Oh no.
Gods no.
I shot up to sitting and threw the covers off
me, my gaze darting through the room.
She wouldn’t come to the Winter Palace. She’d
never
come to the Winter Palace.
But
he
would.
He most definitely would.
He did whatever he wished.
And she did whatever she had to to make that
so.
Thus, worse, she’d make it safe so he
could
.
The buttery at the end of the hall off the
kitchens,
the voice instructed.
I felt the snake of panic and fear coil up my
throat, but I didn’t even waste the time to snatch my shawl from
the end of the bed after I jumped out of it and hurried to the
door.
I just asked the room, “Do you have him?”
I’m near.
Oh gods. Gods.
Never safe. Even with trunks of jewels and
gold I was never safe.
And worse, neither was Kristian.
“I’m going to him directly. Let Kristian be,”
I demanded as I put my hand to the doorknob.
Accept your punishment, endure the length
of it, and your brother will be safe,
the voice replied.
At what I knew was to come, I felt saliva
fill my mouth and swallowed it down as I pulled open the door.
The hall was lit with lantern sconces on the
walls, but faintly. Hesitating only a second, I made the decision
to seek the servants’ stairs, a more direct route and one where I
was sure not to run into one of my kind. I had no idea where those
stairs were but moved instinctively away from the main stairwell to
the back of the hall.
I found them and rushed down the flights. The
light even more dim there, I held on to the banister to guide my
way, my bare feet making no noise on the risers.
I made the kitchens, shifting through the
barely-illuminated, deserted area on darting feet, this being an
area I’d been made familiar with during Frey’s first interrogation
of me after a woman was poisoned at a past Bitter Gales.
I found the door at the end of the hall
closed. Even knowing what lay beyond, I hesitated not even a second
in opening it.
This room was lit brightly, blinding me the
instant I stepped through.
I struggled to become accustomed to the light
as I swiftly closed the door behind me.
Too soon, my eyes adjusted and I saw him.
Standing tall and strong amongst the casks and shelves of bottles,
the Drakkar good looks stamped on his proud features, even through
age.
“Papa,” I whispered, fighting the shiver
seeing him caused to slither over my skin.
It had been years.
But I was never safe. I knew I was never
safe. Not in Lunwyn.
Her magic didn’t reach Fleuridia. And thus I
counted on the fact it definitely wouldn’t reach the realms across
the Green Sea.
But in Lunwyn, I knew,
knew
I was
never safe.
“You and your brother have behaved very
badly, Franka,” my father declared.
“I—” I started to explain.
“
Silence!
” he barked, leaning toward
me, and as used to it as I was, the verbal strike of his loud word
still made my body lurch in surprise and fear.
It was then I saw the lash coiled in his
grip.
I didn’t take a step back. I never did.
Weakness was not tolerated. I’d learned. I’d learned if I showed
weakness, Kristian received the punishment and it would be twice as
bad.
He could not endure it. We’d discovered that
when we were children in a way so heinous, I buried it so deep I
couldn’t even remember it, just the feelings it caused.
But we’d learned.
Kristian broke. He did it easily.
Soft heart. Weak will.
Thus I had to endure it. Every last strike.
If I broke, they’d turn to Kristian and wouldn’t stop until the
blood flowed in streams down his legs while he hung unconscious,
receiving his punishment through oblivion.
“What have you done to our House, Franka?” my
father asked, but didn’t allow me to answer. He continued on, “The
mighty House of Drakkar could have been brought down to nothing,
and
would
have
if this generation didn’t see the
resurgence of The Frey within The Drakkar.”
How had he heard?
“Please, Papa, if you’d allow me to—” I
began.
“There’s no explanation for
treason
,”
he bit out.
Gods!
How had he heard?
“Papa, if you’ll let me share. I assisted
Frey and the others with—”
“You,” he interrupted me, “are at least a
Drakkar. Headstrong. Whip-sharp. I can imagine you have a reason
for what you did, though I don’t bloody give a damn what it was.
