Chapter 57 Only You
Only You
Istep toward him slowly.
My father’s blood stains the front of his shirt, dark and spreading.
His breathing ruined and uneven as he sags against the ropes that bind him to the chair.
The papers Colsar brought lie scattered across the table, some fallen to the floor, their edges soaking up what has already begun to pool beneath the chair.
The room smells of iron and damp soil, of freshly turned ground.
Colsar stands in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him through the thin air between us.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, the words meant for me, not the man tied to the chair.
“For what?” I ask, because there is blood on the floor and my father’s tongue lies somewhere behind us, and I do not understand what apology survives this.
“For letting it happen,” he answers, and he does not look away from me when he says it. “At tea.”
The scene returns with brutal clarity: porcelain breaking against the floor, my father’s voice cool and instructive as if I were livestock to be corrected, Mysin smiling while I knelt. Colsar seated above it all, watching.
“I knew what they were doing,” he continues evenly. “I knew when Mysin dropped the cup. I knew when your father began advising me how to discipline you.”
There is no volatility in his tone, no attempt to dramatize what he admits. “I wanted to end it then. I wanted to end them, but I needed to hear it. I needed to understand exactly who they had been to you.” He does not look away. “And I let you stand there while I did.”
Something inside me moves at that, but it is not anger or sadness.
“I have not slept since,” he says. “Not because I questioned what I would do. Because I saw your face when he spoke, and I realized I had allowed men who treated you like that to remain unpunished under my roof.” He does not glance toward my father, though the man makes a strained, choking sound behind us.
“That will not happen again,” Colsar promises.
“I will not watch you kneel for anyone, not at Rathmor Palace, not anywhere.”
The silence that follows is dense.
“And this morning,” he adds after a moment, “I should have told you where I was going.”
I say nothing.
“I assumed you would wake and think I was hunting,” he continues.
“I did not consider what silence feels like to someone who has always been left.” There is no softness in the phrasing, no indulgence, only recognition.
“I will tell you next time,” he says. “Even if I am gone for an hour. You will hear it from me first.” His eyes remain on mine.
“I do not abandon what is mine. And if I leave a room, I will come back to it.”
He pauses, then continues, his tone more vulnerable, exposed. “And last night made this worse. I thought wanting you was something I could contain. A complication I would manage.” His voice lowers slightly, with reluctant acceptance. “But once you were in my bed. It stopped being manageable.”
Behind us, my father struggles for breath.
Colsar does not turn. “I woke knowing I had allowed men who humiliated you to breathe another day,” he says. “After you chose me.” He draws a measured breath before speaking again. “If this is too much,” he says after a moment, “if what I did repels you…”
He doesn’t finish the thought. He doesn’t need to. He is asking something far more dangerous than whether I approve of violence. He is asking whether his obsession makes him monstrous, whether he has crossed a line I cannot follow.
I step closer instead. My fingers grip his shirt, pulling him down to me. “I am not afraid of you,” I continue. “I love that you did this.”
He goes very still.
“You think you’re the only one obsessed?” I murmur. “You’re wrong.”
When I pull back, my hand remains at his collar, blood transferring to his skin where my fingers slide upward. “You have reminded me,” I breathe, “that anyone who hurts me belongs on their knees.”
A low sound escapes him as he hardens beneath my hand. “Your father is in the room,” he warns.
I do not turn to look. “Nobody is in the room,” I answer. “Only you.”