Chapter 2
When I woke again, I lay in the Ward residence in Birtande.
The man who saved me was Gareth Ward, the general who held the border.
He was in his mid-thirties, with a long scar running from his brow to his jaw. He looked terrifying.
He told me I was Julian's gift to him.
The two men from the cart were Julian's servants.
They saw my face and turned predatory.
But they did not expect Gareth, riding to collect me, to catch them red-handed.
Gareth saved me. Then delivered me to another hell.
The back wing of the Ward residence was dark and damp.
My chamber was more decrepit than Julian's woodshed.
Gareth was a brute.
Wine turned him into a demon. He lashed me with a whip. He pressed a hot iron to my skin, leaving ugly scars.
He said I was a noble lady from Cirewen, and he would break my spirit with his own hands.
I fought. Then went numb. Then learned to bend.
Living was the only revenge. And revenge meant returning to Cirewen. To stand before Julian again.
I was no longer Mia Finch. I was the nameless concubine in the Ward residence's back wing. A toy for any man's cruelty.
The other women in the house despised me.
They spat in my food. They scattered broken glass in my wash tub.
They called me a harlot. Whore.
I never argued. I endured in silence.
Then, in the dead of night, I used the hidden hairpin to scratch line after line into the wall.
Each line marked a wound. Each line recorded my hatred for Julian.
Birtande winters were cold enough to kill.
I owned no heavy coat. I hugged my knees and shook in the wind.
One winter, fever took me. I burned and raved for days.
Everyone assumed I would die. They dragged me to a corner of the yard and left me for dead.
I lay in the freezing snow, staring up at the bleak, overcast sky.
I thought about my mother.
On her deathbed, she took my hand. "Mia. Live."
Yes. I would live. Not here. Not like this.
I dragged myself up and crept toward the kitchen. I stole a cold biscuit.
With that scrap of food and a burning refusal to give in, I forced myself to survive.
After the fever broke, I emerged as someone else entirely.
My eyes held no warmth.
My heart turned harder than the stones of Birtande.
I began studying every soul in that house.
Gareth's brutality. His wife's jealousy. The other concubines' stupidity.
I played their hatreds against each other to carve out space to breathe.
When Gareth raged, I vanished before his fury erupted.
When his wife came hunting for trouble, I played the weakling to draw his protection.
When the concubines clawed at each other, I sat back and watched them tear themselves apart.
Slowly, I claimed my place in that devouring house.
Gareth's interest in me dimmed.
He found new toys. I could finally breathe.
I found ways to reach beyond the walls.
I needed word from Cirewen. Word of Julian. Word of how he and his beloved Serena fared.
I traded the only thing of value I owned, that hairpin, to bribe the steward who bought supplies.
She told me that Julian now served as the Chancellor. He wielded absolute power.
He and Serena lived in perfect harmony, the envy of Cirewen, a storybook couple.
They had a child.
A baby boy, barely a month old.
When the news struck, I sat embroidering.
The needle stabbed right into my fingertip.
Blood dripped onto the pristine cloth.
It looked like crimson blossoms opening on the white fabric.
I stared at that brutal red and laughed. Laughed until tears ran.
I thought, 'Julian, you live so well that you have probably forgotten that in distant Birtande, a woman named Mia Finch still struggles in this living hell.
'But that does not matter. I will make you remember. One day, I will return, and every pain I endured, every drop of blood I shed across these three years, I will repay with interest.'
I scratched the final mark into the wall.
One thousand and ninety-five lines.
Three whole years.
I waited for the day Julian would finally come to take me away.
I knew he would come.
Because he was the one who handed me over with his own hands.
He'd have to see for himself what his precious "gift" looked like after all the torment.