Your brother, however, had no reason. None at all. Except to do as
you told him. Always minding you, like a brainless pup. It’s
revolting,” he spat his last, the expression twisting his face
sharing just how revolting he thought his son was. “I wished to
punish him. Your mother, though, she has a soft spot for that boy.
So I’m here.”
I was uncertain my mother had anything soft
about her. In my estimation, it was less her caring for Kristian
and more the enjoyment she got from inflicting pain on me.
“The hook is ready, Franka. Prepare and make
your way to it,” he ordered.
I cast a glance to my right and up, seeing
the hook was indeed ready as, in times like these, it always
was.
But I didn’t prepare and move to it.
I looked back to my father.
“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I
stated.
That was the arrangement. It had always been
the arrangement. And they had never reneged.
But there was a reason I carried a midnight
soul, for the evil contained in both my parents set their souls to
cinders years ago. It was not a wonder I’d inherited the
blackness.
“You committed treason, daughter,” my father
reminded me.
“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I
repeated.
Panic threatened to paralyze me when I saw
the cruel sneer curl at his mouth, the excitement light in his
eyes, the same in the rush of pink to his cheeks.
He enjoyed this. I’d learned that as well. In
the past, there needn’t even be a transgression for Kristian or I
to earn a punishment. No, our father simply had to be in the
mood.
And to our misfortune, he was in the mood
often.
“You endure, my daughter, she leaves him
alone,” he agreed.
But I knew by his expression. I knew my
transgression, Kristian’s, had earned a punishment even I might not
be able to survive.
Regardless, I nodded. On shaking legs I
focused all efforts on keeping me upright, I moved to the hook.
I was twelve when they’d stopped binding my
wrists and hanging me from the hook. From that point, it was part
of the punishment to keep my fingers curled around, hold myself up,
not fall.
Never fall.
And tonight, I definitely could not fall.
When I arrived below the hook, I turned my
back to my father and pulled the thin straps of my silk nightgown
down my shoulders and arms. I felt the material drift down my skin
to catch on my hips.
Bare up top, I took in a deep breath, closed
my eyes tight then set my jaw.
I opened my eyes, lifted my hands and curled
my fingers around the cold steel of the hook.
“I begin, my sweet.” I heard my father say
and knew he was communicating with my mother. A mother who was not
there but could be in a blink if there weren’t enchantments
protecting the Winter Palace.
No, she was close to Kristian, ready to
complete the punishment should I fall.
On that thought, my fingers gripped the hook
tighter.
He did not delay in doing as he said he
would.
The first lash I barely felt. Years of this,
the scar tissue ran deep.
He would get there, though. He always
did.
No, at that point it was the whip whistling
through the air, the crack, the sinister whisper as it snaked
against my flesh that could unravel my mind.
In order to fight it, I thought of Antoine.
His smile. The sound of his laughter. The change in his eyes when
I’d bare even an inch of flesh to him. The touch of his fingers as
they drifted over my skin.
Another lash came and I kept hold of these
thoughts.
Then another. And more.
But I’d closed my eyes and I saw only
Antoine. Felt only Antoine’s touch.
Until the first rivulet of blood glided over
the upper swell of my hip to soak into the silk of my
nightgown.
Then, suddenly, I saw Noc and the fierceness
in his face when he’d said he wouldn’t even blink at turning
traitor to save the woman he loved.
The next lash came, and the next, the pain
intensifying with each strike, but I focused on Noc and his
fierceness, focused further on something alien to me.
Hope.
In this instance it was the hope that he
found a woman he could love that much, but more, a woman worthy of
that kind of love.
I kept this focus through the next lash.
And the next.
It continued and I could no longer think of
Noc. Or Antoine. Or anything but keeping my hands curled around
that hook, trying to block out the sweat of that effort mingling
with the blood trailing down my body. Attempting to force my
shallow panting into deeper breaths to beat back the pain. Blinking
rapidly as dull cloudbursts exploded behind my eyes threatening to
blind me, take me to a blissful, painless oblivion.
