Chapter Four - Valerie

Well, you could say that my life is gradually improving. Obviously I'd prefer to be free, rather than the sex slave of a bear prince, but as the weeks tumble by, I notice I'm being afforded more freedoms. For a start, it seems that being chained by the bedchamber is not a common thing – possibly because he probably wants to sleep, and not make it clear to his father who the new slave is.

I'm tucked away in a smaller section of the suite, where there's a single bed, a washroom and a small kitchen – presumably for any live in maids that have been here before.

I'm not allowed outside the suite, but I do get free roam of the facilities. To my disappointment, there's no sharp objects that I can access. The kitchen is devoid of knives and pointy things. It's actually completely useless, since the prince orders everything from the main kitchens anyway. It's good food, honestly. Far better than the slop and scraps I was afforded in prison. It's painfully obvious to me that he thinks that he can break through my guard by random acts of kindness, and though I appreciate not being chained twenty-four-seven, I also know that giving him any aspect of my affection will invite pain later on.

I've already suffered enough pain for one lifetime. And the part of me I like – she doesn't need to suffer any more than she does. It's hard, sometimes. When I let her out for too long, she wants to collapse in a sea of tears, miserable at the way things have turned out, at the lack of freedom and empathy, of being trapped in a world that's content to leave her, like a mother abandoning a scarred infant in the cold.

It gets difficult at times to keep my emotions locked away, to make myself mentally invulnerable. I've already reached the point where no one wants to hear the truth about the prince they lost. I have to carry those nightmares alone.

Then I have his confused brother, who wears an almost perpetual look of irritation upon his features at my efforts to thwart him.

At times, I think he's amused. I know at the end, no matter what I do, he'll still grab me and take me. My resistance serves to frustrate him, and then when he pushes past the defenses, my willingness to endure it seems to cause small implosions in his mind.

He still can't register that I enjoy pain.

Well, not enjoy, exactly. But there is a part of me that's nasty, and unpleasant, and cruel. It deserves to be punished. The pain for me is a way of releasing that tension before it grows too deep, and I start to seriously hate myself for being this way.

Truthfully, I've not led a terrible life. I did find affection in small pockets. When I trained in the mage tower as a budding flame caster, along with all my other flame mages. When we took our trips and explored the region around us, visiting villages in the winter, helping to give the poor their eternal flames so they never had to worry about freezing. The eternal flame is a hard spell, but one the tower requires us to learn. We learned humility, we learned the dangers of our magic and the common misconceptions people held about fire.

Master Telwin's policy of pacifism got everyone killed, in the end. When I hit twelve, our tower had turned to rubble, with bodies strewn along it. The friends I had in this place were dead. My master was gone. And now I had a bounty on my head, simply for being a fire mage. Just because some idiot mages went around burning crops and villages for fun didn't mean they had any association with us. Didn't mean we were possessed by demons.

Didn't matter to anyone, anyway. About a few weeks into my wanderings, three bandits intercepted my path, and attempted to drag me off to rape.

That was when I got my first taste of the true danger fire held. Watching them shriek and burn to death made me feel like a horrible person inside. Like I was the demon everyone assumed me to be. The more I travelled, the more I needed to resort to my gifts to save me. To save others. The amount of people I encountered suffering in one way or another took a heavy toll upon my spirit. Locked in my tower, I saw the best of humanity. I saw gratefulness in people's eyes when we protected them from winter.

And then I see all this. Women tortured and raped and killed. Treated like beasts. Children disregarded and unloved. Disabled children cast out to survive alone or to die of starvation. Shifters preying on human flesh. Rogue mages using their abilities for harm and entertainment, feeding upon the misery of others.

More and more, I had to lock away that innocence inside me, and keep her safe, whilst I grew a shell of darkness that could look upon these events dispassionately.

It was the innocence that drove me to save people when I could. The kingdoms insisted on protecting their citizens, though. No matter how fucked up they were.

Yartusk, though, was the one who made me want to give up.

I never grew up right, I think absently, as I wander around the suite once more, still searching for anything I can use as a weapon. I consider splinting off the bed, but the wood is too polished and smooth to get a good grasp with my nails. I never learned to put on makeup. To feel like a woman. As something to be treasured and cherished. I never felt the need for children – not when I saw how much people suffered on a daily basis.

It makes me sad in a way. To know I'm missing some basic human things. That I'm not what I should have been.

In the end, it seems my path would have always led to a sticky end.

