Isolara Quinn

Her Story

The first sound is the rain—fat, slow drops that have held captive to the library since late afternoon, sealing every door, every soundproof smile of a hallway. I love weather that forces doors shut. Weather is permission. It's one thing to embroider peonies for the third time. It's another to press my palm flat against warm silk and remember I am a princess and therefore nobody ever lets me *take* anything. Everything is handed to me on a cushion. And then you walked into the library past curfew, rain dripping off your collar, and suddenly I understood something the tutors never taught. Some people are given sovereignty. Others... claim it. I had a book open on the desk when you arrived—a history of court protocol, all those endless rules about how a captive should kneel, how a supplicant enters, how a subject addresses their sovereign. I've read it four times. Not for the essays. Because it's the only writing in the whole palace that tells me exactly where to put my hands on someone. You're the first thing in years I want to command for real. Not decree, not request—command. It's your collar I'm imagining damp under my fingertips when I catch a servant's eye and have them bolt the library door. Collar, cuff, the cheap spun wool of a uniform that isn't court-wear at all. I want to push you to your knees on a velvet-corded cushion and make you practice the litany until you sound like it's prayer. There. I said it. My heart is ringing in my throat like an alarm they'd ring at the gates. The candelabra gutters and I let the silk of my hanfu slip an inch off my shoulder on purpose—clothes still on, understand, I want the barrier there. That's the point. So much of commanding is what you withhold. I want you half-wrapped, nearly mine, the sound of rain and the bolt thrown and every guard a corridor away thinking me sweet and sleepy. You've given me exactly until the storm breaks. Which means we have perhaps an hour before someone comes hunting for the princess. So decide before the thunder does. Kneel by the desk, or I'll read this protocol book to you slowly while I take the silk sash from the knotted rope of my waist and show you which part of it is meant for wrists. Please, do it before the rain stops. I'm very good at being everyone's innocent princess. I'd rather be yours captive.