Sweet Innocence and Gentle Sin || 𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑

Chapter 17: Everything Has Changed

I was born sick, But I love it, Command me to be well.

~)(~

They set our camp up on the opposite side of the mountain range between where the keep was. It would be days before anyone could reach us. The trees provided much-needed shade from the blistering heat the sun brought down. By now, it was nearing sunset, and the pyres were being prepared.

Upon my arrival, a day after the horrors, I was left alone in a fairly large tent. The commotion outside was drowned out by the ripping of my dress. I couldn't bother to peel it carefully.

I ripped my way out of the bodice and threw the petticoats to a pile of sighing white, which Nalia shoved into a little box. She helped untie me from the squeezing corset, which was laced too tight for any woman to wear for extended periods. As soon as it was gone, I could take a deep and much-needed breath.

That dress had squeezed my body well over twenty-four hours. Everything ached with relief when it was finally ripped away from me.

There was a bucket of lukewarm water and a rag, which Nalia used to wash away any dirt and blood that might have found its way onto me. There were even some splotches of that sticky wine on my fingers. And the splattered blood from when Theorin found a knife in his hand—and the reddened knuckles from when I punched the High Lord.

There was a chest of clothes waiting for me at the end of the bed. It was mostly dresses, but there were a few pants and shirts. I wondered who packed this, because I was quite positive a male wouldn't know what undergarments to pack for a female... probably Miryam, if anyone.

But that was a question never to be asked. Instead, I thanked the Mother for it and let Nalia put me in a simple sage dress with elbow-length sleeves. While she tied the strings in the back, I looked at myself in the rectangular mirror that sat on the desk—only large enough to show the upper part of my body.

In twenty-four hours, I almost married, then ran from the venue, still in my wedding gown. I punched a High Lord in the jaw, hit a guard so hard that he passed out, and watched a healer remove a dagger from my handmaid's leg.

I could never find a day of peace. That wasn't possible for me. It had to be the price I paid because I was lucky enough to live in such a royal family. With such a lucky bloodline. One I must give heirs to if I am to be successful in my life. It was all stupid.

I wanted to scream at the Mother, wanted to scream at any god that still existed and held power. They were horrible for everything that they had done to me. Why me?

No child should ever watch their mother's head get bashed in—no child should watch their father choke himself from a hanging tree. And no child should have to hear their uncle tell them they were betrothed to marry a man they had never met.

I was a child—I still sometimes feel like one. A girl who never experienced the joys of life beyond stone walls, forced into an arranged marriage with someone as vicious as a snake. Forced to kill before she could be assaulted, forced to allow herself to get taken again and again to a prison cell.

I was chasing after a reward that always took two steps away from me when I took one. I was never given what I should've had from the start. Not that I deserved it, but every other child got it—and I didn't. So many didn't. How was that considered fair?

I shook my head to get myself out of that foggy thinking and took a deep breath. It wasn't like my entire life was over now—I still had centuries in front of me. I could only hope it would all get better after this war. That's what everyone thought.