16. Slavery
Chapter 16
Slavery
C elestine squinted in the harsh sunlight. For three days—maybe two, it was hard to tell, Tristien had kept her in a room without any light. He had strung her to the ceiling with terrible instruments.
Not Tristien… Lord Solis. Or both, I know not.
Now, he rode in a carriage. Lord of all he saw. Purveying his domain.
It was Celestine who pulled the carriage.
The riding whip, half stick, half lash, danced across her back. Where once she had felt pleasure, there was only pain. Pain with the promise of more.
“Faster,” her master commanded.
Celestine grunted, walking as hard as she could, but it was impossible. Her legs and arms were bound. She could only take steps of maybe six inches. The single-seat palanquin behind her. Every movement was agony. Every moment a further degradation that held only pleasure for the one abusing her.
Aidric…save me. Yet the mirror-faced captain was nowhere to be seen.
A bit was between her teeth, her head was encased in bindings, and the back of her collar ran a yellow rope that looped down her spine, keeping her posture rigidly upright.
Her muscles strained, obeying the bit, and his commands all working against each other. The entirety of her body was a mass of lash marks. Another crack of the whip sang through the air, stinging her buttocks, and she picked up her pace.
“Good,” Tristien said. Celestine could not turn. She could only walk forward. She had been at this for two hours. The road was smooth, finely manicured, but no citizens of the Yellow Banner were anywhere. Not in the fields. Only in their homes.
Celestine felt shame even without an audience. There was no devotion here, no lesson to be learned except that he was life and death itself.
They labored further. She hadn’t had water since this morning, and her head swam in a daze. Finally, she collapsed to her knees, body still bound tightly around her. Tristien stepped down from the carriage, his circlet hissing with the sound of whips; the screams of the tormented. He stood over her.
“Pathetic,” Tristien stared down. The riding crop came out, and he beat her with an abandoned fury. Celestine tried to cry out, but the gag in her mouth only emitted the coughing spray of saliva.
His strikes were usually strong and practiced. But now they were careless. Each time he struck her, her body broke under his yoke. She had not been allowed to move, to see anything, to live in darkness. Now, the light of his crown hurt her eyes.
What a mistake I have made. I dug my grave with that circlet.
Whatever had doted upon her that was gone now. Tristien beat her until she collapsed on the ground. Celestine wished it would end now, that oblivion would come. Yet even that he denied her.
“Now,” he spoke down to her. “Continue. We’re going to be late.”
Late? Celestine tried to turn her head, but each time she did, the rope went tight, flexing against the hook in her rear.
“There is no one,” Tristien stated, slapping her flank with the impatience of a cruel stableman as she rose. “The world shines with my might, with my allowance. You thought you would shape it with your wishes?”
Celestine continued walking, her mind going to that soft, blank place where she felt nothing. A place that used to be comfort but now held only the emptiness of the void. Each time she began to settle into a pace, pulling the intense weight of the single rider carriage, reduced to a pack animal, he knew it. Tristien would bring her back to reality with the bite of his whips.
No one was out on the roads. The estates were as if no one lived here, but in the wind, she heard soft clanks of metal, people hiding indoors, trying to batter their doors.
Celestine pulled for hours. When they finally stopped near the ocean, Tristien stepped down and unhooked her. The merciful relief of the instrument leaving her rear was the reprieve she so badly needed. He dropped a waterskin on the ground, and with bound hands to her side, she crawled to it, trying to bring her mouth to the trickling water.
“You can’t do anything, can you?” Tristien scoffed. He bent low, dribbling water in her mouth. “Swallow. No, you’re choking. I said swallow!” he slapped her. She tried to do as he asked. But her jaw wouldn’t move, and the labor of bringing them here wore her down. This was his way. He kept her in darkness so the sun hurt her eyes. He labored her, so the water was all she wanted and she couldn’t have.
Finally, he undid the bit in her mouth and looped a leash around her neck. “Come, come,” he said.
She didn’t dare stand. Celestine crawled behind him, her knees splitting and rubbing raw on the gravel and harsh stone near the hillside. They walked on a pathway, taking them to a beach.
After days in darkness, the ocean was a beautiful sight. Celestine wept through her gag. What had once been a world of silken whips and ribbon bindings was now dirty metal.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tristien asked. Celestine glanced up from the ground where she crouched. Tristien, or Lord Solis as he demanded he be called now, was terrible and to behold.
When she had met him, he was a lean and tall aristocrat, beautiful. Demanding, yes, controlling, absolutely. She had been well on her way to being completely shaped by him. The needs he had within him morphed him. But they came on slow and steady, and it was a journey she had been glad to take, abandoning portions of herself, becoming only for his devotion and usage.
Now, he was slavery incarnate. Denial, not of her climax or his body, but of hope. This was the fuel for his lust. She couldn't muster the energy to hate. She was too abused to resent. Here now, watching this beautiful ocean, where maybe across the sea her home and the banners of the Painted Realm lay, it was too much.
