Jacqueline

Everything was so bright.

I couldn't endure another moment of the bright sun hitting my eyes.

I closed my eyes and tightened my hands around the base of the saddle. Thankfully, Gabriel had given up his horse – mostly because I couldn't stand on my own let alone walk – and offered to walk me all the way back to the River Rohan. I had protested – well, as best as I could without the ability to talk.

My throat hurt with the strain. I wanted to scream at them, I wanted to scream at the world. I wanted to thank them for getting me out of that damned cave. I wanted to...

There was so much I wanted to say and now would never get the chance too.

I glanced down at Gabriel who kept turning back to check on me every ten seconds - like clockwork.

There was so much I wanted to say, but now more than ever I wanted to scream at him the most. I wanted to scream at him every time he looked at me with pity in his eyes. It made me sick.

And angry.

Gods I was so angry.

At him.

At the man who had tortured me.

At Demetri for killing him too quickly.

At myself for being such a stupid fool.

At the King for putting me in that situation.

At the girl who had bought the King to the convent.

At the world.

At the damn gods for their wicked sense of humor.

At the way my body ached with every movement.

At the silence I would forever live in.

At the fact that it hurt so much to swallow that I still haven't managed to eat even though both Gabriel and Demetir kept pushing food in front of me. They thought at first that I was being picky, that I didn't like the fresh game they caught, or the barriers they had picked for me. But really, I was trying. The little food I did manage to swallow came back up within hours, the force of being sick hurt more than it used too.

The gates of Rohan parted as their Lord approached and I felt that same sickness wash over me once again. I was going to hurl.

I remembered the first time I had walked through these gates. A girl of sixteen, still growing into my woman's body. And gods, I was so excited. As if working in the holdfast would be the greatest adventure.

Adventure. I had been so naive.

The horses stilled by the stables and Gabriel tied his stallion to a post. He turned to me then, giving me his full attention. His brown eyes, once so familiar, now belonged to a stranger. He offered me a hand – I flinched away.

Hurt flashed in his eyes, momentarily taken over the pity that had been in his eyes since he found me in that cave.

Pity. I hated it. Hated it more than I ever thought I could hate something. It made me want to scream, made me want to show him I wasn't some broken girl for him to pity. It made me vengeful.

He pulled his hand back and gestured for me to follow him.

I pulled Gabriel's cloak tighter around me trying to keep out the nip of the cold winter wind. It smelled like him. Like fresh snow and warm bread fresh out of the oven. It reminded me of a time where I had gotten lost in that smell. Reminded me of the day I had first smelt him, the way he had looked at me and really saw me and not just some serving girl, tripping over her feet as she served him his lunch. He had asked me to stay, to sit with him and entertain him while he ate – I didn't protest.

Stupid, foolish me never denied him anything.

We walked slowly.

So very slowly.

I knew they were waiting for me, never walking too far ahead just in case my legs finally gave out and fell, and I suppose I should be thankful for the kindness. But I wasn't.

Gabriel opened the door to the infirmary where the Physician was waiting and followed me into the room.

Demetri stayed outside. His head bowed down in shame and his eyes far more haunted than they should be.

If I had been the innocent farm girl that I once was, I wouldn't have seen it. I would have missed the tense, heavy shoulders, the way his eyes dulled and the way his skin still lacked the colour it should.

I wonder if he knew he looked just as bad as me.

I wonder if he knew he looked like a walking corpse.

Death had already claimed me.

Perhaps Death had claimed him too.

Perhaps I wasn't the only one who had walked through hell and lost everything I thought I had.

The door closed and I left all thoughts of the haunted shadow knight behind it. I turned to see a young man staring at me.

"This is Martian. Second best physician in the continent, bested only by Kodak himself." Gabriel pronounced proudly as if it meant anything to me. I was past the help of any physician - even I knew that. If my wounds had been infected, I would be dead come morning and no amount of tonics could stop that.

Martian looked ill at the sight of me.

I didn't blame him.

I hadn't had the chance to look at myself in the mirror for months now. The monster in the cave who had kept me looked at me like I was some trophy. He examined my wounds as if the were the rarest jewell and I, their keeper. The thought alone made the bile rise up in my throat.

But when Gabriel and Demetri had found me, and looked at me...

Well, I knew then how bad it must have been. Two men who had witnessed so much bloodshed, had their lives threatened at every turn and who no doubt had seen some very gruesome things, had looked at me like I was the worst of them all.

And I hated that.