There was none of that for me. Not Franka
Drakkar. I’d been born to agony and, as ever, simply had to
endure.
More lashes and I feared I couldn’t withstand
it. It was worse than ever before. Far worse. As my transgression
had been.
My hands had gone beyond clammy, they were
slipping on the hook and I was terrified I’d lose hold.
I couldn’t lose hold.
Mother was close to Kristian. She could be
with him in seconds.
He’d
never
endure.
Another lash and for the first time I cried
out as it hit, tearing through my flesh, feeling like it glanced
across my spine.
When it was done, my heated body all of a
sudden iced over with fear that I’d lost consciousness when I heard
the impossibility of a shocked feminine gasp and right on its heels
an enraged, “Fucking hell. What the
fuck
?”
Noc’s voice.
He couldn’t be here. I had to have blacked
out.
“Who are you?” my father asked.
“Get Frey.” Noc’s voice ordered.
“You’ll do no such thing!” my father snapped,
his deep voice no longer astonished but annoyed.
“Fucking
get Frey
!” Noc demanded.
“You’ll mind your betters,” my father
hissed.
A moment of nothing before,
“Goddamn…
get
…
Frey
.”
The pain drove deep as I chanced looking over
my shoulder and saw Josette disappear from the doorway.
I also saw Noc, fury carved in his handsome
features, moving to me.
How was he there?
Why was he there?
The pain remained, I couldn’t have slipped
into oblivion.
Thus he was bloody
there
.
“Know your place!” my father commanded on a
near-shout. “Remove yourself from this room this instant!”
Noc didn’t remove himself from the room. He
arrived at my front, his eyes holding mine.
His voice came as a shock, precisely the
gentleness running through it that belied the look of wrath seated
deep in his eyes. “Let go of the hook, baby.”
“This is beyond the pale, a servant intruding
on private matters of members of the most powerful House in
Lunwyn!” my father decreed loudly.
“Frannie, sweetheart,” Noc whispered,
ignoring Papa, and I felt his hand touch light at my waist, “let go
of the hook.”
“Intolerable!” my father bit out. “Franka, is
this domestic your lover?” he demanded.
“No,” I answered my father hoarsely. “You
must go, Noc,” I whispered to Noc, not wishing to whisper, but I
had the strength for nothing more. “Please. You must. It will be
worse if he doesn’t get to finish. I need to complete my
punishment.”
A flare of rage blazed in his eyes but he
simply repeated, “Let go of the hook. Hold on to me.”
“I need to endure or they’ll turn to
Kristian,” I told him.
“Please, baby, let go. I got you,” Noc
replied.
“Stand back,” my father ordered.
“You must go,” I went on.
“Promise, Franka, I got you,” Noc said.
“Stand bloody
back
!” my father
commanded, his voice no longer affronted and annoyed.
No, it was much worse.
At the warning of it, sheer terror coursed
through me, almost paralyzing.
“You
must
go,” I declared. “
Now
or he’ll—”
As I spoke my last, my father thundered,
“
Stand back!
”
But through his thunder, I heard the whistle
of the whip.
I knew he’d repositioned and I knew his
aim.
It was not me.
Therefore I did what I did next
automatically, without thinking. I did something I never did. Not
since I was a youngster. Not since I’d learned how vile it was,
what I had in me, what my mother gave to me, what I took great
pains to hide, using intrigue and torment like weapons not only as
was expected of a Drakkar, not only as a way to hold others at bay
so they wouldn’t be touched by the darkness of my soul, but as a
way to conceal the true power I held.
I let go of the hook and twisted. Unable to
bury my cry of pain when the fire of the movement tore through my
back, I lifted a hand and swept it wide and high, the sapphire glow
bursting forth, the tip of my father’s lash glancing against it,
sending it back where it tore through the skin of his face.
He fell back in surprise and pain, his feet
slipping from under him, landing on his arse.