And her name is…

I fall asleep quickly but I’m up just as fast.My unwounded body aches with memories and I push open the wardrobe door. I’m fully aware that I’m too tired for it to be morning but I can’t go back to sleep yet. A quick glance out the windows in my room shows not a whisper of light in the sky. I pace around for a minute, debatingabout going back to sleep when my stomach yells at me and I decide to go to the kitchen instead.

The house is empty and quiet, almost to the point of it being eerie but I let my magic creep out around me to deter anyone from coming closer. Any of them would be able to sense me now, and I realize that announcing myself and some of my strength is stupid, but I can’t find it in myself to care. I’ve been laying low here, but the power is at my finger tips to change that. Maybe someone getting up and catching me is the push I need to cast aside my inhibitions.

At the bottom of the stairs I make the turn towards the kitchen but I can feel an itch at the back of my neck. I ignore it in favour of food, hoping that it won’t follow me as I search the cupboards. Despite this hope I feel the presence migrate into the room behind me and I don’t turn to greet him.

“General,” I acknowledge, keeping my eyes in the cupboard.

He huffs an exhausted or frustrated sound. “Why do you keep calling me that? You never used titles before.”

I shrug as I turn. “Just reminding you where you come from.”

He knocks the meat of his fist against the counter and I force myself not to jump. “What are you doing here Theo?”

I tilt my head in question. “You told them to find me. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“That’s not what I..” he grunts to end his response and knocks on the counter several times while he takes a deep breath. “So you and Helion?”

“What does that matter to you?”

“It matters,” he returns flatly.

“Why?” I chuckle. “Why does anything I do with my life matter to you?”

He looks at me like an apparition he’s willing to be solid; like I’m in the distance. “I see how he looks at you,” he pursues.

I just roll my eyes. “And?”

“I see how you look at him.”

I don’t return my gaze to him when I repeat. “And?”

I feel him walking closer to me as he says, “I bet he treats you like a princess, doting on you with gifts and compliments with the hope of spoiling you rotten,” he bites out, “and because he’s wealthy and you were in a prison he thinks it’ll be easy to make you happy.”

I swallow hard, feeling it like a lump going down my throat, before returning harshly. “And?!”

“And I think you’re miserable,” he says more softly, but it feels like a punch to my gut and I take a step back. “I think you’re playing his game to get where you want to be. I should have ignored what I thought I knew and listen to what I felt. I was a coward and should have just touched you sooner.”

No.

He is not saying what it sounds like and I won’t hear it. I force my eyes to close and look away immediately.

“You don’t know a fucking thing about me!” I yell back, taking a step towards him but it back fires when he wraps his hand around the back of my head into my hair.

He doesn’t grip my hair, just holds me there, and his voice is almost a whisper. “I don’t? Than tell me little mouse, how do I know he’s not fucking you like you want?”

My eyes open wide and I just stare at him. “What?”

“I saw how he kissed you.”

“That’s a bit presumptuous of you,” I return, but I’m not convincing as I look away.

He takes my chin with his other hand and turns my face back toward his. “I bet he takes you like a glass doll, like he’s afraid to break you. He treats you like a princess day in and day out, when you are a bloody force be reckoned with by day but want to give up all your control at night.”

“You don’t know anything,” I mutter, trying to turn my chin from his grip but he holds me firmly.

“He doesn’t see you as the fierce survivor that I do. You’re not someone’sprincess,you should be treated like fucking royalty, not the wife of some…him.You should be treated like a fucking Queen.” He finishes more softly, releasing my chin but still holding the back of my head.

How dare he.

“Were you picturing me as a Queen when Kheliq latched a belt around my neck and kicked me until I broke? How about when you poisoned me and I emptied my guts for two days, pissing and puking blood?” He looks away and I take the chance to step nearly on his toes, as I raise onto mine to look into his eyes. “Hmm??”

He flinches and I give him an angry sort of smile as he replies quietly, “no… no I wasn’t.”

“That’s what I thought. Don’t pretend you know me because you saw who I was when I was trapped and tortured. That was my crystalline phase, and now I’m free-“ the smile on my face feels genuine and he looks back intently -“I’m not who either of my biological parents wanted me to be, but I am what they made me.”

I side step around him to a different set of cupboards and take a jar of peaches off the shelf. When I turn back to Wulfric I can’t believe he actually is as calm as he looks.

Just incase he is I let go of the hold around my aura and let him sense my strength. My smile only grows when he stumbles back. He doesn’t need to know how much I fed to project this strongly, and if I keep up feeding regularly he won’t find out

“I could be a Queen,” I start pointedly, “but a Queen shouldn’t be willing to do the things I’m willing to do to get what I want.“

The stronger I feel the more I wish I could go back five years and kill everyone in the city just to end Kheliq right there. Everyone who ever had a chance to kill him and didn’t is responsible for every terrible thing he did after that. I will do many terrible things to account for the five years after my mistake. Luckily I’ll be ending everyone who should have just killed me in that prison, so they won’t have to have their regrets for long.

“Theo…”

“Don’t call me that!” I snap at him. “That girl is dead. Letting those guard live on my way out was the last bit of mercy I had left. So take my warning back to Kheliq or stay out of my way.”

I’ve already started storming out when I hear him behind me return, “don’t prove to him that he could break you. I know Theo is still in there.”

I flip him the middle finger and go off to my room with my jar. All I want to do is prove him wrong and fuck something up, but I know this anger will pass and in the morning I’d have to explain why the centre staircase looks like it’s a thousand years older. Still my resolve slips for a minute and I kill a vine that had been crawling up the banister on my way.

Once inside my room my evening starts to replay and I remember how Helion was here. Wulfric has been an ice cold reminder of what I’ve been through and now Helion feels like a frivolous mistake. He only knows the most surface details about me and still tries to cover my battle scars like they are a weakness. None of the scars I have were a mistake, each intentionally made with a painful memory that’s not so easily hidden away. I know I can’t tell everyone that Helion had me meet who I really am, but this story that he’s created makes me feel like I’m nothing. I’m not a quiet, spoiled girl from a noble family who fell for a king who can spoil me… Pretending I am makes me feel like every moment I needed to be acting because no one can know anythingrealabout me. A lot of the men and women believed I was prudish for the high necks and sleeves I needed to hide all of my scars. If half the time I can pretend everything is fine, my life is easy, and I am in love, what is stopping me from accepting the lie as truth?

I already know that Helion would marry me for real. If he had lied when introducing me to Triennia she would have caught on right away. So I know that he would continue the lie to have me for real, and he still wants Kheliq dead, so Ignacio can take over… My life could be a dream.Nightmare.

I can’t bring myself to eat the peaches and leave them on the table. Then I move to my bed and pick up the stuffed animal to bring to the wardrobe. Before I enter it I scan the room and sigh. I wish the big space didn’t make me feel so uneasy, but the thought of sleeping so in the open causes a pain between my shoulder blades like I’m expecting to be stabbed in the back.

I return to the wardrobe shamefully. I just stood up to Wulfric, all but admitted to be willing to kill him and anyone who stands in my way, but I’m too trapped in the memory of that cell to enjoy a real bed.