Gold Weaver | ✓

sechszehn

SECHSZEHN

I'd watched him work for most of the night.

I didn't trust my unconscious state, not with the reoccurring dreams of him. Not when he already knew of my tendency to sleep talk. And we both knew what hat led to.

As much as I craved, ached, burned for it— for him— I couldn't let it happen.

He'd got about a third of the ballroom floor done by the time the sun began to rise. Fitting, considering I had three nights to figure out his real name. It was a impulsive move, a thought that had only been triggered

When he turned to me, he looked haggard. Under eyes so dark they almost had a purplish tint and eyes drooping to the point I feared he'd fall asleep then and there.

I felt guilty.

I'd wondered what his limit was and I guessed I'd found it. Or had I? Despite it all, he still managed a small smirk.

"See you tonight, Eleanor," he said with a salute. "You have two more nights to figure out my name or you'll be mine."

Mad. He was mad. Crazy. A lunatic.

So tell me why his words made my heart soar. I shouldn't want to be owned. It was demeaning, possessive, disrespectful. And yet, it made me feel cared about. Other than Martha, no one ever really had, cared about me that is. And even Martha didn't in the way he did.

My father acted like he needed me as a prop. He acted like he needed me to breathe.

"And I will." Figure out his name? Or to being his? I let the question hang in my mind until it dissipated. Because for all of my faults, at least I admitted when there was something I didn't know.

.  .  .

Several hours later, following a supposed half an hour nap that had lasted six times that, I found myself wandering the halls. It seemed to be a favourite pastime of mine. I had to be the only one that could find the place that held me captive alluring, interesting even. It was like Stockholm Syndrome, only for the place itself.

I ventured to parts of the palace I'd never been. I needed answers— ones I was confident I would get. So, might as well say goodbye to the place that had housed me for the past few months.

It was lovely, yes, but a prison nonetheless.

A golden cage is still a cage.

I missed my home, sans my father.

I missed my family, that being Martha.

I missed waking up at a normal hour. I missed not having to be under constant surveillance. I missed not having to have someone else unlock my bedroom door. I missed the forest that encased our little village. Even if I would hardly be able to walk through it without remembering that day.

The day he'd got me to the ground, knocked me out without touching me to do so— I should have known from that alone, I realised— the forest he'd taken me away from to end up here.

I hated him. But that didn't stop me loving him any less.

I could've cried. Who up there controlling my life could be so cruel? I wondered if they found enjoyment out of watching me fall so completely and utterly for a man I knew I couldn't ever have. We were wrong. But we felt so right. It was a sick, twisted joke.