Chapter Text
People are cheering. Fiona's hand is warm. Loid Forger will not meet her eyes. Yuri is in pain. He is in pain! He isn't even an adult and he is going to live with these scars forever for a mistake.
And Chloe! Sweet Chloe. What did she do to deserve this?
Yor unlaces her fingers from Fiona's. A knot of dread is curling in her stomach, but she has to do this. Who cares about the consequences?
Chloe screams again, curls and tenses her poor hands when the cane comes down. Yuri has the luxury of a more mobile whip. Yor stands and screams for them to stop.
She can't be heard well, but the Selected all turn, the guards look her way, and the King looks apoplectic with rage. She runs towards the guardsmen, who grab her by the forearms.
“You need to sit down, Lady Briar!” one protests over and over.
“Tell me to sit quiet one more time and I'll sell your spine as a ladder for the wicked!” she spits.
He drops her. The second one takes a little more convincing, but she nearly breaks his wrist. It's enough to squeak by, and she charges up the steps of the stage, yelling all the while for them to stop.
The crowd explodes into murmurs and hushed shock. Yor stands her ground, rushing to Chloe’s side.
“Yor,” she moans through gritted teeth. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Oh, Chloe–”
“Step aside, my Lady.”
“I'm as much your Lady as Chloe is.”
“Do not interfere with His Highness's punishment.”
Yor slowly turns her head to Loid. His punishment? Whatever expression is on her face must be murderous.
“I will interfere with any action that demeans and abuses the good people of Ostania!” she yells, placing a hand over Chloe's bleeding red ones. The man pauses, unsure if he can continue without committing treason himself.
“You haven’t given them a trial!” she shouts, looking at the King and his family, who the guard is clearly waiting on. “You have ripped them of their rights as your citizens! If you can do this to them, who in this crowd can you not do it to?”
Yor takes the opportunity to stand and yank the man whipping her brother back by the shoulder. “Lady Briar! He is receiving the punishment appropriate to his crime!”
“How many strikes do they have left?” she asks.
“Five each.”
Yor holds out her hands over both of Chloe’s, palms up. “Go on.”
The crowd is silent. “Go on!” She yells again. “Strike me; I deserve it!” Yuri is no murderer. Chloe did not kill. Yor deserves this. They do not.
But the guards are charging up the stairs at the same time a wrist yanks her hand from Chloe's and brings the cane down. Chloe screams, and it's followed by Yuri's own cry of pain. Yor can feel the arms around her again, and she knows they're stronger, but she is not going down without a fight. She grabs for any leverage. Who cares about–
Her knees buckle. Searing pain flares against her cheek. Her eyes water and her vision spots. It's like Karen's slap, but so much worse. The crowd is silent, and Yor–
Yor deserves it.
The guard sneers. Yor spits in his face. The guards begin dragging her away, and even she can't stand in her current state, so she goes kicking and screaming instead. She can’t do anything but scream and disdain the whole affair like this. The grasp on her arms is too much for her to twist out of, and her cheek is burning something awful. The pain does nothing but anger her. That is happening to Yuri and Chloe twenty times over!
How about the crowd receives the lashes? Will they like it then? Perhaps they should also offer up their sons and daughters!
“Take her to Gorey. The Prince won’t want her getting infected.”
“I don’t need a damn doctor! My brother is the one who needs a doctor!”
“Ma’am, you were hit in the face with a whip. You need to be tested for bloodborne diseases.”
“Oh, but my brother can get his back torn open with that same whip with no concern for disease, can’t he?” she asks, turning to face the guards as soon as they loosen their grip. She’s a prisoner now, entering the Palace flanked by guardsmen with their hands on her wrists. “If you’re going to force me to stay here, at least take me to my room to recuperate myself.”
“You really must–”
“I have an allergy to scarring medicines, so I make my own. Take me to my room,” she says again. The left guard’s grip slackens and the right one must think it’s fine to do so.
Power is a strange thing. Power is killing and power is smiling. She has power only to move about this birdcage, but the men flanking her show deference to her. In her black dress and conservative hairdo, she looks like an Empress, but she is every bit a prisoner.
