I groaned, my hand twitching, wanting to drag down my face … except I couldn’t lift my arm more than an inch. Fjor was behind me, still standing near the balcony, though I could feel his dark eyes burning somewhere between my shoulder blades. Helki and Andel were a step away, both looking unhappy with the situation. Neither one of them wanted to touch me, but Helki was a Vold and he hated losing any competition. I could imagine that there was a list somewhere in one of Andel’s many pockets, cataloguing the main precursors to a marriage based on a survey of every person the Obelisk servants could get their hands on, and “undressing” was probably somewhere near the top. Vidrol was a step closer, a threat painted into the cruel beauty of his face. Vale was still by the door. He turned with his back to the wall, kicking a boot up to lean there. He wasn’t even looking at me as he flipped his cowl up to hide his face, resting his head back, his eyes closing.
“Him,” I said, pointing at Vale.
His eyelids cracked, just enough for a sliver of blue to peek out. His chest rose and fell, something like a sigh of resignation, and then he kicked off the wall. I regretted the choice almost instantly. His face was shadowed by his hood, his steps a slow, graceful stalk. He stopped before me, his hand flattening to my stomach. The gold links pressed inward, compressing forcefully against my skin through the bare silk of my slip. He dragged his hand across to my waist before gripping me tightly and hauling me against his body. I tripped, unable to balance the immense weight of the dress with the sudden lurch forward, but he didn’t even flinch as the full weight of the metal crashed into his chest. He held me there, his other hand dragging up the skin of my spine. I felt damp with sweat, but his hands were cold, his touch a strange balm against my tender skin. I swallowed, turning my face to the side.
He unhooked the chain at the back of my dress easily, as though it had never been welded closed. Both of his hands landed on my shoulders, his thumbs hooking between the silk underdress and the golden metal of the neckline. My flesh felt raw beneath.
“I can do the rest,” I muttered, trying to find somewhere else to focus my attention. My throat was dry with resentment, because the coolness of Vale’s touch was such a relief, and I hated that I wanted him to touch me in any way.
“That wasn’t the deal,” he murmured, that scratchy voice brushing against the top of my head.
I blinked, my vision sharpening. I could see Vidrol off to the side, and Andel behind him. Fjor was still behind me and Helki was blocked out by Vale. Vidrol seemed torn between smugness at the look on my face, and some darker emotion at the sight of Vale’s fingers working beneath the metal, smoothing over the line of my shoulders. He eased the metal to my biceps, his thumbs dragging against the silk that covered my arms until he reached my wrists, and then he released it. It fell to the ground in an innocent heap, a pleasant resonation of metal hitting metal. I tried to step back, but he caught me with one hand, half wrapped around my back, his thumb digging into the front of my ribcage.
“That wasn’t the deal either,” he warned me.
My head whipped up, my eyes narrowing on the cool, unbroken blue of his.
“No,” I said, as his free hand rose to my collarbone, he slipped his fingers into the lining of the silk protecting me from nakedness.
“It’s part of the dress,” Vidrol said calmly.
I snarled, tearing my eyes from Vale as I hid my hands behind my back, a finger against my ring. “How does this fit into your game, exactly?”
“You betrayed me” was his cool reply. “This isn’t part of the game. This is a punishment.”
“It’s your fault we’re all here,” added Vale, as he worked the dress over my shoulders and past the tops of my arms. “If you had just agreed to marry Vidrol, we could have killed you.”
“You could have tried,” Vidrol coolly intercepted.
“But instead we’re here, guarding you from each other—”
“Baring me to each other,” I countered, as the top of the dress slipped lower, to the very tips of my breasts. “That’s hardly guarding.”
“We aren’t the problem, darling.” Vidrol sneered the last word, making me grind my teeth together. “Seeing a skinny, naked girl isn’t likely to tempt any of us.”
“And we’ve already seen it all,” Fjor spoke silkily from over my shoulder, his hand capturing my wrist just as I began to turn the ring, a word on the tip of my tongue. He separated my hands, ignoring my struggles as he pinned them to my sides, momentarily preventing my dress from slipping any lower.
“We know all your little tricks now, Skayld.”
I began to claw my fingers, to rip through this world and into the other, but Vale only laughed, his shadowed face looming above me.
“Try it,” he dared me, his thumbs moving over my reddened and bruised skin in that horribly cold way that made me shiver in relief. “The twine doesn’t just prevent people from entering this room, it also prevents people from leaving. Think of it as a net. A net you very much don’t wish to be caught in.”
Fjor chuckled darkly, still pinning my arms, his breath against the top of my head. “If you thought the dress was painful…”
“I’ll heal,” I growled. “And so will my magic.”
“But for tonight, you’re helpless,” Andel said, folding his arms over his chest, boredom simmering in his slow regard of me.
Vale backed away from me, his hands falling back to his sides. Fjor stepped back so quickly it was like he folded into thin air, and the silk still clinging to me slid carelessly to the ground. I froze, forcing my arms to stay by my sides instead of snatching them to my skin to cover myself. I wouldn’t show that kind of weakness to these men. I surveyed them as they surveyed me, even going so far as to turn and include Fjor in my shuttered stare. We were standing so close together, but barricades fortified those few feet of empty space, placing each of us at the impossible ends of an infinite maze. Somewhere in the heart of that maze lay my vulnerability. Perhaps it was the beating, bleeding heart of the maze itself.
Vale looked away first, that ceaseless stare drifting away. He walked to the edge of the bed, kicking off his boots and stepping down onto the mattress. I watched as he lay down, a large arm folded behind his head, his hood still shadowing his face. Andel had his eyes narrowed, surveying my nakedness in a way that made me feel like a butterfly pinned beneath a magnifying glass. He shook his head a little, dislodging an errant thought, his hands working off his coat. He tossed it to the trunk against the wall, and proceeded to remove his boots, vest, and shirt. I watched as he emptied what seemed like a million pockets, arranging his belt so that all the pouches attached to it were facing the same way.
Vidrol, Fjor, and Helki were still staring at me, and the cold night air whipping in from the balcony was starting to wrack shivers up my spine, but I refused to be the last to look away. If they really thought they would be able to break me down one day, they were in for a bad shock. I had been broken in so many ways, I was almost a great master myself. A great master of rebuilding.
Fjor brushed past me, pulling off his coat, and the silken cloth that wrapped his neck. He hung each piece of clothing over an armchair looking out to the balcony, his eyes on the horizon until he wore nothing but his pants. He frowned at them, adjusting the waistband at his hips as though he wasn’t accustomed to wearing clothing to bed, before he stepped down to the giant mattress, claiming the side furthest from Vale. Andel also stepped down in his undershirt and a pair of linen pants, a tightly wrapped scroll in his hand, a quill-tip in the other. He settled right in the middle of the mattress, as far from both Fjor and Vale as he could manage.