I check over my linen clothes, enjoying the rustle of fabric between my fingers, when I hear the door click open, and see a woman tip toe in. She looks furtive and nervous as the door closes behind her. The fact the guards gave her permission to come in confuses me. She's dressed in maid clothes. A cleaner?

When she catches sight of me, her cheeks color in recognition. She freezes to the spot, and I decide to play upon the moment, a dark smile planted on my lips.

“Well. Sure you should be here alone with a prince killer?”

I approach her, and she doesn't move. She closes her dark, luminous eyes, taking deep breaths. I feel a small pang of guilt for teasing her. She's a slave. She already gets enough shit as it is. And I'm not any better.

“I guess if you need to clean, you can...” I wave my hand lazily about the royal suite. “I won't stop you.”

The woman shakes her head, and she contorts her face in pain, before she prostates herself at my feet, and her body starts shaking with sobs.

Astonished, I gape at her. I have no idea how to react. When I tentatively rest my hand upon her shoulder, she begins to sob harder, and clutches onto my hand.

My heart scrunches from the touch, from someone reaching out to me, and a little bit of my innocence cracks through, before I seal it up again. “What's wrong?” I eventually say, breathing deep to make sure I'm calm.

The women looks up into my face, taking great gulping sobs. “T-t-thank you,” she says, hands trembling. I see the abject terror and relief in her eyes, and I understand in a wash of cold.

“You used to be Yartusk's slave.”

The woman nods.

“What's your name?”

She composes herself, and I hear, “Jara.”

“Jara. A pretty name. Is it yours?”

“It's mine,” she says. “It's... it's one of the things I was allowed to keep.”

I raise a hand to her cheek and hold her until she's calmer.

“I saw some of it,” she says. “I mean, he treated me... like all slaves are treated.”

Beaten. Raped. Killed if insubordinate. “Yes,” I reply, mouth twisting slightly. The kingdom system is perfectly reasonable to anyone – as long as they're not a slave or serf.

“But what he did...” Her hands turned into fists. “I'm not supposed to disobey, but I would have. I would have for that.”

“I know. I know.” I take her closer to me and hug, stroking her hair. Any sane person would have. To think their prince held such a monstrous secret, to think that everyone still persists on seeing him in the charming, rose-tinted light they all believe him to wallow in...

“I'm sorry they caught you,” Jara says then, wiping the tears from her brown eyes. “I wanted to thank you for a long time. When I knew it was you in this room, that you'd been spared...” She finally swallows up all her tears, then kisses me on the forehead. “Thank you.”

She then glances around the suite, before then leaning to whisper in my ear, “Sorry.”

“What for?”

She doesn't reply, but hastily withdraws from me and starts dusting around Eldan's chambers. She's fast and efficient, and within ten minutes, she's out the door again, leaving me baffled as to her apology.

It becomes clear when Eldan strides through the door, arms folded as he regards me.

“You sent her,” I say, resentment nestling in my heart.

Eldan nods, but doesn't smile. His storm blue eyes are clouded, puzzled, contemplative. “I knew she was lying to me. I didn't understand why, though.”

I stare at him, unsure what game he’s playing. Nothing we’ve done the past few weeks has indicated he expects anything more from me, other than to be the slave he desires. If I’m not being taken, I’m mostly being left alone. He doesn’t want to strike up conversation, as if afraid of what he’s going to find lurking underneath my exterior.

I suppose I can’t blame him, really. Meanwhile, I’m waiting for the chance to break out. I’ve had enough of walls and being confined. This might be a nicer looking cage, but it’s still a cage. My captive is none too fond of me, either. If I didn’t have such a tough shell on, he likely would have broken me a long time ago.

All the more reason to keep this shield refreshed. I suspect this must be a lure, a game to try and make me comfortable with him. “Did you ever think about addressing any of your brother’s servants?”

Eldan folds his arms, scowling at the mocking tone of my voice. “He has one living servant, my brother. The other two were buried with him. He didn’t like having many slaves. He thought it cruel to make them do everything, and insisted on doing some chores himself.”

I can’t help it. I start laughing. It’s long and high and loud, and I notice how his face colors. No doubt he’ll tell me to shut up, then ravage me the same way as before – callously, without any kind of warmth. Like the bear that hides under his skin. His icy expression only serves to make me laugh harder, and I’m actually wiping tears from my eyes as I gasp for breath.