“Please knock before you enter,” she says in a low, clipped voice when they arrive at the door. “I intend to bathe and do not wish to be disturbed in the meanwhile.”
“As you wish, my Lady.”
When the door finally closes, Yor heaves out a sob she’s been holding in since before she saw her brother at that post. She yanks the curtains closed; she’s so sick of being seen and heard and known. She’d burn this opulent room and all the possessions within to dust if it meant getting to go home.
Home. Oh, home…she misses it so much. Yor misses the whistle candy and Mona’s tailor shop and the theater where everyone watches the Daily. She wonders if the people at home are watching now. She misses Shopkeeper’s garden, not because it’s deadly and captivating, but because it's where she learned to hold a paring knife and cut an apple without butchering it. She could sit there in silence and play catch with the other operatives who had a spare minute to teach her. She misses odd jobs and the leak in the roof and hitting her hip on the corner of the hall she always takes too fast. She misses fretting about rent and food.
She is not worthy of this life, and she is not capable of living it. She wants to go home. She cannot do that; she cannot be the executioner. Yuri and Chloe are innocents. They broke a rule, an arbitrary, specific, utterly worthless rule that would be entirely legal in any other context. The Forgers cannot tell her that the blood staining that stage is justly spilt. Yor’s killed, but at least she’s killed the wicked.
Yor picks herself up off the floor. Her knees groan in protest, but she still moves, scrambling to the vanity to look at the cut. It will certainly scar, but that’s fine by her. Let it. Everytime someone looks at her they’ll remember the family who issued a boy beaten for liking his classmate.
She dresses the wound with shaky hands. In her vanity drawer, next to the bandages, the slip of paper from Senator Squire sticks out. She unfolds it. It’s a phone number. She tucks it into the back of her bedside picture frame for safekeeping before going over to the phone, hand hovering before she finally dials.
“My deepest apologies.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You must, Princess.”
“I can’t. I can’t be the one to–he’s my brother. What did he do that was so bad? What?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all, and that is why you must stay.”
“I can’t issue those orders. I can issue orders for criminals, but not–not–”
“Then don’t. Stay and do not issue these orders. What’s stopping a Queen from not beating her constituents?”
“Her husband,” Yor grits out, and her anger rises with so much speed that she cracks the nightstand she’s resting her other hand on.
“That can be taken care of, should you wish it. Roses and thorns, my dear.”
Yor sighs. This isn’t getting her anywhere. “Goodbye.”
“Farewell, Princess.”
She slumps forward and tries to control her hands by holding her head in them. In doesn’t help. All the emotion in her is screaming to fight and maim and kill because that is all she knows how to do, and it is all she is meant for. She only knows how to tear apart criminals and embezzlers piece by piece. Why did she think she could stop any of this any other way? A knife to the jugular and a shot to the heart are all she’s good for.
“Lady Briar?”
She opens the door. It’s the guard who smuggled in her stilettos the first day. “I’ve been given an assignment I’ve been told you may enjoy. Do you mind pruning the garden? I find it a very relaxing task.”
He opens his cloth-covered palm to reveal a brand-new stiletto. She takes it and spins it once in her palm. “I do. Lead the way.”
-
“There’s a politician that’s been receiving bribes recently. Shopkeeper says they’re shady figures, and he thinks they’re related to the crime uptick in Lorelei.”
“Lorelei’s had an uptick?” she asks as they march in step with one another through the tunnels beneath Berlint.
“Oh, yes. After Olka, well…the West aren’t fools. I’m sure they’ve pieced some things together. But Lorelei’s been involved in human trafficking, and Shopkeeper has it on good authority that the guy’s turning a blind eye to it for the money.”
“That’s vile.”
“Exactly. We don’t have much time, so we have to hurry.” He turns the corner to where the water in the sewers is far more rapid and begins climbing a ladder to an access hatch. Once he’s up, he offers her a hand while she climbs in her dress.
“Newston Castle,” she mutters while she climbs. She can see it before she’s fully out of the hatch. It’s massive. This must be one of the main halls, and it can fit the ballroom of the Berlint Palace three times over.
