Chapter 28 - Promise

                                    

                                          
Martimus left me silently in my room, seeming to understand that I was in no mood for talking. I had no way to know how long I sat on my bed except by the disappearing patches of sunlight on the wall. Once it was almost too dark to see, Martimus entered the room, lit a few lamps, and set a tray of food on my bedside table.
                          
I didn't look at him as he moved through the room. I didn't want to see his look of disgust and disappointment. All of his work had been for nothing, and I was sure he was infuriated with me. As he quietly left the room, I got slowly to my feet.
                          
My vision was slightly blurred with emotion as I looked at my image in the mirror. For one, brief moment, I had thought that I could carry on the pretense that I was worth something, but that was a lie, wasn't it? Exasperation flooded me, and I tore off the fine clothes, tossing them violently against the wall as tears poured down my cheeks. Throwing on my travel worn outfit, I still felt like a fraud.
                          
All this time, I had let myself be deceived into believing I was capable of something more, and now that reality struck home, it was so much harder to bear. I wanted to curl up in a corner and die before the light of day could find me again. Why had I even wanted to come here in the first place?
                          
A scraping sound filled my ears, and as I turned to face the window, a dark figure slid inside. Gasping, I stumbled a few steps backwards as Kotaro pushed the window closed again. He scanned the room around me before looking straight at me, his head slightly tilted as he examined my appearance.
                          
"What—how did you know where I—?" I sputtered.
                          
"I made an educated guess." He shrugged nonchalantly, stepping further into the room.
                          
He had removed the majority of his own finery and was left in the well-fitting plum shirt and dark pants and boots. His hair was tousled slightly, and a few stray strands brushed his forehead. A part of my heart thrilled at the sight of him. I wanted to feel that I was worth something again, but at the same time, I wanted to sink into my own thoughts without interruption or distraction.
                          
"I want to be alone." I looked away from him, unable to meet his gaze after what had happened in the throne room.
                          
"Why? So you can think about which man you want to bed you?" His words shocked me, and I looked back up at him with widened eyes.
                          
"What did you say?" I whispered.
                          
"You're still young, after all. It'd be a great honor for you to bear children for the Second." His voice was light and steady as if he hadn't a care in the world, and he half turned away from me, grabbing a piece of bread off my tray and sinking his teeth into it.
                          
The words hit me right in the stomach, and I was struck speechless. He had called me naïve before, and he had never been afraid to tell it to me like it was, but this...I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and as the words left his lips, I felt the hint of anger stirring within me. How dare he say such things to me? I was a human, and I was worth far more than a brood mare.
                          
"I might still be young, but you have no right to speak to me like that." The words flew from my lips, and I forcefully grabbed his arm, spinning him to face me again.
                          
"Why not?" He took another bite, deftly ignoring how serious I was. "Oh, come now, you didn't really believe you were good for anything else, did you?"
                          
I sucked in a breath. Did he imagine just because we had suffered together that he was permitted to speak down to me like this? I longed to wipe that arrogant, nonchalant expression off his face, and my hand lifted of its own accord.
                          
It happened so quickly I had no time to realize what was going on until the events replayed in my slow mind. Dropping his hunk of bread, he snatched my wrist out of the air and jerked me toward him. Without any sort of resistance in my stance, I slammed into him, but the movement did nothing to tame me: I went fighting. I pummeled his stomach with my free fist, deceived by my anger into believing it would actually do something. He grabbed that hand, too, pushing me backwards and keeping the space between us too small for me to do anything. I was too angry to notice exactly what was happening until my back hit the wall.