The marble under my soles was so cold it burned, a sheet of ice laid over centuries of someone else's triumph.
I took a single step forward—just one, barely the shift of a heel—and the entire chamber seemed to inhale with me, thirty pairs of lungs holding their breath while my rage boiled so thick I could taste copper on the back of my tongue.
Elvina's head snapped toward me, those pristine twin-tails whipping behind her like parade flags for the world's most insufferable general. Her emerald eyes locked onto mine with the slow, predatory confidence of a cat that had finally caught the mouse, purchased a small dining set, and was ready to savor the experience piece by piece.
The knife in her hand kissed the soft skin just under Mia's chin, dimpling it, promising that one twitch, one heartbeat too eager, and the floor would drink red for the first time in its long, polished life.
I froze mid-motion, one foot still half-raised, every muscle screaming at me to launch, to tear, to paint the walls with this silver-collared gremlin, but the truth hit colder than the marble under my heels.
She would do it, she would slit Mia's throat just to watch me choke on the aftermath, and she would laugh the entire time because that collar around her neck had never once stopped her from acting like the world was her personal playpen.
A dry click of my tongue cracked across the silence like a misfired pistol, too loud, too sharp, and I hated how it sounded like surrender.
Disappear, I thought to myself, vanish and reappear behind her with your fingers around that porcelain throat. And yet I knew that the second I was gone Elvina would spasm like a child whose toy had been yanked away and the knife would finish its arc before I could blink back into existence.
I could see it in the manic glitter of her eyes. She wasn't bluffing, she wasn't performing for the crowd the way she had with words earlier. This was the real, spoiled, feral creature that lived beneath the silk and the silver collar.
She knew the rules better than any of us. The collar marked her as property, yes, but property that had been trained to believe cruelty was currency and humiliation was oxygen, and right now she was richer than every noble in the empire.
Elvina's lips peeled back into a smile so wide it looked painted on, the kind of grin that belonged on a porcelain doll someone had dressed up as a serial killer and handed a knife.
"Oh, darling," she sang, voice syrupy enough to rot teeth, "Took you long enough to notice your little pet was being disciplined."
"Disciplined," I echoed, voice flat enough to be mistaken for stone.
She tilted the knife just enough for the chandelier's light to skate along the edge and kiss Mia's skin with a promise that made my stomach fold in on itself.
"Why of course! This disgusting little creature," she continued, nudging Mia's chin higher with the flat of the blade until the girl's throat was a taut, trembling bowstring, "thought it would be funny to spill wine on my dress last night. Red on ivory silk, can you imagine? I mean, the audacity of breathing the same oxygen as me is bad enough, but ruining couture? That's a capital offense in any civilized nation."
She fluttered her lashes at the room like a stage actress waiting for the laugh track, and half the slaves obliged with nervous titters because that was what you did when another slave wearing a prettier collar decided blood was décor.
Mia's lip quivered, bright blood pearling at the corner like a ruby earring she hadn't asked to wear, and her eyes—gods, those eyes—were still filled with pure, unfiltered murder, even as tears threatened to spill.
I wanted to scream at her to hold onto that fire, to keep it burning until it scorched every gilded surface in this room. But the four men pinning her looked intoxicated. Not on drink. On permission. Their knuckles were white, jaws clenched, eyes half-lidded, practically vibrating with the need to break something small and defiant.
Elvina huffed, twirling a twin-tail around her finger the way lesser tyrants twirl mustaches, sighing with theatrical woe. "So I decided a public lesson was in order," she went on, voice lilting like she was reciting poetry instead of orchestrating a public execution of dignity, "something memorable, something that really sinks into that pretty little skull. You understand, don't you, sweetheart? Pain passes. But shame...shame stays forever. And forever is such a delicious length of time, don't you think?"
I dragged my gaze across the chamber, desperately hunting for Quentin's cool silhouette, the one person who could shut this nightmare down with a single soft word and a grip on that slender shoulder.
But there was nothing. No Quentin leaning against a pillar with that lazy, lethal elegance. And no pack of Elvina's perfumed jackals either.
The absence hit me like a fist to the solar plexus. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me," I rasped, voice scraped raw. "Where the hell is Quentin?"
Elvina threw her head back and laughed, a bright, shattering sound, like ten thousand crystal goblets committing suicide at once. "Oh, sweetie, Quentin is… how shall I put this? Currently learning the limitations of rope," she purred, licking a canine with deliberate slowness. "My girls can be very persuasive when they work together."
Mia's voice came out tiny, trembling, but sharp enough to cut glass. "Fuck you."
The entire chamber seemed to freeze solid.
Elvina's face did something extraordinary then. Every muscle rearranged itself into a mask of pure, aristocratic disgust, the kind of expression you only perfect after generations of believing your blood runs purer than everyone else's, collar or no collar.
Her free hand snapped out faster than thought and smacked across Mia's cheek, the impact snapping Mia's head sideways so hard I heard her neck crack.
Fresh blood bloomed at the corner of Mia's mouth, bright and obscene. The men holding her laughed low, guttural laughs that made my skin crawl in panic.
Elvina leaned in until their noses brushed, voice dropping to a lover's whisper wrapped in razor wire and venom.
