Chapter Text
Their bloodsoaked enemy crouched before them and smiled with crimson-lined teeth. “Don’t worry, darling. When you lose this battle, I’ll take you as my rightful bounty, and you’ll be plenty comfortable warming my bed. Doesn’t that sound better than dying out here with the rest of your men?”
***
That's what Empress Callista said, but it had been almost six months since the violent usurpation of General Vorrin's kingdom, as well as his humiliating reduction to a war prize, and she seemed to have forgotten all about him.
Of course, he was still layered in silks and satins and bathed in rose water daily, and someone had to be giving the order to feed him, escort him, and search him for weapons every time he left a room, but he had yet to see the empress at any distance closer than a balcony’s view.
Ridiculous. Why did he have a balcony? Why did he have any of this? He wasn't nobility. For the last 15 years, ever since he was a squire, he'd lived in the barracks. And even if the rooms got nicer with the rising of his station, they never compared to anything like this.
Did Empress Callista expect him to be flattered? Or was she aware of how humiliating this situation was? He really couldn't tell.
This morning, like every morning, he stood by the balcony's glass-paned door and watched the latest group of troublemakers being marched to the gallows. They were a mix of classes: nobles, soldiers, commoners. As expected, when their crimes were read, they were all there for a variety of reasons, looting, assault, disloyalty to the crown; the misconducts blended together after a while.
He pulled his bedsheets closer around him, forcing himself to watch each and every death. This was his responsibility. Maybe some of these deaths were justified, but he couldn't help but that think that none of it would have happened if he had just won that battle. If they'd held out just a little longer for reinforcements, if he hadn't caved to end the bloodshed, if he hadn't defected...everything might be ok.
A heavy knock on his bedroom door shook him back to a present, and a couple seconds later his pair of manservants cautiously pushed inside. One held a tray of steaming breakfast and the other today's outfit. They'd introduced themselves upon their first meeting, but Vorrin had been a little too distressed to commit them to memory. After the first few days, he'd come up with nicknames--the little one Pins and the lanky one Switch--thinking they would correct him, but instead, they began responding to them. The power of nobility was disturbing and should not be taken lightly.
"You're bed!" Switch exclaimed, clapping the tray on the table and surveying the sheet trailed across the floor disapprovingly. He picked up the end between his thumb and forefinger and tutted lightly. "Now we'll have to wash these."
Vorrin simply shed the sheet from his shoulders and seated himself stiffly in front of his tray.
Switch stared at him for a solid five seconds before his narrowed and his teeth clenched. "Where. Are. Your. Clothes?"
"Probably in the hound kennels as a chew toy by now."
Switch strode outside with a bang of double doors and throughly searched the ground below the balcony.
"You can't keep throwing things away!" he cried upon finding nothing.
Vorrin skewered a sausage on his fork and took a large, tasteless bite. "I can't?"
"Do you know how expensive the fabrics for those night clothes are? You're costing people food every time you're sewn a new one."
Vorrin did feel a little bad about that. He knew firsthand how it felt to go hungry at the whims of those stationed above him. But he still found himself stubbornly responding,
"I suppose I'll have nothing to wear to the empress's chambers tonight. I might as well stay here."
Switch caught on quickly, and he looked even more unimpressed now. "If that's what you're trying with this then it's pointless. She'd sooner have you wrapped in a sheet than let you disobey her orders."
"For what?" Vorrin slammed his fists on the table, causing the tray to clank and both boys to flinch. "I haven't seen her since she brought me here! What's the point of bringing me to those rooms every week when she doesn't even go there herself? Is this some sort of mind game? Keeping me on edge, seeing how far I can be stretched before I break?"
Switch opened and closed his mouth dumbly. He obviously didn't have the answers to those questions; he was only doing what his sovereign ordered. Now Vorrin really felt bad.
"Well, it's a good thing I brought these!" Pins said, holding the newest combination of robes over his head so he wouldn't trip as he scurried to the bed. He was the sort of boy that Vorrin would've like to squire. Not because he looked like he'd have any knack for fighting, but because of his unshakeable positive attitude and his openness to learn. "Would you like to get dressed now, Noble Consort?"
Vorrin finished the rest of the sausage and downed a glass of current berry wine before standing up and allowing the robes to be wrapped around him layer by layer. It had been strange at first letting someone else dress him, but by this point, he'd realized that it was more awkward making the manservants stand to the side and watch than it was to simply let them do their jobs. Besides, these robes were ridiculously hard to tie. What he wouldn't give for a simple tunic and trousers.
"I'm sorry, Switch," Vorrin said as Pins crisscrossed the tie around his waist. "I didn't mean to take it out on you. Would you like some food?"
"That's consort food," he grumbled. "I'm not allowed to eat that."
"Unless given express permission, which I am giving."
As Pins finished binding the hanging ties on the arms that kept his sleeves from getting caught on anything and everything, Vorrin caught both servants' shoulders and pushed them down into seats.
"Just eat. I'm not hungry."
Eventually, they complied, one more reluctantly than the other, and Vorrin looked out the glass once again. Just in time to see the bodies carted away.
***
Vorrin wanted to sleep. Though to be fair, that's really all he wanted to do these days. For some reason, he was forced into a lot of walks and useless activities, so the fall of evening, when he could finally be alone and unconscious was something he looked forward to. Except for the once-a-week that he was marched off to the empress's chambers.
