Chapter 122
"Where are we going?" Henriette demanded, her voice sharp and slicing through the corridor’s stillness like a sudden gust of wind through a closed room, brittle with unease and disbelief. Each word trembled with the heat of building fear, and she hurried to match his stride, her breath growing short, shallow. The soft rustle of her skirts swirled around her legs with every quickening step, the fabric catching and pulling like it too resisted the direction they were headed. Her pulse drummed loudly in her ears, thudding in sync with the clack of her heels on stone, every beat a frantic echo of dread swelling in her chest.
"I'm selling you," King Arin replied, his voice devoid of emotion, cold and mechanical, as if he were reading from a scroll instead of speaking to someone who had once shared his trust. The words slipped from his mouth without hesitation, carried on a current of indifference that hung in the air like smoke. There was no pause, no flicker of guilt, no falter in his step, just that simple, brutal sentence delivered with the detached finality of someone issuing orders from behind a wall of glass. The sound of it seemed to stretch, ringing off the high stone walls with a hollow weight, as though the castle itself recoiled from the cruelty wrapped in such calm.
Henriette stumbled, the floor suddenly unsteady beneath her as her knees weakened under the force of what she’d just heard. Her breath caught, sharp and painful, lodging in her throat like a stone too large to swallow, and she faltered for half a step, a hand briefly reaching toward the wall to steady herself. Her eyes widened, heart crashing against her ribs, but King Arin didn’t so much as glance back. He kept moving, each footfall steady and measured, the sound of his boots striking the stone hallway rhythmic and distant, like a heartbeat she was slowly falling out of sync with, unmoved, unbothered, untouched by the chaos unraveling just behind him.
Just as they neared the towering castle doors, a woman emerged from the far end of the corridor, her silhouette cutting cleanly through the light that streamed from the high windows. She moved with an eerie grace, each step gliding soundlessly across the stone as though her feet barely touched the ground. There was something unnatural in her stillness, something unsettling in the way her head tilted just so, too elegant, too calculated. Her beauty was flawless in a way that defied reality, her features sculpted and symmetrical, like a portrait painted by a master with no understanding of mercy. But beneath that perfection, Henriette felt it, something cold, coiled, watching. Something wrong.
“There you are,” King Arin said, and the change in his voice was instant, startling, stripped of the chill he’d carried moments before and filled instead with a warmth that didn’t belong. There was relief in it, familiarity, even affection, and Henriette’s stomach twisted at the sound. Without pause, he stepped forward, arms outstretched, and pulled the woman into an embrace that felt far too practiced. His mouth met hers in a kiss, slow, deliberate, and though it lingered, it rang hollow, like a scene performed on stage by a man who had forgotten his own lines. There was no real feeling in the gesture, only the illusion of it, and Henriette felt the wrongness of it settle like a stone in her gut.
“Excuse me?” Henriette exclaimed, the words exploding from her before she could contain them, her voice cracking with disbelief as it echoed harshly through the high-vaulted hall. Her head snapped back toward them, eyes wide and narrowing all at once, bouncing between the woman’s unreadable face, calm, composed, and utterly unfazed, and the king’s expression, distant and glazed, as if he were caught in a dream he couldn’t see through. Dread rose like a tide within her, slow but unstoppable, swelling with every heartbeat, curling around her ribs and squeezing tight until she could hardly breathe.
Something twisted in her gut, sharp, undeniable, and she knew in that instant, without needing proof, that this woman was no stranger: she was an enchantress, and Arin was no longer acting of his own will.
Henriette’s mouth opened, the words already on her tongue, but before she could speak, before she could warn him, a sharp flick of the enchantress’s finger sent a wave of invisible force snapping through the air, and suddenly, her voice was gone.
No sound escaped her lips, only silence, and her hands flew to her throat as panic bloomed in her eyes, her lungs filled with breath she couldn’t give shape to.
King Arin didn’t notice; how could he, when his eyes were glazed with false devotion, his every thought wrapped in the enchantress’s illusion, blind to the truth unraveling right in front of him?
“Cat got your tongue?” the enchantress said with a mocking smile, her voice light and amused as though Henriette’s silence were nothing more than a joke to her, a cruel game she was enjoying far too much.
Henriette glared at her, the only weapon left to her, and rolled her eyes in open contempt, though even that small act felt hollow and helpless.
Outside, beneath a gray sky and the shadow of the castle’s looming spires, a handful of slavers waited near a cart lined with chains and straw, leaning casually, speaking quietly, their eyes already assessing her like she was a piece of livestock brought to market.
The transaction was swift, cold, emotionless, and within minutes, Henriette was herded into a ragged line of captives, her wrists yanked forward and bound with iron shackles that bit into her skin like a brand.
She didn’t know where they were taking her, didn’t know if it would be days or weeks or forever, but the finality in her chest told her what her voice no longer could: she would never see home again.