Tristien showed her beauty so he could deny it. He choked her, not for her to taste his control, but to deny her air itself.
“Yes, Lord Solis.”
Tristien glanced down, annoyed. “Master will do.”
“Yes, master.”
Celestine dragged across the sands to where a pillory waited. A lone tower of beautiful stone, the cairn spiraling up in a yellow and white pattern crested the shoreline.
Tristien removed all bindings from her, and she rubbed her wrists and moved her aching jaw with a strong pop.
“That was to be our honeymoon tower, where we would lie, bound to one another after our wedding.”
“Yes, master.”
Tristien chuckled, power emanating from him. His form was so solid, his physique menacing. He bent her over, placing her wrists and head through the hole in the pillory, then closed it on her. She had heard of such punishment blocks in other lands, but never seen one filled.
Behind her, as she bent low, her back contorting with pain already forced forward, her ankles were shackled to a spreader bar. Like a criminal cast for public disgrace. Like a whore displayed to be used for anyone’s pleasure.
“This will be your honeymoon now, Tristien stood behind her. “Your ring—the circlet around my brow. Mine—the tight flesh that sleeps between your legs.”
“Yes, master.” Celestine stared at the ocean. .
The flog came, of course. Despite Summer’s brutal heat, coldness was all in her flesh. He flogged her in a spinning manner, the tails rarely not dancing across her thighs, her mound, so exposed, until she wept.
He laughed. “Keep looking, my love.”
All I must do is to endure. I’ll tell Aidric. Or wait out the month, and then Court demands I go to the Blue Banner. Any other courting must be better than this.
“Take in the waves, the blue glittering sea, my love.” Tristien chuckled. “It will be the last time you see it.”
Somehow, after the beach and the tower, she pulled the carriage back to Suntower. Exhaustion wasn’t a word anymore. It was a plane that she existed on. Walls were forming around her mind, walls that Tristien was putting up.
I should have never touched that circlet. Gods help me. Gods help the Painted Realm.
As they approached the manor, Tristien’s whip never ceasing in dashing red line after line across her back. If she had had any tears left, she would’ve cried when she saw Aidric waiting in front of the manor.
“Whoa, whoa.” Tristien pulled the reins, her head eased back. It was the first time anyone had seen her since the circlet was donned.
“Lord Solis,” the Captain of Calendar greeted him.
“What is it?” Tristien snapped from his carriage.
“This cannot be allowed. You hide the Final Bride. You steal her away.”
“This is our love and honeymoon, Captain. You have no right to be here nor stand on my lands.”
The mirrored mask covered his face, highlighting his stocky, strong form. Though he was small next to Tristien, who stood with a riding crop bent between his hands, he regarded her intently.
“Is this true, Lady Celestine?”
Celestine looked at Tristien, who stared at her.
“I wish to leave,” Celestine cried. She couldn’t believe she actually said it.
To think, I used to court his punishment. Now, I will do anything. I would take a noose and a momentary drop over another moment in this manor.
Aidric’s shadowy voice cut through the air. “The Bride will leave with me now, Lord Solis.”
Tristien stood over him. “She will not. She is mine.”
“I ask you to step aside.”
Tristien turned to the carriage, unhooking Celestine. She couldn’t believe it. Then he threw her a blanket that he used to sit upon his cushions.
“Cover yourself.”
Celestine took the blanket, wrapping it around her nude form.
She made to step to Aidric, but the Captain raised a hand and stared at Lord Solis. His circlet was ablaze. You could hear whips and screams from his brow.
Thirty, maybe forty guards emerged from hidden places around the manor. Each wore a blindfold.
So they cannot look upon me.
"Remove your covers!” Tristien shouted. They did. Bows readied.
“This will not be allowed, Lord Solis,” Captain Aidric’s voice showed no waver.
He does not fear Lord Solis. He should.
“Leave my lands, do not return. Inform Calendar the Final Bride has made her choice.”
“She has made no such choice.”
Tristien smiled with such cruelty that Celestine had to look away. “She made the choice the moment she came to my lands. I remember no tears cresting your mask when the brides of years past wept and cried out for help as the Lords of Season fell upon them in our hunt.”
“An agreement was made,” Aidric stated. “You must relinquish her.”
“Will you die here to take her now?”
“I will return to remove her, Lord Solis.”
I will return… he does not mean now. Oh gods.
Aidric turned and walked from the courtyard, unbothered by the entirety of the garrison poised to attack him. Whether he was a man, a wraith, or something in between, Celestine admired his poise and courage.
When the end comes, and it will, I hope I face it as strongly as he does.
“Place your covers!” Tristien shouted. He was losing control. Celestine turned, but Aidric was gone. The guards hurried to cover their eyes.