The first few times he had been on edge, but now it was just an inconvenience. He had to be bathed, dressed, and ornamented in a very particular way before he was marched all the way to the opposite wing of the palace where he was searched a little too thoroughly for weapons. Then he was let into an empty room, forced to stay awake until a certain hour and then he tossed and turned in the bloodstained bed of a tyrant for several hours until he finally dozed off, only to be awoken at the crack of dawn to be cleared out before Empress Callista's breakfast. If that wasn't enough, he wasn't even allowed to return to his own bed. They made him get dressed and wander around in a tired fog all morning.
It was entirely pointless. If Empress Callista had lost interest already, the least she could do was let him join his men in the dungeon.
"What weapon could I have hidden between here and my bedroom?" Vorrin snapped, as the empress's guards finished searching his person. He tore out of their bruising grip and stumbled through the double doors into the dimly lit chamber, turning back to shout, "And who would I even use it on?" before slamming the doors shut.
He wanted to sleep. He didn't care if they peeked in later and forced him awake once again for their ridiculous, 'wait for the empress ceremony.' He was tired. Tired of this place, tired of this position, tired of himself.
He flopped down onto the enormous bed and kicked under the cool silken covers.
“I hear you feel neglected.”
The familiar voice sent a shiver down Vorrin's spine. He jolted upright, noticing for the first time the figure leaned back in one of the room's cushioned chairs, long and shadowed.
She stretched and rose into the candlelight. Long dark hair was pull tight behind her shoulders, exposing that predatorial glimmer in her amber eyes. A side smile revealed the filed point of one canine.
"What are you doing here?" Vorrin said, backing up pathetically against the bedframe. He hadn’t realized until those moment how closely he associated that face with his memories of death and downfall.
Empress Callista raised one eyebrow. "This is my room."
"But you're never here!"
“My apologies, darling, but I’ve been a little busy setting up overseers for the rebuilding, quelching uprisings, assuring foreign allies that the kingdom relations aren’t about to change, and figuring out how to keep all the citizens fed. Not to mention executions, audiences, and public appearances. I also thought you might need a moment. To adjust.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and twined one of his hands, newly healed from their years of callouses, in hers.
Vorrin forced himself steady. He wanted to spit something scathing, but all that came out was. “You’re rebuilding the city?”
“What did you expect me to do? Turn it to rubble and gloat? As much as your little king may have wanted to you think otherwise, I didn’t come to destroy your kingdom, I came to rule it. And from what I could see from the other side of the border, it was in great need of being ruled.”
Her thumb idly rubbed up and down his knuckle, and he shivered.
“Ok. You wanted to rule. Why did you choose me? You could have done this whole thing peacefully with a marriage alliance. Why did you throw a siege and take a simple general for a prize? Even if you wanted more power, taking the king would have gone over better.”
“First of all, disgusting.” The bridge of Empress Callista’s nose wrinkled and her lip curled even further from her pointed canines. “That imbecilic goblin had his chance with this land, and I’m not about to sacrifice my life to help him out. Second, I had spies infiltrate your ranks several months before my first attack. And they all agreed that the majority of military subjects trusted you more than their king. Taking you captive was the best way to get your troops to surrender. Taking you as a consort should be the best way to transfer their loyalties smoothly.”
Vorrin’s mouth went dry. This had to be some sort of mistake. She was thinking of someone else, and as soon as that was cleared up, it would be to the dungeons with him. The king might have been…occasionally problematic, but he wasn’t that bad.
“That can’t be true.”
Empress Callista shrugged. “Whether you believe it or not, that is the truth. You’re king never surrendered. He put his pride above his people’s lives. Your men gave in because they lost you.”
“Because they had no hope left!”
“Because they trusted you,” Empress Callista said, suddenly sweeping forward. Her hands cupped either side of his face, gentle except for the wicked prick of her nails digging into his cheekbones. “And they were right to do so. Since I took power, taxes have been lowered, food production as increased by a small percentage, and the corrupt nobles leeching off the people they’ve sworn to protect have been eliminated. And that’s only in the first six months. Imagine what I can do in twice that time. I may even be able to reintroduce your soldiers. You may have noticed that I haven’t executed any yet.”
Vorrin ripped away, and rather than letting her nails rake through his flesh, Empress Callista simply released him. His shoulder slammed against the bed frame with a loud thud.
“Even if you are improving things that doesn’t change the fact you overthrew a kingdom!” he cried. “That your soldiers killed my men and sent the entire nation’s world into a disarray by taking away our ruler. You’re not a savior! You’re a viper that didn’t bite as hard as it could have.”
“I am what I am,” Empress Callista said with a shrug. “I don’t expect you to understand it, but perhaps you will come to accept it.”
With that she crawled over to the other side of the bed and slid under the covers beside him.
“Get your rest, dear,” she said, yawning and patting his cheek. “We’re going to be doing a lot more together from here on out.”
Her head plopped onto one of the plush pillows, and Vorrin was left staring at the pale contour of her neck. He had no weapons on him, but they couldn’t take away his strength. These last six months had left him slightly softer than he was used to, but surely he still had the power to strangle. Especially if he used one of these sheets as an aid.
He shifted a little as he took the edge of the blanket in his clammy fists.
“Don’t even try it, darling,” Empress Callista said without lifting her head. “I think we both know who’s stronger.”
Vorrin jolted and dropped the blanket back in his lap. A piece of him chastised his hesitance, urging him to press on, but deep down he knew she was right.
In the end, he rolled the other direction and fell into restless sleep.