Feath stares down at me with such intensity, its if my entire body lay bare before him. Naked. Exposed to the ravaging lust in his swollen eyes. A deep chill ripples over my spine, shuddering the energy I once had from my body. But it's the face behind him, etched with a pain that mirrors mine, that pulls aching sobs from my heaving chest. The King can hardly look at me. "I believe Kai is mine to punish, Your Majesty."

The King doesn't lift his deepened eyes from the book in his hands, too sunk and dark to reply with anything other than a nod. I shield Kai with my body, curling my arms behind me to shield him. Protect him from the sick pleasure Feath gets from inflicting pain. I scream in protest, hissing at Feath's mocking laughter. A beast within unleashed.

I lunge, pressing my knife into Feath's vibrating throat, chuckles only deepening as I press my entire weight into him. No one grabs me, for the sobs wrecking my body give away the dark truth within me; I am no killer. Even as I bare my teeth, a guttural growl blowing into his clean face, a smile, I cannot will my arms to move. To plunge the blade into the core of his neck. Where it belongs.

"Princess." Kai lifts me, voice trembling. "It's okay. It was worth it." Feath clocks his fist against Kai's jaw, the dull thud of his body slamming against the wall erecting wild cries from me. Frantic. Rabid. Words spit from my lips. Insults. Pleas. Commands. Why won't the King help me? He holds me tight in his arms as I wriggle, desperate to get to Feath. To have one more chance at murder. I promise, I can do it this time.

I forget to breathe out the stuffy air caught in my chest, a light-headed wash of pain blinding me. When it clears, Kai is gone. Feath is gone. Only a slick trial of blood in their stead. The King strokes my back, and my voice dries up. No more words. He holds my face, lips moving without sound, then marches me to a box room, straightening the red cloak around my shoulders.

"Please do not fear me, Red." I trip through the door, my legs so stiff and tired it hurts to lift them. He brushes the dust from my shoulders and plants me on a stool. "What's going to happen to Kai?" It's the only sane words that form on my lips. It doesn't matter about the boats. Who's on them. My fate. He breathes a gentle smile.

"Always so selfless." But he averts my gaze, thumbing through the leather book in his lap. He finds the page, bends the corner and snaps it shut, breathing deeply before opening his eyes to me. "I want to apologise to you, Red."

"I DON'T CARE. KAI. HE'S—"

"Gone." A hammer smashes into my chest, again and again. The beat of my heart. A pain not quite enough to distract from the mental torture. The faces. The blood. All this time I was out with Kai, I put his life at risk. I knew it. Accepted it. Continued on despite it. "Red, it must be. He struck a deal with me to save you. Calm down now, hear me out, or his efforts are wasted."

"You... You can't...I" His gentle shushing is a lullaby to my beating ears, blurring the trail of thought guiding my words. The King hangs his head, stroking my hair against his chest until I calm, pulse slowed. A crow lands on the window frame outside, pecking at the putty securing it in place. It slips, using the grace of it's wings to balance itself, before taking off into the rich morning air.

"The depths of my selfishness are deep, Red. Kai is a boy dear to my heart, for he has saved me many times in life. He saves me even now." Wooden chair legs scrape against the tiles as he drags it closer and sits upon it. "He knows how important you are to me. How the castle has tended to your trauma-riddled spirit. The night after the fires, when the entire Kingdom bowed to you, he approached me with an offer I can never repay him for. He will go on the boats with the children in your place to prevent the war. I had to keep you, and he knew it." The strength in the King, the power he is rumoured to possess, is long gone. Here is a broken shell, but I am not his missing piece. We are too different.

The King fumbles in his pocket, pulling out an envelope with a broken seal at its closure: the rose encircled by thorns. He lays his head in his hands, completely covering his face from view. The yellowed parchment shakes in my hands as I ease it from the envelope.

Ravaryn,

I am sure this letter will find you, impoverished. My scouts have informed me of the arrival of a new King. A struggling King.

We propose a trade to rid you of your poverty, and unite the people under one common material: wealth. In return of our generous supply of riches, we require only one, common item from your shores. Something that runs rampant and untamed over the lands, that perhaps you yourself desire to be rid of. Young flesh.

For each youth of exceptional beauty you supply, new world trades we will deliver to your ports. Sugars, spices, dyes, salts, silks and luxuries to become a basic abundance within your Kingdom. For each youth of skills evolved of labour, a supply of gems and jewels.

A few times a year, we will send boats marked with our crest. Mark the lambs with a counting number and load them onto the ship. We offer this to you from the generosity of our hearts. Should you refuse, or later change your mind, rest assured we will not stop hunting you. Your people.

Our ship will no longer grace your land with niceties, for there will be no shore left standing to dock upon.

We will send the first boat in due time. To accept the offer, place the first child aboard the ship. To refuse, you may leave the ship empty and we will not bother your lands again.

Think carefully, dear King, for there are few Kingdoms we offer such an exciting trade. We are a powerful group and making us your enemy will end horridly. For you.

Signed,

E. VAL

Tears sting my eyes, as I stare down at the symbol, and the King lays a hand on mine. "Kai is a hero. If it were not for him, there would be war, for I cannot control my selfish desire to keep you by my side. I beg you, do not turn your eyes to me so coldly, for my heart cannot bare it."

I stiffen at his touch, and so he withdraws his hand. With the lightest sweep, delicate with the pages as it's a baby in arms, he peels open the book to a lose drawing. "There is more I feared to tell you, scared you might be shamed to know the truth. Why I need you to stay here. Why I would wage war after war to keep you by my side. Why you are next in line for the throne."

No. I know what's coming, for the story of the woman who saved him has dwelled in my mind since the moment he released it to me. The lost daughter, taken by fire.