I doubt the sister's in the convent would approve of me now. Out of all of the emotions running through my blood - the pity, the mourning, the crippling sadness, the depression - all of them were silenced by the gut-wrenching anger that was boiling within me, that wanted nothing more than to unleash itself on the nearest person possible.

I was vengeful. So damned vengeful and there was nothing I could do relieve the pressure.

The man who had tortured me was dead - too quickly if you asked me - and the man who had sold me to him was a King, with an army and utterly untouchable by me.

I wondered for a moment if that girl I met survived? If, like me, she was sold to a monster to be broken?

What was her name again?

Funny, how I couldn't even remember. I don't even think I remember what she looked like. But her voice maybe, yes, I remembered her voice. Soft and sweet when she spoke to me, but there was sharp edge to it that I dare say knew how to slice. Controlled. Concise. The voice of someone who knew the weight her words might hold.

"If you don't mind mi-lord," Martian began as he gestured towards Gabriel. "I think this might be best done in private."

Gabriel hesitated, his gaze sliding towards me in question.

I didn't bother to answer, instead turning my attention to Martian.

There were near silent footsteps on the stone floor, and like that, I was alone with Martian and nurse maid.

"Silvia," Martian began ordering the young nurse maid - barley fifteen. "Could you help Jacqueline bath while I prepare some tonics?"

Silvia muttered her response and quickly rushed for some boiling water, adding it to a bowl of cooler water. It was only meat to be just that, a large bath bowl, but in my current state, I dare say it work as a tub.

Silvia seemed to have the same idea as she offered me her hand and asked me to step inside it. I didn't take her hand. I wasn't that pathetic. I wouldn't let myself be.

I had done enough mourning. Shed enough tears in that gods-forsaken cell next to a rooting corpse, I would not mourn now that I had a chance.

Even if I didn't yet know what that chance was, or what it entailed. Only that it was here, and I would be a gods-damned fool if I didn't take it with both hands and squeeze it for everything it was worth.

I kneeled in the tub, the swollen wood groaning and hard against my boney knees. Silvia was gentle, her hands soft from coddling babies all day. She washed my skin, carful not to rip my already torn skin. She ran the water down my back, the gashes from the whipping I received when I first arrived at the cave stung. Months later and still their healing was not complete. My body had all but shut down from lack of food, water, and all the beatings I received. It no longer wanted to waste energy on healing, it didn't dare waste energy on monthly bleedings, and it had long ago decided that sleep would cure everything.

The water below me turned black with dirt, dust and mud...

And blood. I didn't even know so much blood could still sweep out of the raw wounds. I didn't think it were even possible to still have so much blood in my body.

"Careful." Silvia warned me as she offered her hand for me to step out of the tub. This time, I took it. My head spun and my vision was shaky at best. Too much blood. I had lost too much blood.

Silvia helped me out and wrapped a large towel around me, her arms rubbing at my arms to dry me and keep me warm. The air was a brisk cold around us, typical of a winter in Rohan. I let Silvia dry my body and help me into some underclothes to hide my the femininity of my body from the physician - not that there was much to hide anymore.

I could feel my bones through my skin. As if the bones were about take over the outside of my body and my skin wrap around my organs like a cocoon. My body felt delicate and warn and very, very breakable.

I turned my head slightly and saw the reflection of my naked body in the mirror. It was horrid sight.

I was once pretty. My body curvy, my skin sun-kissed, my hair full of colour and kinking at the ends. My eyes once twinkled and my smile made it easier to grab anyone's attention. But now... Now I didn't even recognize myself. My body was nothing but bones. My once plump breast were now flat and non-existent. My skin was so pale. My hair dual and covered in dirt and dust.

I had to look away.

By the time I was decently covered, Gabriel had stepped back into the room. Silvia helped me sit on the examination table and despite Martian's displeasure at seeing the Lord disobeying him, he began to check me over.

The man worked silently which I was grateful for. Never once did he look at me pityingly, or even as me if something hurt. He just analysed my wounds and began patching me up like a ripped quilt. He skipped over my face, leaving that till last and instead looked straight to my shoulders. Working from front to back. I had a few grazes on my arms, bloodied knuckles from my attempts to get out when i was first taken. He added some slave to them and wrapped small strips of cotton over them to act as a bandage - Rohan must be low on medical supplies since my bandages looked more like bits of ripped shirts.