“You remember dance practice?” he asks with a chuckle. Yor laughs, and the levity breaks up the knots in her chest. It’s dark in the Castle. All the lights are turned off in this part of the structure, and the dark blue carpeting and fancy wood paneling have a haunted air. The carvings look ready to pounce.
“I remember being miserable at anything my neighbors didn’t teach me.”
“You’re still terrible at anything your neighbors didn’t teach you, no matter how many lessons the Palace insists you receive,” he quips, twirling his pocketknife and coils of wire around his hand. “Not that you were ever one for ladyship, were you, Princess?”
Yor snorts. “The Palace thinks nothing of my ladyship. I’m the farthest thing from one.”
“For the murder or the getting whipped in place of your brother in direct defiance of the King’s orders?” he teases.
Yor sort of knows this operative. They’re from similar places and similar stations. They had a couple of training classes together as initiates (Buds, as Shopkeeper referred to them then), and they’d sparred once or twice. They were separated when they began ‘Blossoming,’ and Yor would put money on their limited linked history being the reason Shopkeeper pulled whatever strings he had to to get her companion on the Palace payroll. Still, she hasn’t seen him in a long while, and she’s clearly forgotten how his hair falls and his blue eyes hold so many deep shades of ocean blue. She’s forgotten what it’s like not to hide from other people.
“No, for my inability to curtsy. A real travesty, I’m afraid.” He’s a member of Garden and he makes her laugh. They’re in the same boat, and she’s not tense when they’re working together.
“Forgive me. I thought it was your unshakeable sense of justice and inherently defiant attitude that rendered you boorish and ill-mannered.”
“It was my table manners, actually.”
The operative presses his free hand to his mouth to muffle his laughter. In the dim daylight of the darkened Castle, his eyes take on an oceanic quality, a deep, refreshing blue that glitters when he smiles. The bounce of curls is a nice touch. “Princess–” he wheezes.
“Sorry.” She punctuates that with her own laugh, and it takes them a moment to regain their composure. They work well in tandem, from their coordination to their demeanor. This is the first time they’ve had a customer to take out together, and they’re just doing so well.
She knows that Shopkeeper didn’t assign this to her, and she knows this guard probably wasn’t supposed to offer her this opportunity, but she’s really glad he did.
The day will come back to her once she reenters the Berlint Palace, but for now Yuri is making his rounds, Chloe is daydreaming in the corner of the Sunroom, Alessa and Kim are failing at each other’s specialties, Fiona is reading, and Millie is swooning over whatever soap opera she and Becky Blackbell always put on when they’re in the same room. Loid is doing something that, in all honesty, she probably doesn’t care about, and she is doing something she loves–either drafting an amendment to something or (in this case) eliminating vermin.
“Ready?” she asks when they find where they need to go.
“Only if you are, Highness,” he says with a wink.
Oh… Well…
“You flatter me,” she says as they move into position above the spot the Lorelei scumbag is set to meet an…”Investor.”
“Is it working?”
Oh!
…Well.
She can’t form words to respond, so she chuckles and shakes her head to see if she can revisit that comment later. She readies her stiletto.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” he says as he readies his spool of wire.
This time she meets his eyes and they both smile. “Maybe,” she says to test the waters.
“Maybe? I’ll have to work on my flattery. Tell me, what’s the fastest way to a lady’s heart? Flowers? Chocolate? Kind words?”
She pushes him back from where he’s leaning rakishly on the balcony railing. “Beneath the breastbone on her left, in fact.”
“Tch.” He shakes his head. “Get ready.”
She positions her brand new stiletto, the one Shopkeeper definitely did not commission, at the ready. He coils his wire once more for good measure.
The politician walks in and the wire is thrown. It snakes itself around his portly body and binds him up in razor-sharp metal. Yor’s companion tosses a bit extra up to the chandelier and pulls the man just into the radius of Yor’s blade.
“What–What is this? I have a–my wife–my–my–”
“Your constituents, perhaps?” the brunet asks, casual smirk donning his features.
Yor flips her stiletto and meets the man’s eyes. “Please know that taking your life is one of the highest honors I have received.”
She does not miss. The guard whistles. “Clean shot, Princess! I’m impressed.”
