From the Gallows | Wilbur Soot

Act Nine: The Binding

Marry me.

Marry me.

Marry me.

I can't think. Can't talk. Can't breathe.

I'm drowning. I'm falling. I'm dying.

This isn't real.

The prince, the man who has tortured me endlessly over the past eight hours, the man I hate even more than the man who killed my own mother, is asking me to marry him.

And I have no choice but to say yes.

It's like fire licking, sweating, kissing its way up my back, around my shoulders, down my neck. It pushes me forward, urges me to say yes because it doesn't want me to die. The demons urge me forward as well, begging me to give in. Telling me that if I don't accept his offer, they'll make me regret it.

I have no choice.

But maybe dying is better than marrying the prince, because I know that marrying him means no more than being kept as his own personal pet. His own personal servant. If I say yes, I won't ever be free.

But if I say no, then I'll be dead, or worse, the demons will torture me towards being even more insane than I already am.

But, perhaps I can escape. Maybe, if I learn to gain his trust during the early years of our marriage, I'll be able to find a way to get away later on.

I've been stripped of everything now. I have nothing left. I don't even belong to myself anymore.

But maybe, in some twisted way, this is a good thing.

Because a person with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous enemy to have.

I don't even care as more tears drip past my eyelids. They haven't subsided since I received the brand that's still hot on my abdomen, and I don't think they ever will.

"Okay."

The letters fall past my lips, drowning in every ounce of reluctance but simultaneous desperation that courses through me. Maybe the only way to officially and finally be free is to bind myself first, and that's enough to keep me still as the prince unties me and slips the ring onto my finger.

I just wish it didn't have to be him, because he's the only one that I could ever see myself falling for over time, and it's this knowledge that makes me want to shrivel up and die.

I've grown a soft spot for the man that I was sent to kill, and I don't know if it's real or if it's all in my head.

Some part of me hopes that this is just another one of the demons' twisted games. This is just their lust and obsession over him seeping into my own consciousness.

He can't ever know. He'll use it to his advantage. He'll hang it over my head. This is the new thing I must conceal. This is now my new and only secret.

It's the only thing I have left.

And now I have one thing to lose, which makes me infinitely less dangerous.

So, I must prove this secret false. I must replace any attraction I have towards the prince with unyielding hatred. I can't afford to have feelings for him. Not when my freedom is on the line.

Not when he doesn't reciprocate those feelings.

Not when he tortures me.

Not when he has a knife to my back.