III.
Two weeks.
It’s one thing to hear it dropping from her mother’s lips in the quiet of her bedchamber, a place that Michelle has loathed for as long as she can remember. It’s another to wake up to it. The reality of the situation hangs heavily over the silent halls as she walks through them. Each of her footsteps whispers, “Two weeks, two weeks.” The sight of unfamiliar guards positioned outside on the watchtowers only reinforces this. The guards of Terygen wear red and blue-- a far cry from Enya’s own yellow and cerulean.
The servants cast Michelle mournful glances as they pass her, and each one causes the ache in her throat to grow more pronounced. They never so much as looked at her before… Only hours ago, Michelle was a ghost in her own home: a strange oddity that was commented on every so often, but influenced little. Now, her body has solidified; what was once transparents is now tangible flesh and sinew.
They understand the sacrifice demanded of her, and they mourn her as one already dead.
For the first three days, Michelle does not leave her makeshift rooms. She sleeps there, takes no meals, works herself senseless; she is as one reanimated from the dead in her movements, and desperation fuels her exhausted body as she works at what once meant everything and now feels like nothing. No matter how fervently she pursues projects that once brought life to her, every effort she makes only makes her feel more hollow.
One of the maids is finally sent to look for her and to make sure that she has not harmed herself. The sight which the poor girl finds is almost worse than a bloated corpse in a corner: Michelle stands upright, and the old clothing she wears hangs off of her body. Her hair is disheveled into a hopeless tangle, her skin has the pallor of one ill, and her eyes are glassy and unseeing as those of the body the maid had so dreaded discovering.
The next five days, Michelle is confined to the room she loathes so much. She sleeps for two of the days, and the other three a maid brings her broth and sleeping tonics, as well as draughts for her nerves. Though Michelle manages to pour the various brews into her chamber pot when the maids are not looking, she is not able to escape the treatment her father demands of her: three more days confined to her bed.
Michelle has nothing to occupy herself with for these. There are no books to read, no rooms to explore, no journals to write in. All she can do is watch the servants as they move around her room, packing her few worn gowns and a few different toiletries and documents into trunks. She has a small dowry, but she will not see any of that; she knows that a good deal of it has been spent on the war effort, and the rest will be given directly to the king of Terygen. Though she has very little to bring with her, several trunks are packed anyway.
Her father likely requested it so that he can send Michelle appearing a wealthy, foreign princess. Michelle decides to use the space for another purpose.
After her sentence is up, Michelle returns to the rooms. However, rather than continuing her experience in a vain search for the shelter they once provided, she turns to another task. The rooms are no longer a shelter; even they have been robbed from her in this war, turned into a shell of what they were.
Some people collect shells.
It is for this reason that Michelle devotes herself, over the next three days, to packing the remaining space of the trunks with all she can bring from her rooms. The books go first; the trunks are made heavy with old, rotting volumes, which she knows her father will not mind. If her luggage seems heavy, it will only further persuade the king that he has not made a poor choice in his bride. After most of her library has been transferred, Michelle turns to her collection of lost artifacts. Old, worn pieces of clothing are loaded into the trunks atop the faded gowns she has barely worn, and broken necklaces, wrapped bits of china and pewter, old wooden carvings, and more treasures find themselves heaped atop the possessions that Michelle is supposed to value.
She prefers her graveyard of secrets, and so all of the things that Michelle values the most within it are heaped into the trunks. It is a distraction from the stares of the servants and the occasional guard patrols that wander the halls in red and blue. But when the trunks are filled and three days remain, Michelle finds herself in search of another diversion.
Her own library is packed away, and so Michelle finds herself searching the library of her father. There, she scours every book she can of Terygen, desperate. Her actions are those of a drowning woman who, knowing her fate, attempts to swallow water to prepare.
Of its monarchy, she learns a few interesting things. The king prior to the current one was named Benjamin, for one. His death, however, seems to have been recent, and Michelle can only find one reference to King Benjamin’s heirs: he and his wife were unable to bear children, and have no direct descendants. Michelle’s new task becomes to search for the name and history of the one she is going to wed, but it proves more difficult than intended.