And Yor laughs. It’s clear and light. There’s no weight on her chest, and she feels at home for that split second. It rings around the room and bounces off the dark stone walls. “Let me down?” she asks, holding out her wrist.
“Your wish is my command.” He attaches a non-razor wire to her wrist, and she hops off the balcony. She bursts into laughter again when he starts mocking the Bondman intro on her way down.
She retrieves her stiletto, they dispose of the body, and the few spots of blood that the man crudely left on the floor are swiped away with no trouble. They’re back walking through Newston Castle in no time at all.
“You gonna stay?” he asks once they’re in the sewers and the risk of wiretaps overhearing anything but banter is gone.
“Yeah, I think so. I can’t leave unless he dismisses me, so that might be my only choice.”
“Do you seriously think he’d keep you? We could extricate you if need be.”
“No, there’s no need.” She takes a deep breath of putrid air. “I don’t want to run. I want him to know what he did–what he let his father do. I want him to look at me and remember what he condoned.”
“Defiance at every opportunity,” her companion sighs, “Are you sure you’re not a dandelion?”
“Thorns imply a rose,” she returns as they return to the Berlint Palace’s access hatch. They should start climbing, but she doesn’t want to go up.
“I suppose. I still think you’re a dandelion.”
“Elaborate.”
“You’re alive despite your circ*mstances, you can overcome challenge if it means a good life, and–” He brushes a thumb over the cut on her cheek. She wonders when they got close enough for him to touch her face. “And I don’t think you know how to stop fighting when you think it’s worth it.”
“I probably don’t,” she breathes out before she gets on her tiptoes and kisses him. She doesn’t know why she does it, but it helps melt some of the dread in her heart. Maybe it just distracts her. Maybe she’s a twenty-something who isn’t technically in a relationship and can do as she pleases when it comes to her above-board romantic life. She’ll risk a kiss and take the beating. Let her have her agency; let her have a moment with someone she doesn’t know that is at least honest.
They’re assassins; they’d never last, but at least they both know that. It’s probably because they’re assassins that they pull back at roughly the same too-short time. Enemies are everywhere.
“You don’t. It’s why you’re going to be a great Queen. Go up there and take him down.”
She smiles and waves him farewell as he leaves to find another entry point. The happiness doesn’t last. Once she reenters the Palace, the shimmering jewels and just-washed fancy glass windows remind her of the reality: Yuri and Chloe are somewhere bleeding and scarred. The other girls are doing…who knows what. It’s Loid’s fault. It’s hard to enjoy the morning sun streaming in through the windows; there’s no reason to be jubilant today.
This time she just feels angry. She needs a plan and a word. It may rely on Loid Forger’s good will, but she’ll get that. She slips into her room and changes her clothes, smears her mascara, and blows her nose. When did she get so good at disguise?
Is it disguise if it’s what she feels internally? She’s never been too good at externalizing her feelings on her face.
“Yor?”
“Millie. Come in,” she says after swallowing a spoonful of thin honey. It sticks in her throat long enough for the sentence to sound thick and broken.
“Yor, I’m so sorry,” she says. “I would have been here sooner, but the King forced us to listen to Martha about public etiquette. It’s a miracle he’s not punishing you for it.”
“That’s good at least. And Yuri? Chloe?”
Millie’s face crumples. “I heard from one of my maids that they’re being shipped out to one of the border Provinces as soon as they’re able to walk and the wounds have scarred over. It doesn’t sound like Yuri has any damage to his spinal cord or anything though, so that’s good.”
“At least it’s near home,” Yor says. She doesn’t need to fake the exhaustion in her voice.
“I’ve sent word to my family to take them in if they see them in Kielberg. You really changed how people saw that, you know.”
“What?”
Millie looks around before she gets up and flings open the curtains. The light gives Yor a headache. “Look outside. People are furious, and it’s not with you. I think the King tried to hide the numbers from us, but people really disliked that stunt. I think it’s because you got up there and took that slash to the cheek.”
“That’s exactly why people disliked that stunt.”
“Fiona!”
Fiona hovers at the door, surprisingly nervous. “Do you mind if we come in? We thought you might want some company.”
