Chapter 4
Alice
In that moment, Augus's voice fell over me like a beam of light from above — and it saved me.
I felt the servants release their grip, their hands lifting away one by one.
That was the power of His Grace, the Duke.
A single word from him could decide whether I lived or died.
I felt no triumph at his intervention. That would be far too generous a way to put it. The truth was simpler: I didn't dare.
All I wanted was to peel myself off the floor and get to my room as fast as my body would carry me. I wanted to lie down. Every inch of me was in agony.
But the moment I managed to push myself halfway up, Augus spoke again.
This time, his voice dropped — low and quiet, but the corridor was empty enough that every word carried.
"Too loud. Take it somewhere else."
Something like opium dust seemed to settle over me when I heard his voice. For one brief instant, the pain across my body went completely still. Then that instant passed, and everything came rushing back a hundredfold.
Augus was always like this. One sentence, one small gesture — and he could send me plummeting from heaven straight into hell. I should have been used to it by now. And yet, every time, I couldn't stop myself from hoping.
"Of course, Your Grace."
Linda's voice was bright and cheerful.
I didn't have the strength to turn and look at her face. But I already knew — she was smiling. The same smile she'd worn while grinding me into the floor moments ago.
I had tried, once, to copy that smile of hers in the mirror. I couldn't manage it. The distance between us was not something that could be closed. It had been fixed from the very beginning. The blood running through my veins was lesser blood — that was simply the truth of it.
"Take her away," Linda ordered.
Two servants hauled me to Linda's room.
It was beautiful in there — dozens of times larger than mine. Even the carpet beneath my feet carried a fragrance, woven from the dyes of dozens of different flowers blended together. I had made one like it once. Three full days and nights without sleep, all for a single rug.
"You filthy wretch — did you actually think you could carry the Duke's child? What a ridiculous fantasy."
Linda stood over me, chin lifted, eyes full of contempt. She raised one hand in a lazy gesture. I could only stare at the movement of those crimson lips, opening and closing. She reminded me of a snake again — she always did, lately. The kind of thing that made your skin go cold just from looking at it.
"Continue."
Fists came down again. I curled myself into a ball — the most practical shape. It kept the worst of the blows away from anything vital.
I won't pretend I never fought back. The very first time Linda hit me, I asked her what I had done wrong. Was it simply because I was a slave?
I still remember the look on her face.
She gave a small, dismissive smile and said, "Your existence is the mistake."
After that, I understood. Resistance was pointless.
I lost track of how long it went on. Eventually the pain in my body stopped feeling like pain and became something closer to numbness.
"All right, that's enough."
Linda's voice drifted to me, weightless and unhurried.
"Don't actually kill her. That would be inconvenient."
Her elegant shoes appeared before my eyes. She pressed one foot down hard onto my fingers.
"Don't go dreaming about things that were never meant for you," she said, her voice thick with disgust.
I wanted to answer. I had no voice left.
"Now crawl back to your sty." She turned and walked back to her bed.
I shook my way upright and used every last scrap of strength I had to leave.
Back in my room, before I let myself lie down, I reached under the bed and pulled out a small bottle of herbal medicine. An old servant had given it to me some time ago. It was good for wounds — but the application was excruciating.
I spread it over my body and lowered myself onto my rough, bare mattress. It felt as though a hundred tiny blades were drawing fresh lines across every cut, every bruise. No blood. But far worse than bleeding.
I tried to sit up. My body refused entirely.
God.
I was certain of it then. This — this right here — was the worst torture the world had to offer.
It even occurred to me that perhaps Lauren had kept her secrets so well simply because she had never endured anything like this.
That thought brought Lauren's words back to me.
I had already accepted the facts. But accepting them only made my own feelings clearer.
I can't do it.
I could never assassinate Augus. Even if I tried, I would never succeed. I was willing to go on being a slave — looked down on, beaten day after day. At least I would survive. And as long as I was alive, there was still a chance.
That thought settled over me, and without quite meaning to, I lifted one hand and rested it gently on top of my own head.
Alice. One day you'll be free.
I told myself that.
I don't know how long I lay there. The heaviness in my limbs built and built, until my eyes finally closed.
When they opened again, I was in the air.
Wind roared past my ears.
A dense forest blurred beneath me. The great castle shrank into the distance below — I could even see its highest tower.
Wait.
The realization struck me all at once.
I'm flying.
But how? And what was I on?
I looked down.
One look, and I froze entirely.
A dragon.
I had never seen anything like it. Enormous — unimaginably so — with scales as black and polished as lacquer. Its wings beat slowly, sending great gusts surging through the air. The motion was almost gentle, almost like a butterfly's — except that no butterfly was ever so breathtaking, or so powerful.
Beautiful. So beautiful.
I wanted to keep looking, wanted to take in every detail — and then I saw the eyes.
Two vast eyes, burning red.
I wasn't afraid. If anything, I leaned closer.
The pupils were a deep, deep crimson, threaded through with fine markings — intricate, perfect. The most magnificent gemstone in the world could not have compared.
I leaned in to see them more clearly.
Then a voice reached me.
"Careful."
I went completely still.
That voice — it was Augus's voice.
But I was on the back of a dragon, somewhere high in the sky. How could I be hearing Augus?
My body trembled before I could stop it. I looked further down — and my eyes went wide.
The forest and the rooftops were gone. Below me now was a churning sea of fire, roaring and rolling, the flames licking upward to scorch my skin. I could see claws — dozens of them — reaching up from the blaze, grasping, trying to drag me down.
I gripped the dragon's scales as tightly as I could.
I can't fall. I haven't escaped the castle yet. I'm not free yet.
But the dragon was sinking lower. The fire burned hotter.
So hot. I'm burning up. I'm going to melt.
I wanted to cry out, to beg for someone to help me — but I couldn't make a single sound.
Then the dragon lurched beneath me.
No —
Bad dragon —
I wasn't ready. I wasn't holding on.
My body pitched forward and fell, straight down toward the fire —
I snapped awake.
Splintered door. Drafty window. Spiderweb in the corner of the wall.
My room.
The breath came out of me slowly, all the way down to the bottom of my lungs.
Just a dream.
The sheets beneath me were soaked through with sweat. What a dream to have — riding a dragon through the sky. Utterly absurd.
I was still trying to make sense of it when someone knocked at the door.
"The Duke has sent me to bring you to his chambers for the night."
Ike's voice.
