ARDELLE'S POV:
'Why do I stay, yearn and seek the man to whom I am nothing but an eyesore? Why do I desire him so badly?'
I asked the shadows, hugging my knees, staring out of the window when he was deep in a slumber at night, ignorant that sometimes his statements were…. Too harsh.
Why do I see the man who draped me in this cloak as my whole world? Why nothing exists beyond him– Maybe there isn't anything beyond him for me.'
Smiling emptily to myself, I clutched the ribbon he threw to my chest and fell asleep.
The next morning, the town was alive with the colors of life, hospitality and fresh air, subduing all my stings.
The air smelled of baked bread and pine resin. As we walked through the market square, my eyes caught a stall tucked away in a corner.
Among the vibrant daisies and common lilies sat a single vase of black roses.
They weren't truly black, but a deep, bruised crimson so dark that it caught my attention instantly.
They looked like him, an exact decipher of the man beside me. The Obsidian Pillar.
"How much for one?" I asked the stall owner, a young boy no older than eighteen with a bright, gap-toothed smile.
"For a Lady as beautiful as you? Two coppers," he chirped.
I pulled the coins from the small pouch Sir Aldwin had given me in case I needed anything when saw me staring at the ribbons yesterday and bought them for me.
I knew what would happen, the outcome of offering him a rose was displayed before my eyes already.
I knew he would likely sneer at it, or call it a waste of coin, or crush it beneath his boot just to prove he was made of stone.
But I wanted him to have it. I wanted him to know that I saw the beauty in his darkness, even if he didn't. That to me, this rose was his perfect description.
"Here," the boy said, handing me the rose with a gallant little bow, "A gift for a queen."
I smiled at him, a genuine flash of warmth. "Thank you. You've made my morning much brighter."
Beaming, vacuous hopes began to burn in my chest, I grin adorning me with delight. I was praying he would accept my first gift.
I turned back toward the center of the square, clutching the long stem of the rose to my chest with a twinkle I never had before.
Lord Kaldric was standing by the horses with Sir Aldwin, his back to me, talking to one of the King's messengers.
When he turned, his silver eyes landed on me, and then they dropped to the rose in my hand. He caught sight of the exchange, of me smiling at the young boy.
"My Lord," I called him hurriedly, stepping toward him, my heart pounding to anticipate his sneer or mockery. I held the rose out, letting out a sweet smile.
"Look, it's a black rose. Isn't it exquisite? I looked at it and you came to my mine. It reminded me of-"
"I saw the boy, Ardelle," he interrupted. His voice was a low, dangerous hiss that froze the brimming expectation.
"I saw the way you smiled at him. The way you leaned in to take his gift. Is that the same person who got you the ribbon huh?"
"What? No, Lord Kaldric, I bought this for you." I tried to justify but the flickers of the dying light were blazing my chest.
"How many more will there be?" he mocked, his lip curling in a look of such profound loathing it made my knees weak.
"The Earl at Sernic, the knights in the camp, and now a common street-urchin? Is your hunger for male eyes so ravenous that you'll take whatever is offered?"
"It was a gift for you!" I cried unwillingly, my hands trembled, his words were hurting me more than he could fathom.
What was wrong with him? He was fine a few days ago…
My voice cracked as the shoppers around us began to stare, noticing the scene and our performance breaking.
"I…I bought it with my own coins." I could no longer raise my voice, tears stealing my ability to see.
"How do you get coins? Which one of your 'admirers' gave it? You think I am a fool, no?" he spat, making me flinch at the intensity of his rage.
He reached out and snatched the rose from my hand, a thorn pricking my finger, causing it to bleed a little as I winced.
My hand hovering mid-air with a heartbroken expression.
He looked me dead in the eye. He saw a harlot using her charms. But I was standing witness to the vanquish of slightest hopes I mindlessly had.
In a second, he closed his fist, clenching my heart along with it.
The delicate, velvet petals were pulverized instantly, the dark juice of the flower staining his leather glove like old blood.
He didn't just drop it; he ground the ruined head of the rose into the dirt with the heel of his boot, smearing it until it was reduced to waste.
"I do not want your gifts, Ardelle," he growled, glaring at me.
"And I do not want the filth you pick up in the streets. Stay behind me and keep your mouth shut until we reach the next outpost."
I stood in the middle of the crowded market, staring at the black smear in the dust. The young boy at the stall was watching me, his smile gone, his eyes filled with a confused pity.
That pity was the final blow.
I didn't- I couldn't cry. The tears had run dry.
I simply stood there, and realized that I had tried to give a heart to a man who had traded his for a suit of armor long ago.
I didn't follow him. I couldn't.
The marketplace, with its vibrant colors and festive music, had become a blurred smudge of noise. I turned away from the crushed remains of the rose and began to walk.
The walk back to the inn was too painful, my legs didn't feel this numb when I used to walk in the snow barefeet.
My boots moved tardily over the cobblestones. I didn't feel the cold mountain air or the brush of shoulders as people moved past me.
I was a hollow vessel, the internal echoes of his words, harlot, hate, eyesore, filling the space where my spirit used to be.
When I pushed through the doors of the inn, the common room was thick with the scent of cheap ale and unwashed bodies.
A group of local mercenaries and a few other Knights were huddled around the center tables, their laughter loud.
The room went quiet for a heartbeat as I entered. I was a woman alone, dressed in the fine silks of a Commander's wife but wearing the shattered face of a ghost.
"Well now," a thick-set man with a scarred lip started, leaning back in his chair, "The Commander's little bird has flown the cage."
I didn't answer. I didn't even look at them.
I walked to the farthest corner of the room, far from the warmth of the hearth, and sank onto a low wooden stool.
I pulled my cloak tightly around my shoulders, tucking my chin into the fur, trying to become as small as the dust motes dancing in the dim light how I always used to.
"Don't be shy, sweetheart," Sir Gawain called out, the sound of his chair scraping came as he sat right beside me.
"A beauty like you shouldn't be sitting in the dark. Come sit by the fire, Ardelle. We've got plenty of 'appreciation' to go around."
I hated Sir Gawain. He had always set his licentious eyes on me.
Especially when he said those words when I was in only My Lord's Cloak: Is the Commander sharing, or is that cloak the only thing we're allowed to see?
A chorus of low, suggestive chuckles followed.
I could feel their eyes, greasy, heavy, and intrusive, lingering on the curve of my neck, the line of my waist, contemplating every part, wondering what was the skin underneath.
Usually, such looks would have sent me into a spiral of terror, a desperate need to find Sir Aldwin or the shadow of Lord Kaldric's cape.
But today, I felt nothing.
Let them look. Let them speak their filth. It was nothing compared to the polished, silver-eyed hatred I had seen in the marketplace.
If the man who owned my life thought I was a harlot, what did it matter if these strangers thought the same?
What value did I have left after all?
When I was a beggar, things were no different either after all.
I stared at a knot in the floorboards, my mind retreating to a place where there was no black rose, no blue ribbon, and no burning books.
"She's a cold one, isn't she?" He whispered closer to me, his shadow coming in my vision.
"Maybe she needs a reminder of what a real man's touch feels like. Not like that suit of armor she follows."
His hand reached out, hovering near my hair, the hair Lord Kaldric had torn the ribbon from only hours ago. I didn't flinch. I didn't move.
I simply sat there, a broken doll in the corner of a den of wolves, waiting for the world to finish what it had started.