On the third day after her torture session, Danika was feeling much better. The pain in her back lessened, too.
While she took her bath, Sally prepared to go to the mines. Sally already complained that the slave trainer kept asking her about her princess.
“I don’t understand his interest in you, my princess, and it makes me so scared. He seems dangerous!” she’d confided in her.
It scared Danika too, but she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it. If there was one thing she had learned to do since she became a slave, it was to live one day at a time.
She finished bathing and dressing when Baski entered to care for her wounds. Danika noticed that the woman was more on edge than usual. After she had dressed her wounds, she asked Baski what was happening.
When the silence stretched, Danika decided Baski wouldn’t answer. But then she did.
“It’s Remeta. She’s refused to eat for days now. She does it sometimes, but these days it just gets worse. It’s been three days.” Her voice cracked in the end.
A wave of guilt filled Danika. The same fifteen-year-old girl her father brutalized. “I’m sorry.”
Baski got up. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll get over it; she always does. Make sure to take your pills after eating.”
“Alright, ma’am.”
“The king is going to the royal court, but he will request your presence in seven round turns of the long pointer. I would come and get you, but I’ll be staying home with Remeta today. I already informed the king.”
Seven round turns of the long pointer meant seven hours.
She nodded again anyway. “Alright, Madam Baski.”
Baski nodded and walked out the door. Danika was surprised when the older woman came back again. “Danika?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She hesitated. “There are some things… even the king has no control over.”
“What?” Danika asked, bewildered.
“N-never mind.” She turned and walked out again.
Danika cocked her head to the side, thinking of the woman’s strange words and behaviour. She shrugged when it didn’t make sense and went for a walk.
One of these days, she would go to Baski’s home and see Remeta. She didn’t know how it would feel to see the little girl, but she felt a sense of responsibility to do so. The guilt riding her was too much.
You’re not your father. You’re Danika, she tried to tell herself in her heart to lessen the guilt she felt.
It didn’t work.
Baski stood in front of the king, who had finished dressing in his formal garments.
“I dressed her wounds and applied new herbs on her. Her back looks better, and her wounds are not infected,” she recounted.
The king said nothing. Baski didn’t understand the meaning of ‘no feedback’. The woman purposely chose not to understand that particular command, and Lucien didn’t know why.
“I already relayed your order to see her later, Your Highness. I hope there is nothing else you want me to do before I go.”
He walked to the desk and started rolling the scrolls one after the other until they were all organized on the desk. He didn’t look at her when he asked, “How is Remeta?”
Baski’s heart broke a little at the sad question. “She’s n-not doing so well, Your Majesty.”
He didn’t say anything for long.
“Be strong, Baski,” he muttered at last.
Baski knew what that meant. She should prepare herself; she might never get her sweet lovely little girl again. A time might come when Baski might be alive, but Remeta was dead.
Tears filled the woman’s eyes, but she blinked them back. “I’m trying to be, my king,” she said hoarsely.
“Bring her to the palace one of these days.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. I will.”
Silence descended between them. Again.
“Does she know? The reason why she’s being summoned in seven round turns of the long pointer?” he asked at last.
“I-I’m so sorry, my king. I tried telling her, but no matter how much I tried—”
“You couldn’t,” he finished for her.
She lowered her head miserably. “How do I tell her she’ll be having another introduction, and this time around, the four kingdoms summoned her? Her father made enemies with them when he was still alive—four kingdoms and still counting. How do I tell her that it’s either she is introduced, or our kingdom will go to war with these kingdoms?”
The king said nothing. He lifted his scrolls and started walking towards her and the door, stopping in front of her. His face was devoid of emotions as he held Baski’s eyes. “You shouldn’t have to tell her all those things, Baski. You should have just informed her that the maids are coming in the evening to get her ready for another introduction.”
Then he walked past her and out of the door.
When Baski allowed the tears to run freely down her face, she didn’t know who she was crying for.
Was it Remeta or Danika? Or both?
Sally had gone to the mines. Left alone, Danika needed some fresh air outdoors.
Danika stood and slipped her feet into her sandals, then looked around. Her room looked beautiful because of the way Sally decorated it. She smiled, taking in the new features. The fresh flowers. The lightbulbs. New carpets. Already, she was counting the minutes before Sally came back again.
Danika walked out of the palace and visited the library alone, where she spent a good amount of time.
It was afternoon by the time she returned to the palace and strode towards the garden. She was staring at it with fascination when her back prickled.
Someone was watching her.
She looked behind her and stared up. There she stood at the window, staring at Danika with eyes filled with such loathing: Vetta, the king’s mistress.
The woman was still confined to her room, and from the look on her face, Danika could see that the woman was not happy about it.
In fact, the woman looked like she was halfway out of her mind in captivity. Danika bowed her head slightly in greeting.
Vetta only glared harder at her. Her hate for Danika grew in her state of confinement.
After remaining in her room for so many hours, she was agitated and felt caged. She hated—hated—seeing the bitch responsible for her predicament.
How could something like this happen to her? Just because of a stupid slave!?
Vetta tried to calm herself. She was already well-rested, and her head was working better. She would deal with Danika! Only this time around, she’d deal with her in a much better way. She just had to come up with a better plan that would get rid of the bitch. One way or another.
Danika saw the way Vetta was staring at her. She stared right back at the woman without ducking her head like a coward—the wicked woman that almost killed her.
Danika didn’t come this far to be killed by anybody. She already got this far. And one day, she would have her freedom again. One day, she would pick up the pieces of her life.
She would never be a princess again, but she could be a scholar. She was far more educated than even the most educated, privileged women in these kingdoms.
Finally, she ignored the look of loathing the woman was sending her way, and with her head held high, she walked away from the garden.