Chapter 9 #3
Exhaustion weighed on me like armor I couldn’t take off. Anger slipped through my fingers when I tried to grasp it. Was I even furious with Isolde? Or was she just another woman surviving the gravity of a king’s will?
She hadn’t wanted power. She had wanted Maris safe. She wanted to obey the king she was raised with—the king her parents sent her off to.
And in this world, that counted as its own kind of defiance.
Isolde lifted her practice weapon and came at me without warning.
It met mine with a jarring crack that vibrated straight up my arms. I barely caught the strike, my wrists screaming as I twisted to absorb the force. She pressed immediately, giving me no space to recover, her movements economical and merciless.
“Feet,” she said.
I adjusted a heartbeat too late. Her blade hooked mine aside, and she drove her shoulder into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I stumbled, boots sliding on grit, barely managing to keep my balance.
A laugh carried from the edge of the yard.
“Again,” Isolde said.
My face burned. My grip tightened until my fingers ached. I attacked again, and Isolde forced me back step by step, her moves always where mine wasn’t, her footwork flawless.
I caught one strike. Then another.
For a moment, hope flared. Then, she swept my legs.
I hit the ground hard, breath exploding out of me as grit tore into my palms. Before I could scramble up, the tip of her weapon pressed to my throat. Not cutting. Close enough to promise it.
Silence fell, thick and heavy.
“Get up,” Isolde said quietly.
It was the kind of quiet that meant she’d already decided I was either going to stand or I was going to stay on the ground until I learned what it cost.
“No.” I swallowed grit and pain and whatever was left of my pride. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want any of this.
“You can hate me,” she went on, voice flat as iron.
“You can hate Ashenveil. You can hate the Dominus, the dragon, the heat, the eyes on your back, and the way this mountain breathes like it’s waiting for you to stop moving.
But none of that changes what happens next,” she said.
“You can rot in it, or you can become someone the world can’t steer anymore. ”
My lungs burned. My hands shook. I wanted to tell her to go to the abyss.
I wanted to curl up and disappear.
Isolde leaned closer, her gaze hard enough to split stone.
“In Emberfall,” she said, and the words came out like a verdict, “they used us. Point-blank.”
I went still.
“They dressed it up in silk and ceremony,” she continued. “They called it an alliance. They called it duty. They called it marriage, as if a title makes a cage less of a cage.” Her mouth curled, disgusted. “And they didn’t even give you the courtesy of your own name.”
My throat tightened. My stomach turned. Because she wasn’t guessing. She was stating facts.
“You weren’t a person there,” Isolde said.
“You were a role. A body. A symbol. Something they could move across a board and pretend it was strategy instead of cruelty. No one is coming to save you because you deserve saving,” Isolde said.
“They save what benefits them. They keep what serves them. That’s what power does when it’s bored. ”
The murmurs at the edge of the yard faded into nothing. The heat in my ribs turned sour. I hated how much I understood her.
Isolde straightened.
“So here is your choice,” she said. “You can spend the rest of your life letting royals with crowns decide what you’re allowed to be, or you can make yourself into something they can’t afford to underestimate.”
My pulse hammered.
She stepped back, giving me space.
“In Ashenveil,” she said, “you will be forged.”
The word hit like a blow.
“Not into their idea of you,” she added. “Not into a princess. Not into a consort. Not into a warning carved into stone.”
Her gaze dragged over me like she was weighing bones and stubbornness and whatever was left underneath.
“Into you,” Isolde said. “But dangerous.”
I pushed onto my elbows, breath ragged, palms stinging as I fought for leverage.
Isolde watched me with a cold patience.
“If you’re tired of the world writing your story,” she said, “then stop handing them the quill.”
My hands shook as I got one knee under me.
“Stop waiting for permission to take up space,” she continued. “Stop apologizing for surviving. Stop shrinking just because men prefer women who are easier to move.”
I forced myself upright, wobbling like I might break in half.
Isolde’s eyes narrowed, approving in the smallest, most infuriating way.
“Good,” she said. “Now stay standing.”
My ribs screamed. My throat burned. My vision flickered at the edges.
But I stayed.
Isolde lifted her blade again, calm and merciless.
“This mountain doesn’t care who you were,” she said. “It only cares what you become.”
Her voice dropped, final as law.
“So become someone who no longer gets controlled.”
I tightened my grip on the practice sword, knuckles white, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
Fine.
If the world insisted on dragging me through fire, then I’d learn how to burn back.