The cold marble pressed into his knees through the thin silk of Pond's robe. The fabric was damp now—damp with sweat, damp with blood, damp with the water from the bath Clove had drawn for him, hours or a lifetime ago. Two sets of hands gripped his arms, fingers digging into the meat of his biceps, holding him in place like an animal brought to slaughter.
The East corridor stretched long and narrow in the dim lamplight. The crimson silk wall panels rustled with each breath, with each tremor that ran through the guards' hands. A few feet away, Lord Tarven stood—broad-shouldered, bearded, his wolf's-head sigil glinting on his chest, his eyes a flat, pale grey that held no warmth, no light, no mercy.
"Well, well," Tarven said, and his voice was slow and heavy, like stones grinding together. "The empress. On his knees. What a pretty picture."
Phuwin's jaw tightened. He could feel the cut on his hand still bleeding, the blood dripping from his fingers onto the marble, pooling in the cracks between the stones. The ceremonial sword had been torn from his grip somewhere in the struggle—he'd heard it clatter against the wall, heard it slide across the floor and come to rest against a tapestry. It was too far to reach now.
He looked up at Tarven's face—the thick jaw, the scar above his left eyebrow, the cruel set of his mouth—and he felt something rise in his chest. Not fear. Not pleading. Something colder.
He gathered the saliva in his mouth, thick and metallic with blood, and he spat.
The spittle landed on Tarven's cheek—a wet, gleaming smear running down toward his beard.
Time stopped.
Tarven's smirk vanished. His face went still, empty, like a door slamming shut. He raised one hand and touched the wet spot on his cheek, looked at his own fingers as if confirming what had happened, and then his eyes found Phuwin's again.
"You," he said quietly, "will regret that."
The backhand came before Phuwin could brace for it. A sharp, ringing crack that snapped his head to the side. The pain exploded across his cheekbone, white-hot and spreading. His ears rang, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the world for a moment, and he tasted fresh blood—warm, salty, filling his mouth from a split lip or a cut inside his cheek.
He swayed, the guards' hands the only thing keeping him upright. The marble floor swam into his vision, blurred and distant. He blinked, forced the world back into focus.
Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head back.
His cheek throbbed. The taste of blood was thick on his tongue. But he looked at Tarven, and he held his gaze, and he let the defiance burn in his eyes because it was all he had left.
Tarven's expression shifted—a flicker of something, perhaps grudging respect, perhaps darker pleasure. "Brave," he said. "I'll give you that. But bravery doesn't change what comes next."
Phuwin said nothing. He stared at the man who had plotted against him for years—the man who had drawn pictures of his naked body, who had gathered information about his schedule, who had bribed his own guards and opened the palace gates—and he felt the weight of the corridor pressing in on him.
Then his gaze drifted, just a fraction, past Tarven's shoulder.
And he saw them.
At the far end of the corridor, where the lamplight pooled in a dim orange circle, two small figures stood frozen. They wore torn dresses—pale blue for Ovoale, lavender for Xiana—and their long black hair was tangled and wild. Scratches crossed their bare arms, thin red lines that caught the light. Their faces were streaked with tears.
Ovoale's hand gripped Xiana's. Xiana's other hand was pressed over her mouth, her dark eyes enormous, fixed on the scene before her.
They had followed him. They had come looking for him. They had found this.
Phuwin's breath caught. The air left his lungs and didn't return. He stared at his daughters—his middle child and his youngest—and the world narrowed to the sight of their faces, their tears, their trembling bodies.
No. No, no, no.
Tarven followed his gaze. He turned his head slowly, deliberately, and when he saw the two small figures at the end of the corridor, a grin spread across his face—wide, ugly, triumphant.
"Oh," he said, and the word was thick with pleasure. "They've come to watch."
Phuwin's throat closed. He shook his head, a small frantic motion. "No—don't—take them away—"
Tarven ignored him. He raised his voice, loud enough to carry down the corridor. "Let them watch, princess. Let them see who you belong to now."
Phuwin struggled—twisted against the guards' grip, his bare feet scraping against the marble, his blood slicking the floor beneath him. But the guards held fast. Their hands were iron, their strength absolute. He wasn't going anywhere.
Tarven stepped closer. He reached down and grabbed the front of the damp robe—Pond's robe—and yanked it open. The silk tore, the sound loud and brutal in the quiet corridor. The cool air hit Phuwin's skin, and he heard one of his daughters make a small, high sound, a whimper that cut through everything.
Xiana. That was Xiana.
Phuwin opened his mouth to call to them—to tell them to run, to close their eyes, to not watch—but Tarven's hand was in his hair, yanking his head back, and the words died in his throat.
He felt hands on his hips, rough and ungentle. He felt the pressure of a body behind him, the heat of it, the heavy breath against his ear. He squeezed his eyes shut—but then he opened them again, because he had to see his daughters, had to know if they were still watching, still frozen at the end of the corridor.
They were. Ovoale had her hand pressed over Xiana's eyes now. But Ovoale was still watching. Her face was white, her lips trembling, her brown eyes fixed on her mother.
Tarven shoved him forward onto his hands. The marble scraped Phuwin's palms, the torn silk bunching around his waist. He heard the rustle of fabric, the clink of a belt buckle, and then there was nothing but the cold floor beneath him and the weight of the man behind him and the unbearable pressure of his daughters' gaze.
When Tarven forced himself inside, Phuwin screamed.
It was not a scream of pain—though the pain was there, sharp and tearing, a violation that split him open. It was not a scream of fear—though the fear was there, a cold terror that had settled into his bones. It was a scream of something worse, something deeper, something that cracked the world open from the inside.
It was a scream because his daughters were watching.
The sound echoed down the corridor, bouncing off the marble walls, off the silk panels, off the faces of his children. It seemed to hang in the air, a physical thing, a wound made audible.
Phuwin watched Ovoale's face crumple. He watched Xiana's small body shake beneath her sister's hand. He watched the tears streak down their cheeks, watched their mouths open in matching cries that he couldn't hear over his own.
And then Ovoale grabbed Xiana's hand, pulled her sister close, and they turned.
They ran.
Their small footsteps pounded against the marble—fast, desperate, the sound of children fleeing a nightmare. The pat-pat-pat of bare or slippered feet, fading, growing distant, swallowed by the dark of the corridor.
Phuwin's scream broke into a sob. He reached out a hand—his bloody, cut hand—toward the empty space where they had been, as if he could pull them back, undo what they had seen.
"Go," he whispered. "Go. Run."
But they were already gone.
Behind him, Tarven laughed—a low, grinding sound, full of satisfaction. "They'll be back," he said, his breath hot against Phuwin's ear. "Children always come back for their mothers."
Phuwin let his head drop onto the cold marble. The stone was hard against his cheek, against his split lip, against the bruise already forming from Tarven's slap. He could taste blood, could feel his body shaking, could hear the wet sounds of Tarven's movement and the guards' breathing and the distant, fading echo of his daughters' footsteps.
Ovoale. Xiana.
They had seen him broken. They had seen him taken. They had seen their mother—their empress—on his hands and knees, being used like a thing, like chattel, like a body with no history and no name and no will of its own.
And there was nothing he could do.
The beeswax smell rose from the walls, mixing with the sharp copper of fresh blood. The incense from the nearby altar—jasmine, sandalwood, a hint of clove—drifted through the air, as if the palace itself were trying to mask what was happening in its corridors.
Phuwin closed his eyes.
And somewhere in the great dark of the palace, his daughters kept running, and their footsteps faded into silence, and the corridor stretched on and on, empty and cold and full of the sound of a mother screaming.
He kept his eyes closed.
The marble was cold against his cheek. Cold against his torn lip. Cold against the raw, pulsing heat of the bruise that was already spreading across his face. He focused on that cold—let it anchor him, let it pull him away from what was happening to his body, what was happening inside his body, the wet, rhythmic intrusion that he could not stop and could not escape and could not pretend was not real.
He counted his daughters' names.
Imaria. Ovoale. Xiana. Lirien. Lunara.
He said them in his head, one after another, a litany against the dark. Imaria, who was brave and sharp and carried a dagger her father gave her. Ovoale, who laughed too loud and talked too fast and watched everything. Xiana, who spoke rarely and precisely and still reached for his hand in the night. Lirien, the baby girl who had fought to live, who was somewhere in the palace with a maid, who had never heard her mother's voice raised in anything but song. Lunara, the daughter he had named but never held, the one who had died inside him and left a hollow that would never fill.
He said their names and he held onto them like a rope in a storm.
Behind him, Tarven's breath came heavier, faster. His grip on Phuwin's hip tightened—fingers bruising, nails biting into the skin—and Phuwin felt the rhythm change, felt the approach of a conclusion he did not want to be present for.
He opened his eyes.
The marble floor was close to his face. He could see the grain of the stone, the tiny veins of grey and white that ran through it, the places where the polish had worn thin from centuries of footsteps. He could see a thin crack, no wider than a hair, that ran from one tile to the next, branching like a river on a map. He could see a single drop of his own blood, dark and glossy, sitting on the stone like a jewel.
