Saber emerges from my dressing room with a stack of dry white linen. But I also catch sight of one of my pastel-blue embroidered corsets. “Here,” he says. He reaches for the busk in the front of the sodden one and unfastens the six pins. It drops to the ground with a weighty thud, and I know I’ll never be able to bring myself to wear it again. “I’ll be fast,” Saber says, holding the clean, dry shift ready to cast over my head.
I’m not ashamed. I peel the wet cap sleeves off my arms and let the shift drop, the wide décolletage easily skimming past my hips. Saber’s ready with the new slip, but as he works it over my head, his eyes drop and then widen.
“What happened?” he asks, one finger touching the dark bruising around my ribs, striped with indentations from the wet boning that has pressed against them for hours.
I reach for the dry shift and he seems to snap back into caretaker mode, settling the garment around my hips and covering me up again. He grabs for the blue stays but hesitates. “Can’t you take a break?”
After the punishing tightness I subjected myself to last night, I probably ought to. It’s never hurt so badly to come out of my corset.
When I hesitate, Saber adds, “I’ll hold you tight,” and all I can do is nod.
Soon Saber and I are spooned in the bed, me under the comforter getting warm and him on top of it, his arm tight around my waist like he promised. I gave particular orders to M.A.R.I.E. not to let anyone in, but even these few stolen minutes in the middle of the day are risky. M.A.R.I.E. is always watching. After a fit like the one I just threw, I can imagine amused security workers paying particular attention to this room. But I can’t bring myself to care. Slowly, haltingly, I tell Saber about Molli. I don’t tell him about the King last night. Or that I chose him over revenge; tried to, anyway.
It can hardly matter now.
“Danica,” Saber says hesitantly, “your mother died yesterday. The woman who raised you. I know you were close to Molli, but I’m worried that you’re in denial about your mother.”
I’m already shaking my head. “I ceased to be a person to my mother years ago. I was a thing. A tool. A road like that goes both ways. Eventually, I stopped thinking of her as a person too.”
“But—”
“Saber, do you hate your parents?”
“No,” he says instantly and with a vehemence that assures me his words are true.
“Why not?”
“They had no choice,” Saber says, emotion making his voice husky, and if this conversation weren’t so serious, I’d find it incredibly appealing. “They had to sacrifice one child to save four others. If I—” He takes a long breath. “If I’d been in their shoes I’d have made the same choice.”
“That’s the difference.” I turn now so I can see his face—our lips only a few centimeters apart, though I don’t lean closer. Not now. “My mother’s been grooming me as a tool for years. Since I was about fourteen.”
“Because she dressed you so pretty and made sure you had all of your…poise lessons?”
I smirk. “That as well. This isn’t the nose I was born with, Saber.”
His eyes widen. “Really?”
“At fifteen.” My amusement fades and I meet his eyes. “I became a thing. A thing to help launch her into social and political success. Every aspect of my life was shaped for the sole purpose of luring the King. And then she put my life in danger for the prestige of being the Queen’s mother. She didn’t do it for me; she did it for her. And if I’d been in her place, I would never have made the same decision.”
“But—”
“I tried, Saber. I tried to remember good things, to feel a spark of the love I know I used to have. What child wants to give up on her mother? But…all I can see is the way she looked that night as she bargained me away to the King.” I clamp my jaw down as my throat begins to burn. “I hate that I stood by and didn’t make a decision at all.”
“You were powerless, though.”
I shake my head. “I could have done something. I should have done something. If I had, Molli would still be alive.”
“Maybe. But where would you be?”
“It doesn’t matter. Molli was innocent. So innocent.” The tears leak down my temple. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Never is a long time.”
“I’ll never deserve it.”
Saber kisses my skin, right where the path of my tears runs. Tucking my head into the space just below his chin, I curl against his warmth and try to let it seep into me.
I doubt I’ll ever feel warm again.