aside, maybe, shoved into a corner when I showed up. But present. Aware. And trying, in her creepy as fuck way, to take her body back. The things that came out of my mouth during the flickers, the moments when Cassian surged up and seized my tongue before I could stop her, those really pissed Olc off.
So, he had made it his mission not just to hurt me—that was easy. Anyone could do that. The other guards did it during their lunch breaks. No. Olc wanted to break me. He wanted to break the thing inside me that kept talking back, kept cussing him out with words he didn't understand and with words he did. He wanted to break the look in my eyes that refused to go dull, no matter how many times his fist connected. He wanted me to stop. To flinch when he walked in instead of opening my mouth.
Olc came twice a day. Morning and evening, regular as a meal, except that instead of food he brought his fists. He ducked under the low beam of the stable door that evening. He stood there for a moment, letting me see him against the light from the torch in the corridor before moving. This way, I knew he was coming. Anticipation was part of it for him. The knowing.
“Good evening,” he walked slowly across the stables, the weight of his boots on the stone. "I trust the accommodations suit you. The hay is fresh. I had it laid myself."
"Wow. You shouldn't have. Really."
He crouched in front of me. Close enough that I could see the pores on his nose, the scar running through his left eyebrow and the way his pupils didn't quite match, one slightly larger than the other.
"You have a mouth on you," he said, sounding almost fond. "I have broken men twice your size who had half your tongue. Men who wept and begged and soiled themselves before the first hour was through." He tilted his head and studied me. "You do not weep."
"Sorry to disappoint."
"It is no disappointment." He grabbed my jaw, just as you would with a dog's muzzle, to show it who's in charge. He let go, then hit me. His hand struck me hard across the face. My head snapped to one side. The chain jangled, while the horse in the closest stable responded with a loud stomp and a snort. "That one was for this morning," he said pleasantly.
My cheek was on fire. I blinked away the stars in my vision. “You're a bitch. A coward. A roided out hall monitor with a god complex.”
He slowly blinked. "You use words like a child uses stones," he remarked. "I have heard sharper tongues than yours, boy. I have pulled them from sharper mouths." He spat on me. The saliva landed on my cheek and slid down toward my jaw. I wanted to flinch, but I didn't. Every part of my body wanted to recoil and scream. But I'd learned that reacting was a door; you flinch, and they walk through it. You stay still, and they have to find another way in.
"Nothing?" he said. "Good. Perhaps you are learning." He stood up, and I thought he was about to leave. He took one step toward the door, then turned back and kicked me in the ribs. Not hard enough to crack anything, but hard enough to remind me that he could.
I curled around the pain, breathing through my teeth and tasting copper, thinking about all the foster homes I'd ever been in. I understood the lesson that Olc was trying to teach. If you hit someone enough times, they will stop getting up.
Despite what it looks like, I could have taken Olc, but when Cassian came through, when the lightheadedness hit and that other voice crawled out of my throat, that's when I really got my ass kicked. Cassian brought out Olc's worst side.
On the tenth night, in the stable, Olc came in late, smelling of alcohol. His cruelty was sloppy with drink. He grabbed the chain and yanked me forward, saying how well I knelt, how I would make a good dog for the princess, and how he might find me a collar.
I opened my mouth to call him a dickhead.
What came out was: "You speak of collars as though you do not wear one yourself. Tell me, Commander, when the princess tugs your leash, do you heel, or must she drag you?"
The beating that followed was the worst one yet. He didn't say a word the whole time. His fists spoke for themselves. He was finished when he stood over me, breathing hard, and looked down on the heap I had become in the hay. His voice was devoid of pretense.
"I will unmake you," he declared. "I will find the thing in you that refuses to bend, and I will take it from you. That is my promise, boy. That is the only promise I keep."
He left.
I lay in the hay. Every part of me hurt. Inside my own skull, I could feel Cassian retreating, pulling back, folding herself into whatever corner she lived in when she wasn't hijacking my mouth and ruining my life.
"Thanks for that," I whispered to the empty stable. I closed my eyes and fought against sleep, as surrendering meant Cassian could return, and Cassian had just marked my body as a target that Olc would try to hit every day.
