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Standing there, in yet another of the ridiculous gowns, I felt more out of place than I ever had. I stood beside my simple bed, looking from the chipped nightstand, to the barred windows, and the small bathing chamber. I stared at all the things I had been left with, that rage still prickling over me as I remembered all that I had. All that had been taken from me.
The massive four-poster bed with the carved posts and matching duvet, the fireplace that would always be lit when I woke up in the morning, food that wasn’t porridge for every meal, windows without bars, a governess, a maid, a bathing chamber that had hot running water that came from the spring in the mountain, stories from my father, dinners with family…
One after another everything raced through my mind, all of that boiling rage and hatred rolling and burning and sitting in my gut like a kettle left on the fire too long. They had taken it all. No, she had taken it all. I wasn’t a princess anymore, and I wasn’t even her daughter. I didn’t know what I was, but this wasn’t it. This lumpy straw mattress and the wool blankets. The cold forgotten fireplace and the bars.
No, the cage.
The cage they had put me in. I had worked around it. I had been content, but it was still a cage.
That rage built, and it built, and then, with a sound I had never made before, I screamed.
I screamed all of that rage and anger out of me. The sound echoed in my ears and bounced off my bare walls, it ripped at my already shredded heart and poured all of that anger, all of that loneliness, all the feelings of a forgotten princess into the air.
It didn’t make the heat leave. It didn’t send the fury away entirely. It was still there, boiling and racing through me, but it felt better somehow. As though the pressure had been left in the pot.
I was still boiling, still angry, but perhaps not as dangerous.
Tears were beginning to drip down my cheeks as I ripped the dress off me, throwing it on the ground in a heap and leaving me standing in the middle of my room in my underpinnings.
Standing there in my Goddess damned cage.
When I was five a traveling zoo had come into town, and Mother had brought the animals into the courtyard for Batian. I had walked through the wagons, circled around cages of animals as they paced in tiny spaces and stared with yellow eyes.
That’s what I did now, I paced in my room like the trapped animal I was. Slowly, my pacing turned to something more familiar, the moves of the warmup I had watched the Plythe in the courtyard do every morning before they sparred. The motions were quick and abrupt and usually accompanied by heroic yelling. But I wasn’t heroic. I screamed and raged. I went through each step, pain lancing out of me in a roar, tears still flowing as I released more of that rage and agony.
I could fight the Boy, sure, but I would probably end up hurting him. This was safer.
I stepped forward, swinging an imaginary sword down before stepping back and slicing to the side. Another step, another swipe.
Forward, lunge, back, parry, side, swipe, forward, hand. I pressed my hand forward as they would, although theirs was a magical move, mine was simply a motion like all the others. No sword, no magic. At least that was a failure I was used to.
I continued the movements, running through them faster and faster. I was nothing more than that animal trapped in the cage, pacing. Faster. Quicker steps, bigger movements. More tears. More rage.
With each swipe, I threw the anger out with a feral fury. With each swing of my imaginary sword I cut at the bars that caged me, I screamed and hacked at the people who laughed. I pushed at all the broken pieces they claimed I had, all the broken pieces I did have. No magic. Sickly. Broken. Weak.
They were all lies; they were not who I was. I had to find a way to show her that, to prove that to her.
Forward, lunge, back, parry, side, swipe, forward, hand. I moved faster, all of that burning rage growing and screaming from inside of me as I stepped back and pushed my hand forward and screamed, thrusting all of that magic I did not have into the life I never would.
The life she stole from me.
My bureau exploded.
With a crack like lightning, white fire erupted from my palm, the crackling line of brilliant light cutting through the air and right into the wooden face of my bureau. I barely registered what happened when wood went everywhere and I screamed in fear, my body thrown back and tumbling through the air to land with a crack against the opposite wall. My bones and body ached as I slid down the stone wall, the scent of smoke overpowering as the door flung open as the Boy ran in, sword already drawn.
By the Goddess! One second I was moving, and the next…
I stared unblinkingly at the bureau as the Boy helped me to sit, his hands hot against my arms as he checked for injuries. I wanted to tell him I was fine, but I was still trying to make sense of what I had seen.Of what had happened.
“Did you hear–?” I turned to him in question, only to freeze at the Boy who was next to me. He kneeled there, hands throbbing warmly against my arms, black tunic in place, his cape barely so.
He had clearly come in a rush, and had not gotten everything on. He kneeled beside me, part of his face uncovered.
The Boy… who was not a boy anymore… was right there.
His jaw, strong and covered with stubble was visible, his skin pale and gaunt, the small amounts of hair growing on his face near black. Full, red lips pressed into a line, his strong jaw clenching to reveal a hollow cheek and a bit of his ear.
He shifted back, lips pressing into a line as he tried to reach for the shroud, to pull it lower. I grabbed his hand before he could.
