The sun scorches the marble courtyard, turning it into a blinding sheet of heat. Rows of Crown property kneel, collars gleaming like cold steel, numbers etched into their arms. Names mean nothing here...only math.
Liora's knees ache, palms scraping against grit, but she does not flinch. To flinch invites the gaze of the Law.
Sergeant Veyr's whip cracks through the air, a cruel, unrelenting metronome. "Who among you whispered during the Council Feast?" His voice cuts like iron.
Liora swallows hard. She whispers to the trembling girl beside her, barely sixteen, to keep her eyes down, to survive unnoticed. A small kindness. A death sentence.
"Forty-two, step forward," Veyr barks. Liora rises, collar tugging tight against her throat, and kneels at the front of the circle. Captain Dorne stands rigid beside Veyr, while Halvek lingers like a shadow.
"You," Veyr sneers. "Explain the whisper."
Her voice trembles. "I…I—" Before she can finish, leather bites into her shoulder, a sudden, searing line of fire. She bites her tongue, tasting copper, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a scream.
The courtyard shifts. Not colder, not hot, but heavy, pressurized, as if the very air belongs to someone else. The whipping stops. The sergeants' barking vanishes. Silence descends, thick and absolute. Even the birds in the eaves freeze.
Then he arrives.
The Prince.
He moves with effortless, predatory grace. Dark robes brush the marble dust; two guards trail him like silent shadows. On his right hand, the Signet Ring glints; a symbol of bloodline, law, and control.
Even Veyr, master of life and death moments ago, bows until his knuckles scrape the stone.
Liora's heart hammers against her ribs. The Law of Gaze: eye contact with the Royal Line is forbidden unless granted. To look up is instant death.
The Prince stops. Inches from her bleeding knees, his presence bends the air itself. Silence stretches, thick and suffocating. He says nothing. He commands nothing. Yet the gravity of him demands total submission.
A small, sharp nod to Veyr, and the punishment is sanctioned.
The whip falls again; rhythmic, wet, white-hot agony blooming across Liora's back.
Whip.
Her lungs seize.
Whip.
The marble beneath her hands becomes her entire universe.
Pain brands her, yet in the fourth strike something snaps. A defiance born of sheer exhaustion flares in her chest. She lifts her head.
Their eyes meet. Storm-grey eyes, deep as a mountain lake, unreadable, calculating. Her identity - Property Forty-Two - vanishes. In that moment, she is just Liora, standing before the man who claims the very air she breathes. She offers no submission. Only a silent, dangerous challenge.
The Prince's pupils dilate, tracking her defiance.
"Eyes down!" Veyr's voice shatters the moment, raw with terror.
Her gaze snaps to the floor. Shaking, trembling, Liora feels the blood-stained shift cling to her furrows of pain. The Prince lingers, the weight of his stare pressing into her very crown, until finally, he turns. His cloak sweeps the ground; guards follow, shadows melting into the dust.
Veyr lowers the whip, hands shaking. Not cruelty, now, but fear flickers across his face.
Liora's back burns, not just from the lashes, but from having been seen. She breaks a fundamental Law and survives. The realization strikes her like ice: being ignored by the Crown is her only safety. To be noticed is to be marked.
And he sees her.
The Prince sees her.
Her pulse hammers in her ears. Something unspoken hangs in the air, dangerous and inevitable. This is not punishment. This is a warning.
And she knows deep in the marrow of her bones that this warning is only the beginning.