"𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞."
A STORY IN WHICH, you've never had a choice, especially not when you were forced to marry the future king of marley, 𝘻𝘦𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳.
things were difficult from the start, a foreign country a host...
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Zeke couldn't wrap his head around her, no matter how hard he tried.
When [Name] first stepped foot outside her carriage with her worried eyes and careful steps, and her stupid, fucking dress, she looked fine. He remembered when she stood in front of him the first day they met, he thought she was attractive enough, with her glossy hair cascading down her shoulders, and her alluring eyes set downward, too nervous to look him directly in the eye.
In that moment he thought he'd done it. He thought he'd succeded in all aspects, he was set to inherit the throne with their greatest enemy defeated, and a malleable wife at his side.
This fantasy crumbled rather quickly though, shortly after their marriage he found out that [Name] was in fact not the obedient girl he originally thought she was. She was belligerent, stubborn, short-tempered, and would find a way to argue with him at every turn.
Things had never been easy with his wife, but they had definitely taken a turn for the worse during winter.
He'd never meant to hurt her, he was not that type of man... to lay hands on a woman, but she drove him to it; with her shaky voice, her accusing eyes, her mocking laughter! He didn't even remember raising his hand, or even the moment of impact.
All he remembered was her holding her aching face, and the way his body froze when he realized what he'd done. When she took a shaky breath and looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, he could see it.
He could see his own mother looking up at Grisha when he'd stricken her for the first time.
He regretted it the instant he'd done it and begged for forgiveness, but she refused and practically shoved her out of her rooms. The following weeks he'd continued to try and earn her forgiveness but she would outright refuse, refuse, and refuse all of his gifts.
He spent hours wondering what he could do to earn her forgiveness... and in the end, he'd figured out the solution, he got up early that morning, signed an edict specifically formulated for her, and was standing at her door before noon.
He didn't knock before walking inside the room, and he found his wife and her three ladies sitting around a table with books, scrolls, and old quills strewn around them. The moment she noticed him, her smile fell from her lips and she was on her feet.
"What are you doing here?" she mumbled with furrowed brows.
He looked down at the other three women sitting on the floor and jerked his head to the side, they wordlessly stood up and practically ran out of the room, but he caught the freckled one giving him a particularly foul look.
When he was sure the women were far enough from them they couldn't hear their conversation, he took a step closer to her.
"I've come here to beg for your forgiveness."
She closed her eyes and looked down at the floor, smoothening the non-existent wrinkles in her dress with her ink-stained fingers
"You've asked for forgiveness plenty of times..." she mumbled, her voice coming out more defeated than he had expected. "And I've given it to you."
Zeke let out a breath.
"No, you haven't, not truly." His eyes landed on the simple pearls laced around her neck. "You've yet to wear any of the gowns or jewels I've bought you... instead, you were those common pearls."
Her fingers went up to shield the plain jewelry.
"It's the last thing my mother gave me before I came here, they're special to me. It's got nothing to do with your apology. And we didn't talk before that night; why would we talk after?" she hissed turning on her heels.
"Because we are husband and wife."
"That's never meant anything to you before. You ignore me, you yell at me, you refuse to help me... and you hit me."
His stomach sank.
"You are my wife, of course you mean something to me. It was never my intention to harm you."
She didn't reply, instead, her hands gripped tightly around her dress... When he realized she wasn't going to speak he pulled out the scroll he had stored in his pocket.
"I sent it... the grain."
He could see the moment of realization shoot through her body, her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. Her hands grabbed so harshly onto her skirts that her knuckles turned ash-white.
"When?" she mumbled as he handed her the scroll.
He watched as she unrolled the fresh paper, and it seemed as though it took her an eternity to understand what was written.
When she finally closed the scroll, she looked up at him with glassy eyes, and her mouth opened but closed just as quickly.
"Two seasons." she finally managed to say.
He gave her a stiff nod and struggled to make sense of her warped expressions.
"You sent two seasons' worth of grain to Paradis."
He waited patiently for a sign of gratitude, a cry of relief, or maybe even a smile.
She did neither.
Instead, she wordlessly walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his body.
She felt stiff, she felt wrong.
This was all wrong.
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author's note: i am so so sorry for not posting, i've been super busy but i have a couple of good chapters planned next, so stay tuned😳
also this fic has so much more zeke in it than i originally planned!! he was never meant to have so much screen time, idek what to think about it but he feels integral to the story so... idk if he'll have any more povs but he'll still keep playing a huge part in the story ૮₍ ˃ ⤙ ˂ ₎ა