Yor cranes her neck and sees Alessa and Kim with her. Her throat closes for totally different reasons than this morning. “Yes, please.”
The three come in, and they all find seats on pieces of furniture. Alessa joins her and Millie on the bed, and Fiona takes a seat at Yor’s desk. Kim takes to the floor and stretches while they talk.
“Historically, public beatings are taken pretty well. This is a real departure from that,” Millie says.
“Because the rules are dumb,” Kim adds. “She carried on with Yuri Briar; so what? Just let her leave. That’s the right thing to do.”
“But it gave them a reason. That’s the thing. If you tell people that the man getting beaten did horrible things, they’ll like that you’re beating him. That’s why Yor getting in the way was such a problem. People love you, Yor. You getting scarred is a big issue.”
Yor nods. This is the first time she’s seen Fiona look so…passionate. Like even if she’s cold and a little short with Yor and the others, she really does care and think the caning is as wrong and barbaric as the rest of them.
“I’ll yell at him,” Yor says after hours of talking and tea and lunch being brought up. “I have to.”
“I don’t think he wanted them to get beaten. That’s the least severe punishment they could have gotten,” Kim says through a mouthful of chicken.
“I think they shouldn’t have been beaten because they did nothing wrong,” Alessa returns, brandishing her fork like a weapon.
“I think a good man would recognize the cruelty of the punishment and take the beating himself,” Yor decides.
“I second that,” Millie says, “It’s the kind of thing a ruler should do for their citizens, period!”
Fiona nods, but she reiterates the point she made to Yor in the morning: “It’s a mercy. It really is the most merciful punishment he can give them. It’s awful, of course, but they could be dead. The traditional punishment for this is death by hanging. It’s technically treason.”
“It wouldn’t be treason in any other circ*mstance though,” Millie retorts. “Even having an extramarital affair isn’t punished like this.”
Yor has to speak here. “Breaking chastity laws gets you a month or two in jail, tops. And that’s if you get pregnant or somebody catches you. This is just cruel; what if it was their children up there?”
“I think it’s very clear that this is a warning.” Alessa twirls a lock of hair around her fingers. “Civil unrest is mounting; it has been for a while now. There’s more tension with the West, and I don’t know about you all, but things are not great in Tamaryba. My family is being sustained by the Selection support checks, which means that even the Twos and Threes are feeling the policy effects. If you ask me, this is a clear attempt to remind people that nobody is exempt from the law.”
“It’s scary. Cavi is seeing less and less betting on the matches too,” Kim says, “And I’m well aware that gambling is illegal, but Campbelldon has never really discouraged that. It’s dropping off so rapidly that I can’t tell if it’s money or more of a police presence in the province. I’m really worried for him…”
Alessa gives Kim a hug. “Aw, K, he’ll be fine. You know he will.”
“Thanks.”
Millie kicks her feet a little. “Is there anyone here who’s family doesn’t work in a non-essential industry? My dad was a jeweler before he died. Alessa and Kim are in sports and music. What about you, Fiona?”
Fiona sighs. “...I don’t know what my parents do.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. They never told me. They probably weren’t allowed.”
“Well, if you’re a Two, they have to be pretty high up in the military or politics,” Yor says. There are only so many jobs that won’t let a parent tell their child their occupation…
“Are they in the intelligence sector?”
Fiona nearly jumps. Yor can see it in the twitch of her shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know. You were a Seven, right? What did you do?”
What does she do? Assassination isn’t an answer. Sneaking around castles to defend the country isn’t an answer. Kissing fellow operatives in a dank underground tunnel on the pain of death because they’re honest and truthful and caring isn't the answer.
“Cleaning, mostly. I got called to clean houses and garden for Twos in the area. Some of the Three and Fours taught me nursing, so I did that too. We don’t really have a good hospital system in Eastern Nielsberg, so I delivered a lot of babies.”
It was half a stable job, and it was half atonement for the people she’d removed from the world. She could at least make bringing life into the world easier for the good people of Ostania.
“So between us, only Yor is essential to the function of society, and Fiona’s folks are…possibly necessary for national defense,” Millie summarizes. “Yeah, that’s a message alright. You know the media will crucify you, right?”