He moved down then, examining my still tender ribs and the deep bruises that coloured them. They had made it so difficult to breath for weeks, so difficult in fact, that I had stopped breathing. Sometimes, I would start again on my own as if my body had somehow just realised that it had stopped and took a gulp of air. And other times, when the pain from the beating had pressed so hard against my chest that I couldn't will the air into my lungs, it had stopped and my body had no intention of ever starting again.

I still remembered the moment of peace. The moment my eyes drifted, flickering from the darkness of the cell to the light beyond. A hand had reached for me, soft and steady. Ready to take away all the pain and save me from the darkness. I had reached back.

But as my lungs collapsed without air, as my hand brushed against the stranger bathed in light, compressions on my chest would start. Hard and rough over my chest. The pressure sometimes made my body ache. But the air would rush back to me, my breathing would start again and the light would leave me as I fell back into the darkness of my cell. The pain returned and when I managed to open my eyes, I saw the shadow of the man standing over me, his hands on my chest, bringing me back from the dead.

He wasn't done with me. And I wasn't allowed to die a moment before he wanted me too. I stopped counting how many times I had died in that cell. I also had started to consider that this was the after life, that I never made it out of the cell and I was now cursed to live amongst bad dreams for the rest eternity.

As Martian moved to examine the marks on my back, my eyes fell on Gabriel.

I still remembered the way those eyes had looked at me. Hungry with desire, as if he were a man dying of thirst and I was last drop of water on earth. I missed it. I mourned it. I was no longer the girl he stared at with that hunger, I would never be her again. Instead, all I got was pity. I was the girl who would forever remind him of his mistakes, for the power the King will forever hold over him. A remind that he is weak.

It made me sick.

I turned my eyes away from him. Never again would I call him my lover.

"I need you to open your mouth for me dear." Martian spoke his first words to me in what felt like hours. My back was fully patched up, and now...

Now I could no longer hide the biggest brutalisation. The cuts on along my cheekbones were cleaned and needed no stitching, but they were deep enough to leave a scar. I tried to swallow but I was still learning to swallow, eat, and even drink without my tongue. It was still so foreign.

 I tired my hardest to bit back the tears, but still, the warmth of the stray tear drops were a reminder that I was hopeless when it came to self control. But that was how I got into this in the first place. I couldn't control myself when the Lord of Rohan winked at me and offered me a place in his bed. Despite the risks, despite that my father or betrothed would sell me to a whore house the moment they found out I was already warming a mans bed. I still agreed, multiple times. I couldn't control myself when anger got the better of me and I screamed at my betrothed I was already ruined. The life I threw away in that moment had been good, safe and secure. I had been a fool. Gabriel had bought me from them. He said he loved me. And I believed him.

But, when we lay in bed that night before the King arrived on his way West, when Gabriel had accidentally called the King brother, had let the truth slip from his lips... I couldn't control myself. Or my actions. I wanted the world to know what a rat-bastard the Reaper King and his family was. I wanted them to pay. But instead, I had paid.

And this was the cost of my lack of self control. Of my untamed anger and my foolishness.

If I had of just said no, if I had of just walked away when Gabriel winked at me...

I sometimes imagined that life. On a farm with my betrothed - He was a kind man, he deserved far better than they ungrateful rotten fruit I was. Two children running around my ankles and a few hounds. Yes, that was the life I gave up. And for what?

That thought hurt more than any blow, hurt more than my missing tongue, and hurt more than losing the man I thought I loved.

Regret.

I didn't bother to push the thought away as I opened my mouth for Martian to examine. I knew it wasn't a clean cut. I had fought so hard against the chains and leathers that had bound me to the table as that man leaned over me and started cutting. I had thrashed back and forth, trying so hard to get free as the blood ran down my throat and I started to chock on it. He had only cut a small amount. Then he would stop. He would let me drown and chock on my own blood. And then, when I could finally breath again, when I was no longer drowning and could finally register what he had done and how my tongue hung awkwardly in my mouth, he had started cutting again.

He paused three times to drag out the pain, to let me gag on my own blood.

Martian pulled back and started rummaging through his tonics. "There is a bit of irritation there and I am a little concerned about infection so I want you take this." He handed me a glass vile. "I'll have one bought to you every morning and night for the next few weeks until I am satisfied."

I nodded accepting his diagnosis.

"I have also made you a sleeping draft. I think its best if you take it for a little while." He passed me another vile.

I wanted to thank him for helping me. To tell him that I appreciated the lack of pity in his eyes and to commend Silvia for her gentle compassion...

But, I couldn't.

And I never would be able to again.

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