WARNING

The following chapter may be triggering to some readers. If you are bothered by it, you can simply skip the scene.

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       THIS WAS HER unravelling—he was unravelling the clothes from her body, the skin from her bones and everything that lay in between. He was taking her self-worth, her pride, her confidence, her strength and the power she had thought she possessed. He was taking everything from her, and she could do nothing but squirm under his touch and uselessly attempt to push him off.

       The silken material of the nightgown she wore was bunched up in the guard's fist as he lifted it. It travelled up past her hips, past her stomach, past her chest. The higher he lifted it, the more anguish Maarit was caused. With each tug, her heart died once again.

       His fingers were everywhere, entirely lacking the gentle caress of a lover. It was all violence, restraint and his hands pressing mauve marks onto her bronze skin.

       When his hands reached her underwear, he tugged them down. She pressed her thighs together with every bit of resolve still left in her, urging herself to keep them that way. He failed to pry them apart with one hand and pulled the other away from her mouth.

       She took the opportunity to scream again into the night, her voice reaching for the castle's inhabitants in the hope of drawing at least one from their oblivious slumber.

       Then she grabbed his face and tried to press her fingers into his eye sockets; he easily deflected the futile attempt and continued his pursuit of what he sought.

       As soon as he had pulled her legs apart, he positioned himself between them so that she could not close them again. To punish her for fighting back, the guard's hand wrapped around her throat, causing Maarit momentary suffocation. She choked and her muscles contracted. She clenched her fists together so tightly that her nails dug into her palms and deep, crescent-shaped marks formed.

       These simply added on to the numerous blemishes he had inflicted upon her body.

       Her neck was released just in time for her to emerge from the brink of unconsciousness. But it had been enough to weaken her more than ever.

       Then she felt pain—nothing but pain. It reddened the corners of her vision, as though her eyes themselves were bleeding. She wanted to scream, to hide, to have the strength to throw him off, and yet none of those were an option at all. All she could do was clench her fists until blood was drawn from her tender palms.

       Both moaned, one in pleasure and one in agony.

       On it continued and every part of Maarit was crying out for a saviour, including her eyes, which allowed a steady flow of teardrops to fall. She could not believe what was happening to her. She needed someone to wake her from this nightmare—this phantasmagoria of torment.

       Her toes curled and her bloody fingertips closed over the sheets. She gripped them, a dizzy spell rolling her eyes to the back of her head. Pants tumbled from her mouth like a river as he whispered obscene things to her in the dark.

       Then, very suddenly, he swore loudly, terminated his assault and scrambled off of her, leaving her throbbing and whimpering. She felt a wave of relief wash over her that he pain had disappeared. The relief mingled with anger, despondency, shame—and together, they formed a mosaic of fervent emotions.

       Though she was glad the one single most nightmarish moment of her life had ceased, she could not figure out why he had pulled away so rapidly. Only when the candles lining the walls ignited did she see that someone had thrown the door open.

       Standing in the doorway was King Theodoracius, looking as regal and awake as ever, with a bleary-eyed Alexander at his side. The king's eyes flitted from the guard who had been waiting to the one who had carried out the assault, and then finally to Maarit. She was naked from the waist down, but she had closed her legs.

       She felt shame burn the backs of her eyes. Even though the king averted his eyes from her body as quickly as they had fallen on her, she frantically reached for the duvet and covered herself.

       For a minute, there was no movement, nor was there sound, except for the whimpers that escaped Maarit's lips that she could not control due to the death her spirit had just died. She hated that she was lying on her back, crying out on the bed rather than being strong; but she was tired, sore and frozen with shock.

       Then she looked to King Theodoracius and saw that his hands were curled into fists, just as her own had been. His brown eyes were wide—not with shock, but with unexplained anger—and his eyebrows narrowed. Since Maarit had first met him, he had always been calm and collected. She had never seen him appear to be so plagued with raw fury.

       But why did it even matter to him?

       "Picard," King Theodoracius enunciated, "tie them up. Both of them."

       At first, Maarit's heart skipped a beat as she assumed he meant her, but Alexander knew exactly what his king meant. In an instant, he had Sergius and Obed restrained by invisible ropes.

       She should have been satisfied—at least partially—that he was being restrained a way similar to how he had just restrained her. Nevertheless, Maarit's trembling worsened a thousandfold; she hugged the duvet close to her chest, trying to warm her frosted heart. She had no energy—not even to lift her hands to her eyes and wipe away the tears. She saw everything through watery eyes. Strings of candlelight curled around her, obstructing her vision until she blinked quickly enough to clear it.

       King Theodoracius stepped towards the guard who had brutally murdered Maarit's soul. As the king drew closer, the man—who was both taller and bulkier—seemed as though he would have cowered away if it had not been for the invisible ropes.

       "Ah, Sergius, such nerve it must have taken to do such a thing right under your king's nose," Theodoracius stated, circling the guard.

       He then stopped in front of him and stepped forward, so close to him that their noses could have touched.

       "WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO WANDER ABOUT THE CASTLE AT NIGHT? WHAT GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR HANDS ON HER?" he bellowed, his eyes wild. He turned his attention away from Sergius and to the warlock, who no longer appeared tired. "Picard, my sword," he ordered, his sharp voice cutting the air.

       "Yes, Your Majesty."

       Alexander groped the air in front of him, whispered a spell and conjured the sword with the gleaming blame and ruby hilt that Maarit had held in her hands the day before. He swallowed, his throat bobbing, before falling to his knees and handing the sword to the king.

       King Theodoracius looked deadly with such a weapon in his hands and such wrath in his eyes.

       He was deadly.

       "I have no doubts you will be condemned to Hell," he spat at Sergius, gritting his pearly teeth.

       Theodoracius then expertly swung the sword, as though he had done so a million times before. The sharp blade met the guard's neck and sliced through his meaty flesh, spraying blood onto the monarch's face. As the sword cut through the last layer of skin, Sergius's head fell to the floor.

       An ominous thud filled the silence.

       The king did not stop there, for he stabbed the sword through the guard's head and lifted it. A sickening realization fell over Maarit as she realized the eyes and muscles in the face were still moving. Sergius could still see.

       Theodoracius turned the head, showing it the very body it had just been detached from—the body still stood, bound by invisible ropes.

       At last, he dropped the sword to the floor and wiped the blood from his cheek. Despite all of it, Maarit felt a certain sense of satisfaction. She had survived. She still had her head on her shoulders. He was the one who was dead, and he deserved it.

       Theodoracius turned to the other guard in the room, who had watched the whole decapitation unfold. That alone seemed to be punishment for him.

       "If you dare to put your hands on her, you will meet the same fate," he hissed at Obed. "Get out. Now."

       Obed scurried away, past Alexander and through the open door. In the room remained four bodies, but only three still breathed. There was a silence, during which no one knew just what the correct thing to say was. Maarit looked away from the dead body, pressing her thighs together again. Though she tried to keep them from coming, unpleasant remembrances inundated her senses.

       Without warning, Maarit's stomach lurched.

       She immediately jumped up from the bed, ran through the door to the bathroom, fell to her knees and, retching, emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor.