"One finger on his knee.
Two broken fingers.
Perfect balance."
——•✧✦ Disgust II ✧✦•——
Silence crashed over us like a freezing wave.
The only one who tried to speak was the most experienced.
"W-we were talking… about… water…"
He removed his cloak and let it fall onto the armor. No one picked it up.
He sat down at the desk with complete naturalness.
As if his absence had been nothing more than a detail.
As if his presence didn't change everything.
But it did.
Myrine lowered her gaze and returned to the curtains, her hands slower now.
I went to fill a pitcher with fresh cold water and placed it on the bedside table.
Aelira bent down to pick up a fallen blanket, a stray cushion, and in a few seconds had restored the bed.
Each of us searched for something to do. Something to fix.
But the room was already perfect.
Only the mutilated, mute armor seemed to watch us—but only because it had to, with the same impassivity as the man at the desk.
We could hear him breathe.
A slow, controlled breath, marking each second like an invisible pendulum.
Myrine came closer to me, whispering without looking:
"Why isn't he saying anything?"
"Because he doesn't have to," I whispered back.
Then he turned a page.
The sound of the paper made us flinch.
A page of thin paper, like a blade of air.
He was seated, as always, at the desk, his back straight.
His eyes—ice—fixed somewhere on the book he was reading.
He didn't look at us.
As if we weren't there.
Aelira kneeled first.
Myrine followed, trembling but obedient. Her knee hit the stone with a dull sound.
I remained standing. Just for a moment. Just to mark the difference.
Just to see if he would lift his gaze.
He didn't.
Then, slowly, I kneeled too.
The floor was cold against my bare knees.
"My Emperor," said Aelira, in a voice that tasted of memorization.
"We are here to honor your night."
Silence.
Myrine added, hesitantly, "To… offer you warmth. I-if you desire."
Still silence. Nothing but the crackle of burning wax.
A drop of oil fell into a bowl with a faint hiss.
I smiled. Not kindly, but strategically.
And I spoke.
Slowly, lifting my hand. Stopping just past the limit.
He didn't move. But his fingers bent, ever so slightly, on the page.
I opened my hand. I could feel the blood pulsing in my fingertips.
"I wonder," I said softly, "if your skin still remembers what it means to be touched."
I said it for him. But also for the others. Because I knew they were watching me.
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Then—a gesture. So slow. Fingers trembling. No one spoke.
Until I did.
I touched him.
The tips of my fingers on his leg.
One moment.
An explosion.
CRACK.
The sound of the slap rang in my head. It didn't come from him.
It was Aelira.
She struck me with the back of her hand, hard. My face turned with the blow, a hot flash lit up my cheek.
I fell to the side, lifting myself on an elbow.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she hissed. I had never heard her curse.
She grabbed my wrist, yanked it away like I'd touched a sacred statue.
"You don't touch the Emperor! Ever!"
˜"°•. ♪ .•°"˜
The sound was immediate: metal, footsteps, low voices. The doors burst open.
Two men entered, dressed in black and red. They didn't shout. They didn't hit us. They just took.
Myrine was the first. Pulled away like a ghost.
Aelira let herself be dragged. She said nothing.
Me? I resisted.
"Wait!" I shouted as hands gripped my arms."I did it for you! No one dares—I did! I'm not afraid!"
He still didn't answer.
The guards didn't speak, and they didn't need to.The silence of the palace was louder than a thousand screams.
Myrine was crying, sniffling like a child.
Aelira walked ahead of me, her back as tense as a blade.
I kept my chin high, though my heart beat like a drum in a cage.
They dragged us through side corridors—duller, less gilded.
Here the light was dim, the stone gray.Here is where things went to disappear.
"Why did you do it?!" she screamed, tears streaking her face."You ruined us! All of us! Don't you get it? They'll send us away—or worse!"
"They'll kill us?" I hissed, brushing my still-burning cheek."For a finger? For one damn touch?"
Aelira spun around. Her eyes held no pity anymore—only contempt.
"It was a game. And you lost."
"But you wanted it too!" I shot back."I saw it in your eyes, every night! You hoped he'd look at you, want you—but you never had the courage!"
She hit me again.
Not as hard, not like before—but meaner.
Even the guards flinched, but only out of surprise.
"Damn it, don't you get it? You're not the only one!We all have families…"
She was on top of me—I had fallen again, flat on the floor. She was slapping me.
"I do too, you know… I had to do it, it's just that—"
Myrine, her eyes swollen with rage, shoved Aelira aside. I thought she'd help me.
Instead, she grabbed my hair.
"This is all your fault!" she screamed. "You bitch!"
A fist hit me on the temple. Then another.
I used my arms to shield myself and kicked her in the chest—but it was too late.
The guards stepped in, tearing us apart with force. One of them spat on the ground.
"Animals. All of you."
Then—bootsteps. And a voice.
"Stop. This one isn't to die tonight."
A young nobleman, with a dark blue cloak and a copper seal pinned to his chest.
Nothing special.
One of the many sons of some forgotten family.
"Her," he said, pointing at Aelira, "I'll take her. On my coin."
He pulled out a handful of silver coins.The palace's most sacred language.
"The other two?" asked a guard.
"No." His gaze stayed on Aelira. "Only her interests me. Is that clear?"
Aelira said nothing.
She placed a hand over her chest, the other brushing her belly in a slow, almost symbolic gesture.
Lysia looked at her, confused.
Aelira gave her only one last glance.
Not hostile. Not affectionate. Just… detached.
"Not everything is what it seems," she murmured.
Then she followed the noble into the dark, vanishing with him down the corridor.
Myrine and I were separated. Taken to different cells.
But the message was clear:
The game was over.
Now came the punishment.
˜"°•. ♪ .•°"˜
After the noble took Aelira away, the guards dragged Myrine and me down slippery stone steps, into the damp underbelly of the palace.
The cells were cold, narrow, dark.
They said nothing as they shoved us into the same room, slamming the door shut with a metallic clang.
Their final words echoed like falling stones:
"We'll be back tomorrow."
Night fell like a thick, suffocating fog.
I barely slept, lying on damp straw, tormented by the cold and the dull, pulsing pain in my bruised cheek.
Myrine was curled in the far corner, a trembling shape in the dark.
But then, a sudden, sharp pain tore me violently from sleep.
I opened my eyes, struggling to focus through the darkness. A crushing pressure, a flash of agony.
Something had struck my face—warm, sticky.
I brought my fingers to my lips and tasted metal
Blood.
"Myrine?" I called, confused. "What the fuck—"
A furious scream answered.
She was on me.Her face twisted in a mask of wild rage—eyes wide, mouth contorted into something animal.
Before I could react, her fingers tangled in my hair, yanking me with inhuman strength.
"It was you!" she screamed, slamming my skull against the cold stone floor.
Blood began to pour from the back of my head, hot and fast. "You ruined everything!"
I tried to push her off, but she had become something else.
Something feral. Desperate. Uncontrollable.
Her nails raked across my face, tearing skin like wet paper.
I screamed as blood flooded my eyes, blinding me.
"Stop!" I shouted with every breath I had.
But Myrine was no longer there—only fear and fury remained.
She grabbed a stone from the floor and, with an animal howl, slammed it into my face.
Once. Then again.
I felt my teeth crack, my mouth fill with blood and jagged bone.
A tooth flew from my gums and skittered across the stone floor.
I tried to shield my face with my arms, but Myrine paused only long enough to grab my left hand.
With brutal intent, she seized two fingers—and broke them backward.
The sound of bones snapping echoed sickeningly in the cell.
I screamed—a pain so searing it made me vomit onto the blood-soaked floor.
The world tilted, spinning, slick and dark.
Then her hands were on my face again, fingers searching for something to tear, something to destroy.
Her thumb pressed under my right eye, pushing harder, deeper.
"Stop! Please—" I begged, as I felt my eye beginning to tear away, the flesh giving under the unbearable pressure.
"This is what you deserve!" she shrieked, voice splintered with rage and sobs.
With one final wrench, I felt something inside me shatter forever, and everything went black—my eye ripped from its place, and one last, terrible scream filled the darkness of the cell.
We Were Pretty Once
˜"°•. ♪ .•°"˜
I don't know how much time passed.
I don't know if I fell asleep or just… left myself.
But when I opened my eyes again—I was still alive.
And Myrine wasn't crying anymore.
All three of us were on the bed.
The other two slept on soft cushions, as if nothing had ever happened.
I looked around.
And I saw him.
The Emperor was watching me.
Or maybe watching us.
He had finally lifted his gaze from his book.
He was sitting in the same chair, the book open in his lap.
But his eyes… were on me.
Then he spoke.
His voice was quiet. Not kind. Not cold.
Just… alive.
"Would you like to read with me?"
The sentence was simple.
But in the void that had separated us until now, it felt like a blessing.
I didn't answer.
I rose slowly, swaying.
Barely on the edge of the seat, as if I might fall away at any moment.
But he reached for my shoulder—to draw me closer.
The book was open halfway.
The pages were dense, marked with faint pencil strokes.
I leaned in.
I could feel the warmth of his arm next to mine.
He turned a page, slowly.
"Read aloud, if you want. I enjoy listening."
And I...
I began to read.
˜"°•. ♪ .•°"˜
While I was speaking out loud, he was looking at my face —and drumming his fingers on the table.
My cheeks were turning red like apples.
But it was strange, you know.
That tapping — I felt it too close.
Not on the table.
Inside.
Almost like it was brushing against my cerebellum.
Not loud — just... wrong.
Wrong in the kind of way that feels real.
I read the words
But I wasn't sure if I understood them.
And that's when I realized —
it wasn't him.
It was her.
"Die, bitch!"