I heard the boots approaching before the door opened. His heavy stride, the metal and leather creaking. My body reacted before my brain did, and my ribs screamed in protest. My hands pulled against the chain on instinct, bracing for the impact before the door even opened.
He ducked inside. The beam of the torch swept across the stable's floor, illuminating me where I had been abandoned, curled up on my side in the hay. One arm was tucked against my chest, while the other was extended to the end of the chain. I didn't sit up. I didn't look at him. I didn't have the energy for it. Every movement cost something I didn't have left to spend.
"On your feet, wretch."
I didn't move.
"Her Royal Highness, the Princess Cruit, has requested your presence."
The princess wanted to see me now? After having me chained in a stable and beaten by her personal attack dog for days? The fuck? No way. I wasn't going to drag my broken body across this palace to stand in front of that girl and perform whatever new humiliation ritual she'd cooked up. She could come to the stable if she wanted to look at me so badly.
I remained on the ground.
Olc was standing over me. I could feel the shadow and the heat of his torch. He was silent, weighing the force he would use.
"I said on your feet."
I stared at the wall, watching a spider build a web in the corner of the stall. His boot caught me in the shoulder and rolled me over. Before I could curl up again, his hand was in my hair, yanking my head up, his face close enough that I could count the broken veins in his nose.
"When I speak, cur, you answer. When I command, you move. You do not lie in the filth and ignore me as though I were beneath your notice." He pulled me roughly by my hair. "You are nothing. You are stable filth. You are the lowest, most wretched, baseborn worm I have ever had the displeasure of minding and you will stand when I tell you to stand, understood?” He let go. My head hit the hay.
And then dizziness came.
I didn't resist. I didn't have the energy to fight. My body was depleted, devoid of all remaining strength. I had used every ounce of it to keep my ribs from shattering and my eyelids open. Cassian wanted in? Fine. Take it. Take the wheel. Have fun with the seven-foot psychopath and his boots. I was done. I let go.
The transition happened quickly this time. One moment I was on the ground, staring at the ceiling, and the next I was sitting up, not slowly but fast. My body was coiled like someone who had been waiting.
"You dare put your hands on me." Now I was standing, with the chain taut, blood dribbling in my mouth, and hay in my hair. “You may tell your precious princess that if she wishes to speak with me she can come to this stable herself and look upon what her mercy has made. Let her see the bruises her commander leaves in her name. Let her see what her word is worth."
Olc moved fast. His hand closed around my throat, shoving me back against the post. The chains rattled, and my feet barely touched the ground.
"You will not speak of the princess," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "You will not soil her name with your baseborn mouth. You are vermin. You are less than the shit on my boot and I will —"
I spat in his face. The spit ran down his cheek. His grasp tightened around my neck. His other hand pulled back.
"The princess," I managed to say, "wants me alive. Can you say the same for yourself if you kill me?" He held me there. One second. Two. Three. Then he let me go. I fell heavily onto the hay, gasping, my hands at my throat, the chain tangled around my arms.
"Get him up," Olc said, motioning to someone behind him. Two guards stepped forward. "Her Royal Highness will see the prisoner. Drag him there if you must."
They reached out for me.
I bit the first one on the hand. Full teeth, clamped down, the guard screaming and wrenching back, his knuckles spewing blood. The second one grabbed my arm, and I twisted free and drove my elbow into his jaw. A third guard came through the door. Then a fourth. It took all of them. One on each arm, one on my legs, and one behind, with his arm locked around my chest. Still, I thrashed and cursed and snarled, words pouring from my mouth in a continuous stream of fury.
"Unhand me, filthy, craven, gutless, I will not be dragged before that spoiled— let GO of me — I kneel to no crown—"
They dragged me through the stables and into the corridor. Torchlight. Stone walls. The sounds of the palace: distant voices, the normal life of a place that did not know what was happening in its belly. Every step was a battle, with my feet dragging against the stone. The guards strained to keep me in check while Olc trailed behind, his hand on his sword.
"— you serve a coward, all of you, lapdogs to a girl who plays queen while her kingdom rots."
A massive door loomed before us, adorned with intricate carvings and flanked by two more guards, their eyes wide as the spectacle approached. Olc took a step forward and pushed the door open.