Yor nods. “I’m aware.”
“What? That’s totally unfair!” Kim protests. “You did nothing wrong!”
Yor touches the scar on her cheek. “Doesn’t matter. The King will cane them too.”
“It’s unfair.”
Fiona snorts. “There are Western countries where the press can say whatever they want, and the government can’t do a thing about it. What’d you think that’s like?”
“Both maddening and refreshing, I’m sure,” Alessa says. “But I think you should hold you head up high, Yor. Whatever the newscasters say, they can’t take away the ability to think independently. I bet a lot of people really do think you’re in the right, and if enough people believe that, who’s going to punish them? There’s only one King.”
“I’m seeing Loid tonight,” Yor says idly, thumbing at a ring on her index finger he gave her on a date.
Kim shoots up like she’s been electrocuted. “Alright. Here’s what we’re doing: Yor, we’re barring ourselves in the Sunroom, and the only objective of the day is to plan for your meeting and watch the broadcasts. We need to find out what people are saying, what you have to say to Loid, and how best to make sure he knows just what he did!”
“That’s unwise,” Fiona says, “As evil as it is, aggravating him won’t make this any easier.”
“He needs to know!”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“But it’s the right thing to do,” Yor whispers. She hasn’t done the right thing very often. Assassinating people isn’t the right thing to do to criminals. The right thing to do is to capture them and turn them over to the courts. “And I don’t know about you all, but I haven’t taken many opportunities to do the right thing. I think I’d like to start.”
Fiona looks her in the eyes. She even sweeps the long bangs from covering her right eye to look at her clearly. “It’s ill-advised, and I hope you know what this could mean for the country. The patriotism here–”
“I am a patriot, Fiona, and it’s because I love Ostania that I have to do this. I’m not going to leave my country as it is. I love it too much for that.” She loves Ostania enough to do the wrong thing over and over. She can do the right thing just this once.
“Okay,” Alessa says. “Let’s get over to the Sunroom. I have some ideas; Fiona, I need your makeup kit. Kim, do you still have those suit pants? The black ones.”
“And the shirt with the high collar? Sure do.”
“Perfect!”
The newscasts report what they expect. Yor hears the same three headlines from every major news outlet.
“Lady Briar is clearly violating the law by directly defying the King’s orders! This is tantamount to treason; how can she be out next Queen?”
“Well, Vincent, I can’t say I blame her, even if she’ll probably face her own punishment. It is her little brother up there. What sister wouldn’t protect him?”
“To put it simply, Lady Briar does not need any punishment. She disobeyed the law, and she’s received her own lashing. I think she’ll take herself out of the competition with that stunt.”
Millie does her eyeshadow. Kim lends her the outfit for the night, and Fiona supplies the heels. Alessa peels back the bandaid she applied after her clandestine assassination-slash-rendezvous to look at the stitches. “Geez, you heal fast.”
“I make my own salves. And it barely broke the skin.”
“It works either way,” Alessa says, tapping it with a blush and bronzer to make it all the more obvious. “Now get out there and knock his teeth out.”
Yor is a force. She catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the side of the hall near the hatch to the tunnel. Her eyes are accentuated again, but they’re darker now. Her collar is high, and the shirt is pure white. The slacks are wide-legged, and the heels are enough to make her imposing. Her shawl is the same as she wore this morning, and her scar (and it will scar) tears down the pale skin of her cheek in a fashion befitting the brutality that caused it.
She squares her shoulders. She has to do this.
-
She paces back and forth, back and forth, and it will probably send the super up to complain about the noise sooner or later, but she doesn’t care. Let them.
“Yor–” She stops pacing to stare him in the eyes, and where she’s apoplectic he’s apologetic. Doesn’t matter. She lets him close the door before she starts. She even grants him the courtesy of speaking first.
“You must know I had no intention of doing this. If I’d known, I would have happily let them go with no fuss. It was just–the newscasters caught them before we did, and appeasing–”
I rather think the problem is your definition of appeasem*nt includes whipping seventeen-year-old boys. Peace has been established!” she spits.
