The first sensation that struck her was the cold.
Not the well-known chill of marble floors or windy palace corridors, but the piercing sting of air through splintered wood. Damp soil. Decaying hay. The smell of mildew.
Charlotte opened her eyes.
She had anticipated white linens, Mira's face, Elias's voice whispering in her ear—but overhead was a distorted ceiling of timber, the kind that sweats when it pours. She blinked. Her limbs felt small. Her fingers were awkward and rough.
A body that wasn't hers.
It hit her then—like a fever breaking. Death. Poison. The tea. Mira's scream.
She had perished.
And yet, here she found herself. Again.
A door slammed somewhere beyond the flimsy wall. A sharp crack, followed by a gasp.
"Worthless wretch," a man's voice barked, rough and slurring from drink. "Don't make me say it again."
Another blow.
Charlotte stiffened.
The girl—no, she—was tucked into the corner of a shadowy room, the only light filtering through a hole in the roof. Shapes of people moved beyond the door, but their forms were obscured by cheap wood and the stench of alcohol.
Her new mother's sobs were muted. Composed. Too rehearsed.
Charlotte could hear the rustle of clothing, the creak of a rope bed. No palace silk. No guards. No Mira.
She felt diminutive. Helpless.
And then, seething.
Later that night, curled up in the straw-strewn corner of what hardly passed as a bedroom, Charlotte remained awake. She could hear her new mother weeping behind a tattered curtain. She could hear the man snoring in the adjacent room—snoring as if he hadn't just bartered his wife to a merchant from town for coins and barley.
Charlotte clenched her fists.
She had been a princess. A strategist. A sovereign. She had endured plots, attempts on her life, and courts filled with men who grinned while sharpening knives.
But this?
This was worse. Because here, brutality wore no disguise of nobility. There were no titles. No layers of politics. Just violence. Just power—and the void of it.
She recalled her real mother then. The Queen. Not affectionate, perhaps, but never once treated as something to be sold. She had walked with grace even through sorrow. She had fought for her daughter behind veils and negotiations.
And her father... King or not, he had never raised his hand against his wife. He had chosen Charlotte as his heir, even when it meant war.
This man?
This savage in the next room?
He had defiled the essence of fatherhood.
And Charlotte—who once commanded knights and outmaneuvered dukes—was now a child once more. Trapped. Helpless.
But only for the time being.
She closed her eyes, breathing through her anger.
You returned for a reason. So discover it.