Her father has not paid much attention to updating his library; most of the documents coming in and out of the fortress have gone to his council room. She could always request the name of her father, one of his advisors, or even her mother. However, Michelle does not dare even consider such things. She wishes to see nothing of her father.
If he had no qualms about selling her as a trophy to one who bested him, she does not wish to set eyes on his face again.
Michelle avoids her mother for the opposite reason. If the servants’ sorry gazes are enough to make Michelle’s throat close, she knows that the grief that would come from seeing her mother would render her incapable of completing her goal. No, she cannot ask a question of the queen that will move both to tears.
Her last days here will not be ones of a snivelling prisoner.
Instead, Michelle searches any book that even mentions Terygen. For once, her books seem to fail her. The name of King Benjamin’s successor is nowhere to be found. Along the way, Michelle is blinded to all other words. She reads nothing of the enemy kingdom’s culture, though it is chronicled beneath her nose. This would only complicate matters, and Michelle knew better than to further tangle an already twisted situation.
When she finally finds the answer, Michelle is not in the library. She is not in her empty safe haven, or even in the rooms she so dreads; she is in the halls of Jones Castle, walking as unseen as she used to be.
There is one day left until her departure, and Michelle has been wearing the same clothing for almost two and a half days. She is garbed like the meanest of the servants, since she wears more of her abandoned clothing, and her curls are held back from her face by a cloth that only makes her more invisible to anyone who associates prominence with an eye-catching appearance.
She has taken to dressing in such a manner over the past few weeks not only for convenience, but also because it keeps her safe from Terygen’s guards. They would not hurt her if they knew who she was, of course. If they were to do so, she knew they would be cruelly punished for damaging their king’s prize, especially when such a union is likely the talk of their kingdom. It is unorthodox, unexpected, and a crowning jewel in their victory. However, she does not want their stares; she does not want them to return to their wives and children crowing stories of how they saw the king’s trophy, of how they kept her in her home where she was prepared for their king, of how she was reduced to walking her own halls like a fugitive.
She is passing a few of them when she realizes they are conversing, and about her. The realization sickens her, but Michelle’s exhaustion is strong and persuasive. She finds herself ducking behind a crumbling column, listening as they wander to the end of the hall.
“-a damn shame no one’s caught a glimpse of her yet,” one of the men was saying. His retreating form was tall and broad, and his dark hair was smooth and neat from behind. “Then we might have something to report back to him about the girl. He would be better prepared for the coming weeks if he knew something of her.”
“Mmm,” hums the other, his voice sounding almost warning. He is shorter, and his form is more compact, but he is clothed more finely than the other, who is in armor. “But you know he did not ask for any information about her, and he has not requested anything in regards to her other than that she arrives safely at the palace. We are not required to meddle.”
“But would he not want to know more than just her name?” presses the first, sounding almost incredulous. “He is going to be legally bound to the girl, for the love of the crown.”
Michelle’s blood runs cold. He does not want to know anything of her?
An image is forming in her mind of a man, and he looks too much like her father. He intends to keep her locked away in gilded chambers and corsets at best. He cares not for passion, affection, or sacrifice; he will take lovers, and he will see to it that his needs are fulfilled. He will look upon her as nothing more than a tool used to maintain his power, and she will turn to stone on the pedestal he places her on.
“Bradley... We cannot know what he wants; it is not our place to know,” the latter says, his voice low, hesitant, and warning all at once. “King Peter made the decision, and he is going to honor it. That is all we need to know. Now, for the arrangements for tomorrow…”
As they turn a corner, the guards’ voices fade to a murmur. Michelle does not notice; she is frozen behind her pillar, still as a statue. Her fingers grip the curve in the stone until her knuckles turn white, and her nails scrape against the worn, uneven surface.
Michelle does not notice. She cannot move, cannot breathe, cannot think.
There is one thought in her mind only, and one name on her frozen lips:
King Peter.