"Careful, whore," she crooned, soft enough that only Mia, the men, and I could hear the full rot of her words, "I'd hate to ruin your pretty little face before we finish introducing you to your place in the food chain."
Then she straightened, rolling her eyes for the audience like a bored queen addressing a pack of peasants. "Gods, they're always so mouthy at first. It's almost endearing. Like watching a puppy bark at a bonfire."
Then she flicked two fingers, lazy as ordering dessert.
The men moved like they'd been rehearsing this in their filthiest dreams. Rough hands slid under Mia's shirt with the confidence of ownership, palms cupping her breasts, thumbs dragging across nipples with deliberate cruelty, pinching hard enough to bruise.
Another pair of hands shoved between her thighs, rubbing viciously through the fabric, no pretense of consent, no pretense of anything but raw, public violation for an audience of thirty or so slaves too terrified to look away.
Mia's breath hitched into a wounded, animalistic sound that tore straight through my ribcage and buried itself in my heart like shrapnel.
I felt the rage boiling so violently my skin prickled with heat, my stolen elven sight snapping into focus without permission, turning every bead of sweat on Mia's temple into a crystal, every tear track into a river of diamonds.
Elvina caught the murder in my eyes and her smirk stretched wider, shark-like, delighted. She slid the knife higher, resting the flat under Mia's chin and forcing her head back until the tendons stood out like bowstrings under pale skin.
"Say it," she sang, sweet and poisonous. Mia whimpered, a broken sound I'd never wanted to hear from her mouth again as long as I lived. Elvina's voice cracked like a whip across the marble. "Say it, whore! Tell everyone exactly what you are, or we keep going until you're raw and bleeding."
Mia's lips parted, but only a sob escaped. Elvina sighed the sigh of a disappointed debutante, then leaned in and kissed her.
It wasn't just a kiss; it was conquest wearing lipstick and cruelty. Her tongue shoved past Mia's teeth like she was planting a flag, sloppy, wet, and utterly, violently unwanted, claiming every inch of Mia's mouth while the men took it as open invitation, fingers probing harder, stroking, forcing biology to betray her in the most public way possible.
When Elvina finally pulled back, a glistening string of saliva still connecting their lips like a leash, Mia coughed and gagged, shaking so hard her knees buckled.
Elvina's gaze dropped between Mia's legs where a dark, mortifying wet patch was blooming across the front of her trousers, spreading, dripping slow and shameful onto the pristine marble in tiny, audible plinks.
"Oh my gods," Elvina gasped, clapping a hand to her chest in mock rapture, "look at that! The little slut actually came! Came from being molested in front of a group of slaves like the cheapest dockside whore in the empire."
She tapped the puddle with one dainty shoe, smearing it. "Tell me, does it feel good knowing your body's more honest than your mouth ever was? Because this...this is art."
Mia was crying now, tears carving clean paths through the blood and grime smearing her cheeks, but her eyes still clung to that last burning coal of defiance. It glowed hotter with every drop that fell, like she refused to let pain wash anything away except her fear.
Elvina merely smirked at this. "One more time, darling," she crooned, "say the words, or we start round two and I let them take turns inside you right here on the floor." The men tightened their grips again, panting like dogs held on fraying leashes.
Mia's voice cracked like thin ice. "I'm… I'm sorry I spilled wine on your dress, Lady Elvina." Elvina cupped a hand to her ear, theatrical as ever.
"And?" Mia's body shuddered, shame and hate warring on her face. "And I'm… I'm just a filthy, disgusting whore who deserves your punishment."
The words fell into the room like stones into deep water, ripples of humiliation spreading until they drowned every last scrap of air.
Elvina's smile was so wide her eyes curved into crescents of pure, gleeful rot. "There it is. Was that so hard?" She flicked the knife in a lazy circle, triumphant. "Now take off your panties. Let everyone see how soaked the little traitor got from her punishment."
Mia made a broken sound—half sob, half scream caught in her throat—as the hands on her arms loosened just enough for obedience.
She fumbled with trembling fingers at the waistband of her trousers, shoving them down along with the soaked underwear beneath, the fabric catching on shaking knees before she kicked it free with a whimper.
The men let her go entirely now, stepping back like stagehands proud of their masterpiece, and Mia stood there half-naked from the waist down, thighs glistening, face flaming crimson, tears dripping off her chin onto her chest.
Elvina snatched the offered panties with two delicate fingers, holding them high like a battle standard for the entire chamber to behold. The dark stain in the crotch was obscene, glistening wetly in the golden light, still warm, still dripping.
"Behold," she announced, voice ringing with unholy joy, "the evidence of true repentance! A whore's apology, written in her own juices and signed with her dignity. Someone should frame this. Or bottle it. Eau de Desperate Slave, notes of terror, shame, and involuntary orgasm."
The laughter that rippled through the onlookers was sick, eager, slavish. But I wasn't listening anymore.
The world had narrowed to that single point: Elvina standing tall, drunk on her own malice, knife dangling careless at her side, Mia momentarily forgotten in the triumph of the moment.
My heartbeat thickened, slowing to a hunter's rhythm, muscles bunching and tightening like a trap ready to spring. The taste of the moment began coursing through me—blood, fury, and the delicious promise of vengeance.
It was time to move.