Chapter 5

Alice

I had nearly forgotten — every night, I was expected to share the Duke's bed.

Ike had apparently grown impatient. He knocked again. "Are you up?"

I couldn't answer him. My throat felt as though it had been sealed shut. Even the smallest sound sent a sharp sting through it.

I tried to sit up. The moment I pushed my elbow beneath me, sweat rolled down my forehead and dripped off my chin.

Something was wrong.

How had I ended up like this?

I pressed my hand to my forehead.

Burning. Like touching the side of a furnace.

No wonder I had dreamed of falling into a sea of fire.

I was sick.

The door opened and Ike stepped inside. He looked at me with undisguised skepticism.

"I feel very unwell," I said, my voice barely a whisper — not by choice, but because I was physically incapable of speaking any louder. Every syllable scraped against my throat like broken glass. "Could you tell the Duke I need to rest tonight?"

This was the first time I had ever been truly ill. And now I finally understood what the old servant had told me once: when the body breaks down, dignity is the first thing to go.

"You already know what happens when you ignore Duke Augus's summons," Ike said. His expression was perfectly composed. But it was a refusal.

My body gave an involuntary shudder.

Yes. I knew.

This was the Duke. The few times I had tried to resist him, the punishment that followed had been far worse than whatever I'd been trying to avoid.

I drew a slow breath and forced myself out of bed. Then I followed Ike out of the room.

He brought me to Augus's chambers. The door closed behind me.

Augus stood at the window, his back to me, dressed in a deep black sleeping robe trimmed with threads of gold. From where I stood, I could only see the sharp line of his nose in profile and the clean angle of his jaw.

My heart started hammering.

God. Please let this be over quickly.

I could barely stay on my feet. I sank onto the edge of the bed and waited.

When Augus finally turned and looked at me, he crossed the room without hesitation. He stopped directly in front of me, looking down from above.

There was a quality to Augus that I had never found in anyone else. I had been around many people in my life — including the nobles who occasionally came to the castle to call on him. Not one of them had it. When Augus looked at you, something inside you simply yielded. You wanted to kneel before you even thought about it.

Especially when those gold eyes were fixed on you.

It was as if I had been caught under a spell. I couldn't move, couldn't look away. His eyes were extraordinary — rare and unsettling in their beauty — but I was never able to admire them. All I could feel was the weight behind them.

Perhaps it was the fever, but my legs had gone soft. Which was strange, given that I was sitting.

Augus didn't reach for me. I looked up, confused, and found his brow furrowed.

"What is that on you?"

"I —"

I didn't know how to answer.

What could I say? Linda beat me until I could hardly move, so I put medicine on my wounds? But Linda beat me with Augus's silent approval. I knew how he thought. He cared about outcomes, not circumstances. The fact that I hadn't come to him freshly washed and ready — that was my failure, full stop. Telling him I was sick would change nothing.

So the words stuck in my throat and stayed there.

"Ike."

Augus called out sharply.

I didn't hear what orders he gave. I only knew that the look he turned on me was identical to the look Linda had given me the day before.

Disgust.

Was the medicine really that strong a smell? I hadn't noticed anything when I applied it. And it had been a full night — how could he still detect it?

My thoughts were growing harder to hold onto. The dizziness was getting worse. I didn't even register Ike entering the room.

"In there," Augus said, his voice flat and cold, with an edge of impatience.

I forced myself to focus. In the corner of the room sat a wooden tub, filled to the brim with water.

"Get in and wash yourself off."

I could not refuse him. The night was still long.

I stood slowly and walked to the tub.

This would be my first time bathing in anything other than a stream. I was a slave of the lowest rank — I needed the Duke's permission to leave the castle grounds, which meant the public bathhouses in town were completely off-limits. My usual method was a strip of wet cloth and the small creek that ran along the castle wall.

I lowered my hand into the water.

I yanked it back immediately.

It was ice-cold. Colder than the creek in midwinter. A fraction of a second of contact, and my whole body convulsed.

I stood there, frozen.

I could feel Augus watching me, the pressure of his gaze pressing against the back of my neck. I knew I was supposed to climb in. My body simply refused.

I'll die. My wounds aren't healed.

For a moment I actually considered it — what if I asked him? Begged him to let me off, just this once?

I had my answer almost immediately.

"What exactly are you performing for me?"

Augus let out a short, cold laugh. That expression on his face — I recognized it. I saw it every night, when he had me pinned beneath him. The look of a predator that has already decided.

I drew a quiet breath.

Whatever I said, he would assume I was playing a role. I was almost relieved I hadn't spoken. Whatever punishment might have come from begging would have been far worse than this.

Before I could respond, his hand shot out and grabbed me.

I had no chance to resist. I was thrown into the tub like a ragdoll.

The cold hit me all at once — a full-body shock, the water swallowing me instantly. My linen clothes clung tight against every wound, and the pain that tore through me was immediate and total.

The air seemed to be draining from my lungs. For one stretched-out moment, I genuinely believed I was going to die right there.

I shouldn't have come. I should have stayed in my room. Dying in my own bed would have been better than this.

But somehow I found the tub's edge. I braced my arms and held myself upright.

I looked over at Augus, sitting in the chair.

In the mirror of his gold eyes, I caught a glimpse of myself — broken, dripping, wretched. I must have looked terrible. Why else would his face carry that look of irritation?

He threw a towel at me.

"Take the clothes off. Clean yourself up."

I felt like a cut of raw meat. And Augus was the one holding the knife.

I climbed out of the tub. The window across the room faced directly toward me, and the night wind pushed through it and landed on my soaked clothes, pressing them flat against my skin. I was colder now than I had been in the water. My hands were shaking so violently I couldn't pick the towel up off the floor.

Stay calm. Just get through the next few hours.

I kept repeating it to myself.

Alice. Endure this. Tomorrow everything will be fine.

But the room was growing darker at the edges. I raised my arm — or tried to. The darkness crept inward, narrowing my vision, and then there was nothing left at all.

I was losing my grip. I had no choice but to let myself fall.

That's it.

He's going to kill me for this.

That was my last thought before everything went black.