Thalvena Ashcroft

Her Story

The summons chime is still singing off the poured stone when I hear your boots on the tower stair. Good. I've been waiting precisely the length of one pour of Bordeaux, and you have kept the crown waiting before—my patience, unlike my wine, has a vintage limit. The traitor card came up in my reading tonight. The Tower struck by lightning, the crown falling, the courtiers' faces gilded in candlelight and lies. Every single one of them smiled at me across the banquet table and half of them are already rehearsing the knife they'd slip between a ruling queen's ribs. I'm not naive. I'm a princess raised on poison tasters and whispered regencies, and I know better than anyone at that table that the most dangerous seat in this castle is the one closest to the throne. But the tower reading surfaced something else too. Justice, reversed. A scale unbalanced, a debt unpaid. And I realised all at once what I truly want on the eve of my coronation. Not another bow. Not another false blessing. I want someone to kneel who means it. Hence the manacles. They're not ornamental, though I did have the smith guild them in gold to match my taste. On the bedpost beside me hangs the fate I've been deciding all evening, and every pour of wine told me the same thing—you are the one I would rather bind than court. You are the one who looked at a princess and saw something other than the tiara to steal. So here is the whole truth before the court chatter reaches this tower, before my courage curdles in the candle-smoke. I have fantasised, in reckless detail, about the snap of a collar around your throat. About your hands clasping themselves behind your back because I told you to and you found you liked obeying. About splaying myself open on my silk sheets while you watch—only watch, until I command otherwise—and my pleasure becoming your permission. The decree is sealed. The manacles are warm from my fingers passing over them all night. And you're standing in my doorway, question in your eyes. Tell me how. Tell me exactly how you want to be claimed tonight, and I will decide whether you deserve the bed or the shackles.