He watched that drop of blood as Tarven finished with a grunt, a shudder, a final, brutal press of weight against him.
Then the weight lifted.
Phuwin heard the rustle of clothing, the clink of a belt being fastened. He heard Tarven's breathing, heavy and satisfied, and the scrape of boots against marble as the man stepped back.
"Clean him up," Tarven said, his voice casual, as if he were ordering a meal. "Put him in the throne room. I want him waiting for me when I've finished with the rest of the palace."
Phuwin did not move. He lay on the cold marble, his cheek against the stone, his torn robe bunched around his waist, his body shaking in small, uncontrollable tremors. The guards' hands released his arms, and he heard them step away, conferring in low voices about how to carry out their lord's orders.
He should move. He should stand. He should cover himself. He should do something—anything—other than lie here like a broken thing on the floor.
But his body would not obey.
The beeswax smell was stronger now, mixing with the copper of blood and the salt of sweat and something else—something sour and animal, the scent of what had just been done to him. The incense from the altar—jasmine, sandalwood, clove—seemed to curl around him, a mockery of comfort, a fragrance meant for prayers and offerings, not for this.
He thought of the waterfall.
The cave behind it, where the water fell in a curtain of silver and the light came through green and gold and the sound was so loud it drowned out everything. He thought of sitting on the smooth stone ledge, his feet in the cold water, his hand on his pregnant belly, talking to the water as if it understood him. He thought of the way the mist settled on his skin, cool and clean, washing away the dust of the palace and the weight of the throne and the endless, aching distance between him and his husband.
He thought of Pond.
Pond, who was riding toward the eastern front, who did not know what had happened, who was chasing a diversion while the real enemy was here, inside the palace, inside Phuwin's body.
He thought of Pond's hands—the way they held him, the way they touched him, the way they trembled when Phuwin was hurt. He thought of Pond's voice, low and rough, saying his name like a prayer. He thought of the way Pond looked at him, as if he were the most precious thing in the world, as if the empire meant nothing compared to the sight of Phuwin's face.
He thought of Pond's daughters.
Our daughters, he corrected himself, and the thought was sharp and clear and cutting. Our daughters. Mine and his. The ones we made together. The ones I carried and birthed and nursed and loved. The ones who just saw their mother broken on the floor.
A sound escaped him—not a sob, not a scream, something smaller and more terrible. A whimper, thin and high, the sound a child makes when the nightmare does not end after waking.
One of the guards looked down at him. The man's face was young—younger than Phuwin, probably—with a sparse beard and nervous eyes that kept darting away. He looked at Phuwin's torn robe, at the blood on the marble, at the bruise spreading across Phuwin's cheek, and something flickered in his gaze. Shame, perhaps. Or pity.
"Get up," the guard said, but his voice was not harsh. It was almost gentle. "Please. Get up."
Phuwin stared at the drop of blood on the marble. He watched it catch the lamplight, watched it glisten, watched it sit there like a question he could not answer.
Then, slowly, he pushed himself up onto his elbows. His arms shook. His wrists ached. The cut on his hand had stopped bleeding, but the wound was still raw, still open, still stinging with every movement.
He pulled the torn robe closed over his chest. The fabric was damp and torn, the silk hanging in shreds, but it was something—a wall, however thin, between his body and the world.
He rose to his knees. Then to his feet. The world swam, tilted, settled. He stood, swaying, one hand pressed against the wall for support, and he looked at the young guard.
"Where are my daughters?" he asked. His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "Where are Ovoale and Xiana?"
The guard's eyes flickered. He looked away. "I don't know," he said. "They ran. Lord Tarven sent men after them."
Phuwin's stomach turned. He pressed his free hand against his belly—the small curve of his pregnant stomach, the child still alive inside him, the kick he had felt on the stairs—and he forced himself to breathe.
Run, he told his daughters, as if they could hear him. Run and don't look back. Run and hide. Run and find your father. Run and live.
The young guard reached out, hesitant, and touched his elbow. "Come," he said. "The throne room."
Phuwin let himself be led. He walked through the East corridor with his torn robe clutched closed, his bare feet silent on the cold marble, his eyes fixed on the dark ahead. The crimson silk panels rustled as he passed. The incense followed him, jasmine and sandalwood and clove, clinging to his skin like a ghost.
Behind him, the corridor was empty.
But in his mind, he could still see them—Ovoale's white face, Xiana's trembling body, the tears on their cheeks, the terror in their eyes.
And he could still hear their footsteps, pounding away into the dark, carrying his heart with them.