He rolls his eyes and grips my upper arm. Instantly I’m transported to the past: those hands squeezing Sierra Jamison’s neck in the same sort of punishing grip. It’s the first time the King has attempted to physically bully me into anything. But I’m not small. I’m only perhaps six centimeters shorter than him, and I’m solid rather than willowy. I’m simply too big to drag about thoughtlessly. With my heels planted against the floor, I force myself to resist his strength despite the pain in my arm.
His fingers slip away and he peers down at his empty hand in a moment of surprise before looking up at me. My blood feels like ice, but this is one battle I must win. Or I’ll never win again.
“I am not your whore,” I say very quietly.
The fury flashes again, but he says nothing, only gives me a curt nod and proffers me a more gentlemanly elbow. Resigned, I slip my fingers onto the embroidered sleeve as lightly as I can. With both of us in our finery and my arm on his, we appear to be a blissful couple headed off to a night of feverish revels—not a jailer escorting his prisoner to her cell in the first blush of sunrise.
WE BEGIN TO climb the ornate Escalier de la Reine, the grand staircase that leads to a set of double doors covered with gold-plated curlicues. They are perhaps the most fanciful prison bars I’ve ever seen.
As His Majesty approaches, the vestibule doors of the Appartement du Roi swing open automatically. The tremors begin in my spine, and I clench every muscle in my body to keep them from traveling down my arm, to my fingers, where His Highness might notice. For all his lofty titles, His Oh-So-Royal Highness is like any common predator—the secret is never to show fear.
We follow a plush red carpet down the middle of the rooms—the Guard Room, the Antechamber, the Salon des Nobles, their doors flung wide—and all too soon we’re standing before the only set of closed doors.
The Queen’s Bedchamber.
“At your word,” the King says.
There’s a surprise; he’s instructed M.A.R.I.E. to open the doors only to my voice. Not his. Though I can’t imagine it’ll remain so for long, I’m shocked he granted me even this temporary courtesy.
But then, he does have everything to lose. I, meanwhile, have already lost everything.
“Thank you, M.A.R.I.E.,” I say, stepping forward. The doors open as though pushed by invisible hands. My legs are wobbly, but somehow I stride into the world-renowned Appartement de la Reine.
It looks…like it always does.
The enormous canopied bed, golden curlicued wallpaper, feathered wall hangings, candled chandeliers. All behind a golden railing that gives the illusion of keeping dangerous things out.
The bots are already busily unpacking my clothing and putting it into the wardrobe—not a walk-in closet so much as an entire adjoining room. Every piece of my clothing will fill but a fraction of it. I remember looking at my now-former bedroom in wonder when we first relocated from our modest house in Versailles City, at the edges of the court, to the finery of our rooms in the palace. It felt like such an increase! This new step up is easily as significant. The luxury that surrounds me defies imagination, and sometimes I wonder how the Sun King of so many centuries ago did imagine it without the aid of digital technology.
Though the floor is convincingly wooden in front of the golden railing that divides the room, behind it lies a carpet so thick and soft it’s like walking across a marshy lawn. The walls are alive with intricate silken coverings, painstakingly restored when Sonoma bought the Palace of Versailles, and the gilding on every surface glows so bright it reflects dully on my face.
The candled chandeliers are lit, and a fire is burning in the enormous golden fireplace, but even so, I shiver.
I peer back at His Highness, but he seems to have lost interest in me, instead muttering into the panel near the door that constitutes M.A.R.I.E.’s presence in this room. I should be curious as to what limitations and rules he’s enacting in whispers, but it’s not as though I can do anything about that right now, and exhaustion is setting in. So I open the low golden gate and step to the enormous canopied bed and wonder if it’s the same bedding Justin’s mother slept in before she died. Cheery thought, that.
I never wanted this. I intended to make my own place at court—maybe start in the software division. I’d been working on Sonoman algorithms long enough to qualify for an internship. I could inherit my family’s shares eventually and be a Lady in my own right. Marry when and if it suited me. I just wanted to be a coder; they decided to make me Queen.
“I’ll leave you here, then,” the King says at full volume. Now that we’re alone in the royal rooms, the public formality is gone from his tone. “But you know where to find me if you have a nightmare.” His voice is cheeky, humorous, and you could almost believe we were friends making jabs.
“My chamber door will be locked, I hope,” I say in a voice of thin glass.
“If you wish it so,” he replies calmly, and sweeps me a low bow. He seems to sense he shouldn’t push me any further tonight. I have no doubt he’ll resume being intolerable tomorrow.
The click of my door closing echoes. I drop my fa?ade and slump against the confines of my stays as I stare around at my gilded cage—the place where I’ll reside for the foreseeable future.