The guards pushed me through and I stumbled, chains dragging, and fell to my knees on the floor. At the far end, by the window and in a chair, sat the princess with a book in her lap.
I raised my head from the floor, my chest heaving. The princess looked down on me, while Olc's hand pressed firmly on the back of my neck, forcing my head back down to the floor. "You do not speak in the presence of Her Royal Highness unless spoken to. You do not raise your eyes.” His fingers dug into the base of my skull. "Lower. Your. Gaze."
My eyes dropped to the wooden floor. I could see my reflection, faint and distorted, with red hair and bruises.
The princess did not stand up immediately. I heard the turning of a page. Then another. As though the kneeling, bleeding prisoner on her floor was something she would get to when she was ready and not a moment sooner.
"Four guards," the princess said at last, her voice as calm as the night of the ball. "It required four guards to bring one boy from the stable to my chambers."
"He is unruly, Your Highness," Olc said. "Wild. He bit one of my men to the bone."
"I also hear he has not been washed. Nor groomed. Nor fed anything beyond water and scraps." The book closed. "I had expected him to be... presentable, Commander. What stands before me is closer to a stray dog than a servant of the crown."
"With respect, Your Highness, the taming of this particular beast has proven difficult. He does not respond well to correction." Olc's hand remained on the back of my neck. "But I will see to it. He will learn his place, or I will carve it into him. In the meantime, I will remain close. For your protection."
The princess rose, and I heard the rustle of her gown and the soft step of her shoes on wood. The shoes entered my lowered field of vision. The toe is adorned with intricate embroidery, featuring tiny beads, each no larger than a single grain of rice.
A sneer escaped my lips before I could stop it.
"Something amuses you?" the princess inquired.
"Those shoes." My gaze was fixed on the ground. "The beadwork alone would feed my village for a season."
Olc's grip on my neck tightened. "Shut your mouth. You do not speak to the princess. You should not even breathe in her direction." He twisted my head down, almost pressing my face into the wood. “Remember your place. You are less than the dirt on the sole of the shoe you dare speak of. One more word and I will —"
"Olc." The princess's voice. "Let him speak."
Olc's grasp relaxed, yet I sensed a reluctance in his fingers as they slowly uncurled.
"Speak, then," the princess commanded. "You were saying something about my shoes."
"Forgive me, Your Highness. I spoke out of turn." A beat. "It is an honor to be in your presence. A boy such as myself can only be grateful for the privilege."
The princess was quiet for a moment. Then she said: "An honor. You find it an honor to kneel before me?”
"I do."
"And why should it honor you? You do not know me. You know nothing of me beyond rumor and the inside of my stable." The shoes moved closer. "Why should my presence be an honor to a boy who, not five minutes past, was cursing my name loud enough to shake the corridor?"
"I am only a humble servant, Your Highness. To serve the crown in any capacity is a blessing I do not deserve."
"Then why did it take four guards to bring you here?"
My lips slowly parted into a grin.
"Perhaps your guards had nothing better to do, princess."
Olc's boot landed on my side just before the last syllable. I folded, gasping, the chain rattling against the wood floor. He was already reaching for his belt, where the coiled whip was, leather and iron, the thing he carried but had not yet used. He stepped over me as he closed his hand around the handle.
"You dare," he retorted, his tone trembling. "You wretched, insolent, baseborn filth, you dare insult Her Royal Highness to her face —"
"I suspect he was disparaging your guards, Commander. A man of your rank should be able to tell the difference."
Olc stopped. His hand was on the whip, his foot beside my head. He stepped back, slowly.
The princess walked over to the window. She stood there for a moment, looking out at something that I couldn't see from the floor. The grounds, the gardens, or the world beyond the glass.
"Prepare the horses," the princess said. "I wish to ride. A hunt, I think. The weather is fine and I have been indoors too long."
Olc stiffened. "At once, Your Highness. Shall I ready the hounds?"
The princess abruptly turned away from the window. Her gaze fell upon me, lying there on the floor, entangled in chains, blood oozing, my breath labored, and hay clinging to my hair.
"No," the princess said. She eyed me thoughtfully. "Clean him, chain him, put him on a lead if you must." The faintest tilt of her head: "He will be my hound."