“It was the most mercy we could afford,” he retorts. “It was truly the least cruel punishment we could have given them after the news channels caught them together.”
Yor scoffs. She cannot believe this man. “Mercy? You call that mercy? That is not mercy!”
“I could have had them killed!” he shouts back.
“And you would have done them a favor!” she hisses, “Your ‘mercy’ is nothing short of evil. You beat a boy. You beat a child. You beat two teenagers to the point of unconsciousness and you want to speak to me about mercy? You know nothing of mercy!”
She paces again. She has to get away from him before she slaps him through the wall into the room of the man she killed.
“Would you prefer they were dead?” Loid’s temper is rising, and even he’s yelling.
“I would prefer you didn’t ensure they became destitute and unable to work!” she yells. “Do you know how much I sacrificed to ensure Yuri would have a good life? Do you know how hard it is to beat the odds when you are born a Seven? You know nothing. You have destroyed everything!”
“I can see to it that they–”
She grabs the nearest figurine and tosses it on the floor. It shatters. “You cannot see to anything! Money and security cannot fix what you did to them! This is not your father; this is not the country. This. Is. You. You could have stopped this. You could have taken that beating in Yuri’s place, like a real man should!”
His face twists into something horrendous. “You do not know the first thing about the politics of this situation.”
Yor turns to look at him, the scar on her cheek clearly visible. “Don’t I?” she asks in a voice like ice. “I know perfectly well what the politics of the situation are, and I do not care.”
“Maybe you should!”
“Why? So you can use me as a betting chip and then turn and beat my brother with no consequences?”
“Because I have the power to send you home! I have the cards here, Yor, and you’d do best to remember that your place here is contingent on my desire to keep you around! We both know you are only here because I say so, and not because you have any political value. I like you enough to keep you around, and that is the only reason you still are!”
Yor stares him in the face for a solid minute before she tugs off her shawl, folds it, and places it neatly over the arm of the couch. “You do not deserve what I have given you. I have given you everything, I have told you my secrets, I have listened for you, and I have looked for you. I have given you the pushes you needed to stand up to the people in power, and I watched, I rooted, I waited for you because I believed you could truly do it! I am the reason you are standing here today, and I will be damned before I let a man that I gave my all for tell me that my value is contingent on his anger. You think your anger matters here? You think I give a damn?”
She stalks up to him and says the next words in a whisper opposite to the tirade she’s been going on, hands that were previously moving furiously in time with her words deathly still. “You may not have held the whip, but you are the reason my little brother may never work again. You are lucky that I am showing you mercy and not committing regicide.”
“You should watch how you speak to your future King, Lady Briar.”
“My apologies, Your Highness, but I was unaware that a man who could not stand up to his father could ever be an effective King.”
“You want to call me ineffective? What have you done, Yor?” he roars. It’s impressive how soundproof this walls are.
She didn’t think she could lose more than she has, but oh, she can. “What have I done? I have been your helper; I have made suggestions. I have done what you cannot and talked back to my King–and I’m not dead yet, so your threats mean little.”
She takes in a large breath. “I have been your pawn is what I have done, and I cannot do that anymore. I have worked for you, I have been your friend and your lover, and you have used me like a chess piece. I cannot trust you; I do not even know you! You corner me against a wall, then you say it wasn’t true and you aren’t like that. You feed my people, and next you beat my brother. You fight me in private and you kiss me in public. I will not be your bargaining chip for the lower castes. I am worth more than that!”
“Yor, I don’t think you’re a–”
“Then prove it!” she spits. “Prove it, because you don’t just get to have me. You don’t get to have my love; I am not a free gift that comes with your purchase; I am earned.”
She grabs her shawl and heads for the door. He follows. “It’s not that I don’t care for you, you must know that. It’s that I have secrets; things I cannot tell you.”
“You will not win me over with that.”
“I wasn’t–Yor, I am bound by laws, laws which mean–”
“This isn’t about the law. It’s about us. I am not a possession.”
She gets ready to open the door, and she doesn’t feel a lick of sadness when she glares into those blue eyes. “You cannot buy and you cannot steal me. If you want me, earn me!"