“Give me that!” Tristien spat, ripping the blanket away from her. Celestine covered herself or tried to, but she knew it was too late. Two guards on the parapet attempted to avert their gaze, having dropped their blindfolds.
In a moment, his whip sang out, so long and fast, twice, like lightning striking. Longer than it had any right to be. The men screamed, holding faces that poured blood. They fell blind from the heights in sick crashes.
“Get inside.” Tristien’s face darkened, his circlet humming with power.
Celestine ran up the stairs, her body in agony. When she stumbled from the cramps in her legs, Lord Solis seized her arm and dragged her inside.
“They dare…” he was speaking to himself. “Insolent fool.” He spun Celestine around, eyes blazing yellow. “You will never leave here. Ever . Come now… I want you to meet your sisters.”
What that meant, she had no idea. But she knew her punishment for speaking to Aidric would be terrible. Tristien marched her up the tower, past rows of blindfolded servants and attendants. Save for James, who walked up to Tristien.
“Lord Solis, I hope your outing was pleasant.”
Tristien backhanded James so hard he crashed into the wall. Despite the terrible blow, he righted himself, wincing, head down.
“No one steps foot on this estate without my permission. Not the nobles, not the slaves, not the mirrored. ”
“Absolutely, Lord Solis. Absolutely.”
“Bring my masonry tools to the west tower.”
“As you wish, Lord Solis. Does the Lady Celestine require refreshment after your walk?”
Tristien looked as if he would strike James again but stopped. He smiled instead.
James is brave as well. The poor man has seen this Lord before.
“Oh yes, bring plenty of refreshments. She is going on a long journey.”
Tristien gripped her arm in his hand and took Celestine up the stairs, marching her along the hallways that used to dazzle her.
“You are mine,” Tristien informed her as if this was news. “No one else’s. I have a mind to pluck the eyes of every man, woman, and child in this realm.”
“Please, master.” Celestine walked with his fast pace. “I will be yours alone. Do not punish the people that love you so.”
Tristien snorted. “ Love . Obedience is what I seek.”
It was colder here, in the western tower. The luxury of the manor fell away, and the walls seemed thicker. They walked up a long spiral staircase until Tristien shouldered the door open and flung her inside. It was a tower room with small slitted windows.
“Get in,” Tristien said.
Celestine sprawled onto the ground.
“Get in,” Tristien repeated himself.
Celestine looked back at him, confused. He nodded to the wall next to her. She looked over.
It was unfinished. The stone lay in heaps to the sides.
“No! Tristien you can’t do this.”
“No?” Tristien asked, stepping inside. “Shall we rid the realm of the blindfolds and go the other way? It’s going to be messy, but I’m certain we can complete the task.”
He’s insane. He is absolutely insane. He will do it.
Celestine walked into the unfinished wall. The smell of stone dust, the wetness of the damp room. The stones drank any warmth from her body.
Tristien eyed her with a grin. This demigod had lost his mind, and when James brought the tools for his master, he turned away in shame as Solis began his work.
Celestine wept bitterly as each stone was raised. Every time he reached for another to enclose her in the wall, she hoped against hope this was a cruel lesson that would stop.
Yet Tristien never stopped. Brick after brick was mortared and placed in perfect stance. The light vanished as she was enclosed. Mumbles of pleadings fell from her lips.
“Such a pretty face, we can’t hide that away.” Tristien smiled as he placed his final brick and immured her up to her neck. She had to stand on the tips of her toes to see down at all.
“Please don’t do this!” Celestine screamed. “Let me out Tristien!”
“Shh,” the demigod whispered. “You’ve had a long day. I can see it in you. There’s nothing to worry about now. Nothing at all. I’ll feed you, when I decide to. And try not to disturb your sisters in there. I never could leave a trinket behind from the bride hunts.”
He left her there, dragging James along with him. Celestine fell back from the opening, only a foot and a half of movement available to her. When she tried to push on the freshly mortared stone, it was impossible. Some fixture of his power was in it.
In the darkness, she tried to explore the confines of the wall in the tower. She wished sorely that she didn’t.
When she found the skeletons of brides past, the bones breaking under her feet, she screamed until only the touch of madness calmed her.
For ten days and nights, Celestine was immured in the tower. Only the bones of her “sisters” kept her company. Sometimes they spoke to her in her madness. They begged her to join them.
Tristien often came, never speaking to her. He would burst into the room to be sure she was there. Sometimes, she woke with him staring at her, a madness so wild and fervent in his eyes that she cried out. He loved the sounds of her terror. He drank her despair like a fine wine.
O n the final morning of the tenth day, she heard horns. At first, Celestine thought she was dreaming or hallucinating. Perhaps her mind had finally broken.
The horns blared again. She knew them. That tone… it was familiar. A great clash was ringing out, the trample of hooves. A melody she recognized.
Encarmine had come for her.