Dismemberment Page 5

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  Princess Steyan lay naked on her bed, curled into a sobbing ball of wretched, anguished flesh. She couldn’t get her thoughts right. They kept poisoning her though still she fought back. There were bruises all over her body and her left arm was badly sprained. She could taste blood in her mouth… mostly her own but some of Prince Bram’s… or what of it she could not spit out rather. She’d bitten his ear, clean off she reckoned— and that had saved her— for now. She knew he would back before too long, his pride would demand it; and then things would get worse… much, much worse.

  She wanted to kill herself though knew she could never do such a thing. A Princess of Semult was expected to endure every hardship as bidden. Her only escape lay in convincing or paying someone else to end her life. But who would raise their sword against the King… perhaps only one in the whole Sunship— and only if she begged him!

  But that would never happen— no! He was to be put, most cruelly, to death in a matter of hours— unless he would concede that she was indeed the property of Prince Bram… which she knew he could never do. They would bring the Black Stallions of Hell but little difference would it make— not to Keane. She knew he loved her above all things else and therefore she also knew the Dawn’s Reckoning, the Court of the King, would soon be sullied by blood— disgraced in a manner unheard of for more than a thousand years.

  She could hear Prince Bram cursing in the adjacent room as his ear was attended to. He called out that his favorite whores be brought to him and she knew it was for her benefit that he did so as loudly as he did. She shivered from the thought of him ever touching her skin, wishing she could run outdoors at the very break of day to end her woe. Hers was a fate far worse than his… for her there was no escape, no closure… only years and years of hell to come.