The Princess's Servant

108. Convenient

Dull, gray. A hair-thin crack that shot through the concrete like lightning. The burning of a furious gaze. Though he knew it was impossible, some small part of Holden felt that if he stared at this ceiling hard enough, he could blow a hole through it. And then he could climb out through the rubble. But stare as much as he did, as angrily as he did, nothing blew. The crack didn't so much as stretch its arms to appease him. There was silence in his room, and stillness. Except for his own breath. And, well, hers.

Holden had expected his father to detain him. He'd even, on some level, predicted that his holding cell might very well be his 'official' palace room — that is, the room Holden was meant to dwell in instead of the cabin. What he hadn't expected was to find a young woman of perhaps only 17 to be standing in his room when he arrived.

She was slender, like a birch, and had dark hair. She was beautiful, but in the way statues are beautiful, with overly symmetrical features and skin almost too smooth to be believed. She said something to him when he arrived in a language he didn't understand, and then prostrated herself before him and went to kiss his feet.

Holden yelped at this motion and pulled his feet away reflexively. He shouted at her to "go someplace else!!" which he soon regretted, especially after discovering that the girl's idea of 'someplace else' had been the room's corner. And so Holden's first action in time-out was unfortunately to place someone else in time-out.

A new wife. That's what the guards had told him she was. A good Wardian woman who would bring him honor and virtue and good fortune. Holden said he already had a wife and didn't want another, and to that the guards said nothing. If Warrick had said Holden would remarry, then he would remarry, they thought. No use debating it.

And so Holden lay on the bed in the room, staring at the ceiling, and listening to their breaths. He could only ask himself a thousand times where he'd gone wrong. But a thousand times, he didn't know.

What he did know was he was going to get out of here, he was going find Sybil, and then— Well, then he'd make sure he was never under his father's control again. The details of the plan were still a little... underdeveloped. But he'd figure it out. Once he figured out how to get to her.

Knock knock. He heard the guards click open the lock. The door rushed open like a wave on shore.

"Why does the Prince still have his clothes on?!" A blonde-haired boy — hands in pockets —  strode into the room. "The Emperor commanded you to cheer him up!" Sebastian snapped his fingers at the girl and she scrambled up from her place on the floor.

She spoke words Holden didn't understand, but the tone was so frantic and apologetic that he didn't need to speak her language to know she said "I'm sorry," and "I'll get right on it!" — only further evidenced by the fact that she started taking off her clothes.

Holden stood from the bed and held his arms out in a panic. "Stop!"

Thankfully, she froze just as her skirt was about to come over her hips.

The prince turned on the servant. "This is so not what I need right now, Sebastian. Get out of here. Before I make you leave."

The servant huffed and cocked an eyebrow. "You're that desperate to keep your virginity? And don't say you're saving yourself for marriage— we both know how that went."

Holden growled in the back of his throat. "What is it that you want?" The quickest way out of this conversation was through.

Sebs took a few steps further into the room. He nodded to the guards, who closed the door. "I thought you'd want to know how your Lady Tormentor was faring. But if you'd rather get back to your alone time with her..."