He opens the book to the portrait of a woman. The details in the highlights of her hair, the depth in her eyes catching the corners of a smile playing on her lips, could only have been drawn by a practised hand. A caring hand. "This was the woman who saved me, Red. Her name was Lili." I look closer, the fire red of her hair spanning the entire page behind her. Her green eyes meet mine, full of wonder and joy as she absorbs me. Too human for simple paint to have birthed.

The King hands me a hand mirror, tears welling in his eyes. But I can't look at it. I can't bare to see myself next to this angel, marked across a simple page. "Look, Red. Please."

He raises the mirror to my face, and I have no choice but to look upon the fearful creature gazing back. Scour every line. Every angular bone in my cheeks. They match hers, our skeletons a copy of each other. Her eyebrows, graced only by the softest arch, frame my eyes too. The red hair, though different in length, holds the same spark that ignites our heads in untameable flames. Wavy and free. The only difference, my icy eyes. A blue more potent than her soft sage. A trip in my heart rags my breathing as I look up to meet the King. The red in his eyes only brightens their colour, the grey outline a replica of mine. Our stare is one of the same. Inherited.

"No." I shake my head hard, words catching on the ripples in my throat. "I led a harsh upbringing in the caves of a King far more evil than you."

The King only nods, wiping a tear with a quaking finger. "Please, may I tell you a story?"

I place the picture and mirror on the table beside us, no longer wanting to look into the eyes of such a deity. Or myself. "If it is only a story."

The King breathes a chuckle. "Lili and I," he gestures to the picture, looking to her as if she sat with us now, "birthed a beautiful baby girl. Eyes as bright as mine, and a soul to match the love in Lili's. I named her Rosalyn. My Rose."

The King sniffs, blowing his nose into a handkerchief stashed in his pocket. "We lived in a little home carved into the side of a hill. Years of peace. Until a carriage crashed nearby, in the earliest hours of the morning. Lili was asleep, and little Rose lay beside her in a world full of bright dreams. So I went to the carriage's aid, finding two young boys, sobbing over the body of their mother. They were running from a war."

"So you helped them back."

"I did, for Lili taught me how to be kind. How to forgive. Those two young boys were the sons of the King that stole my father's life, and still I fought hard to return them to his safe embrace. I could never imagine losing my daughter." He pauses to search through the book. The castle walls stir, the stones themselves listening to the revelations as though it holds their future.

The book flips open to another drawing. This one of a willow tree struck by violent, flickering flames. "Upon my return, our little sanctuary wailed in a raging fire. I threw open the trapdoor, and fought the smoke as I jumped in. It was as if a wolf had trashed our home, and though I searched with my life, I could not find Lili and Rose. My flowers."

He holds my face between his warm hands, and I don't fight him. "The forest was full of them, bodies rotted upon the grass clothes torn and barely covering the burns." He chokes, thumbs grazing my cheek with such raw sincerity. "But I couldn't find you, Rosalyn. Nor Lili. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help but imagine the worst... Then you found me."

He pulls me into an embrace, and I fall from the chair into his arms. My body doesn't stiffen as his arms wrap me. Nor do I flinch at his breath falling in sobs in my hair. I surrender. There's nothing to fight. I surrender. "I've seen your scars, Rose. The leathery flesh licked by fire. You are so very much like Lili. She would be proud."

As if burst from a dam, the water that cascades down my face is beyond tears. Whether content or fearful, I'm unsure. But the cathartic sobs that ease the pains from my body expel the demons from their hidden nooks. Each comfort he utters, each endearing gesture he provides along with the name, Rose, soothes the tired pains within me.

And yet it can't be. I stagger back, hands gripping the edge of the table as he peers at me. Blue sparks to balance my flame. My entire being questions every fact I believed belonged to me. The origin of my scars. My parentless past. My name, even. Crumbles like a screwed up piece of parchment. "I know you only as the King." The expectations of being a daughter. Of having a father. I can't bare it. It cannot be.

"I told you; I am selfish. I needed to tell you, Rose. I needed you."

"Don't call me that." The light tug of my heart is an ache I cannot bear. My true name. I cannot bear it. "I am not the daughter you remember. There are horror in my past you wouldn't believe if I told you. I can't tell you."

"Deep down, I think I know. You do not have to tell me, but whatever happened could never taint my view of you." He grips my wrists to stop me pulling out strands of my hair. "Please. Know that I love you no matter what. Do not fear me anymore. If, after the truth, I only remain as your King, then I swear it I will be the most loyal and giving King I can be. I would fight wars and churn seas for you."

The air in the room thins, and all I want to do is run. Too many questions, and too much tension emanate from that book. Part of me wants to open it, disperse its secrets. The other part wants to destroy it, for I never asked for this. I can't be her. "Then let me go. Let Filip return to the Kingdom, and let Kai go with him. Kai can care for Filip in all the ways no one cared for me."

The King's face shatters, the smile on his lips smashing into dry, cracked pieces. The muttering sobs that rock his shoulders are barely audible. "I'm so sorry." I should do something. To show I accept him, but no more. The relationship he craves is one that can only be forged with time, and we are not fortunate enough to have that. I do the only thing that comes natural. I bow. "No. Never bow. Never bow." His incoherent mutters drain the last tears from his eyes, white hot.

He grabs my hands once more, pressing the folded drawing of Lili into my palm. I tuck it into my pocket. "You are everything I could've wished you to be. You brave girl." He plants a soft kiss on my forehead, lips held against my skin for a few seconds. "I have made many enemies, Red. Never tell a soul who you are. To everyone else, you must remain a rebel. Not a Princess." Even when he pulls away, I can feel it lingering—the advice kissed into a warning.

"Goodbye, Red." His choking tears grip him once more, and with the book clutched in his hand, he strides from the room.