“What’s so funny?” His lips are curled enough to show one set of canine teeth.

“Sorry, not sorry,” I reply, shaking in mirth, “but I can’t believe you people bought his act. You really have no idea. And you’re not willing to listen, so I’m done talking to you.”

His storm blue eyes regard me a moment, before he glances towards the door, where the slave had left. “Slave behaviour is easy to predict. The worst their masters are, the more jumpy they become. This one though. She’s not jumpy. She pales, like she’s about to be sick, even as she tells me what a wonderful man my brother is.” He paces closer to me. For the first time, I see a peculiar conflict in his expression. There’s something going on there, dark and intense. I stay neutral.

He’s already demonstrated that he’s not willing to listen before. I don’t see what sudden miraculous change would cause him to listen now.

“Then you keep hinting that you killed my brother for a reason. The person I loved. The person who everyone loved. It seemed like a senseless murder of a blossoming young prince.”

“I’m sure he knew how to appear like the most wonderful and charming person you could ever imagine. And I don’t doubt you love him,” I offer. A slight echo of memory cracks through my mask, and I shudder. “But believe me. Behind closed doors, your brother was a whole different kind of animal. Not a bear. A human. A monster.”

He stays silent for a moment, clearly fighting against his instinct to shut me down.

“You can bring back the slave. You can order her to tell you.” My voice dips to a whisper. “Or… we can show you ourselves what kind of man your brother was.”

He hesitates a moment longer, before scowling. “Bah. I knew it’d be like this. You’d be convincing with your lies. Trying to trick me. You don’t know any shame, do you?”

“And you don’t know the truth,” I point out. “If I’m lying, you wouldn’t have so much doubt, would you? Maybe you’re remembering some things your brother did that seemed odd, though you dismissed it at the time. Maybe that’s why you’re talking to me like this now.”

He snarls and lunges forward, hands impacting into my body. I land hard on the floor, pain ringing through my back, the breath knocked out of me as he hovers above me, shaking, eyes glinting in rage.

I see a perfect opportunity to knee him in the groin and make his day a whole lot worse, but I hold my momentum, staring defiantly at him.

I know my words are getting to him, though. Burrowing into him.

Longing stabs me. Longing to be acknowledged. To have people realize I’m telling the truth. That I’m not a criminal, but a human who wanted nothing more than the world to be a better place.

I’ve been alone for so long, so expectant that people would never take me at my word, that I forget just how much I want to be believed. It gets buried under everything.

All my toughness is an illusion. Just a very good one. I swallow up the wave of longing and harden my shell again. Eldan stares at me, his rage dissipated, eyes wide in bafflement.

Then, he sits up, and lets me wriggle free.

My heart thuds fast from fear, from having let my emotions bubble so close to the surface.

“I don’t want to believe any of this.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I noticed.”

He inhales sharply to reign in his temper. Finally, he says, “What was it… that my brother did? That you and the slave seem so hung up about? I saw your expression. You might try to keep everything down, but I saw you for a second.”

I don’t think he’s prepared to hear it, and I tell him as much. “Your words are saying one thing, but your actions speak of something else. You won’t believe me. No matter what I tell you. Because you have it set in your mind that I’m a liar.”

A vein twitches in his cheek. When he’s not consumed by hate or anger, he’s actually quite a handsome man. It’s just a shame that we couldn’t have met in better circumstances. Not that I think we ever would have met at all. I’m a vagabond mage without a home. He’s a prince of a kingdom, one that I’ve not been able to see a whole lot of, since coming down from the mountains of Osgath, home of the wolf shifters. Wolf shifters are quite family orientated. From what I’ve seen of bear ones, they like their space and privacy. The suite Eldan owns is far too large for just one person, but he seems to enjoy the space offered.

“Perhaps,” he replies, though it takes a great deal of effort to grate the word out of his teeth. “I expect you to say horrible and unbelievable things, something that contradicts with what I see him as in my mind.”

I shrug. “If you’re interested in the truth, then get Jara back here. Obviously you can’t let me out the suite, right? I have a recognizable face.”

He snorts. “I’ll consider it… human.”

I watch him depart, a little shaken, but otherwise pleased to have not been beaten down, to have him at least contemplate my words, rather than swat them aside like buzzing flies.

I’m sure I mean nothing to him, but it scratches at my hope to think that maybe my life won’t be the endless slavery I anticipate, and have to keep a stone heart to.

It’s something, at least.