Rose hadn’t eaten yet. She was hungry but wasn’t in the mind of taking in any food, she still felt sick from everything that had happened, and after being nauseous she thought that anything she’d eat would end up being puked whenever she received her next punishment.

  She was thinking of it as punishment.

  Something brought in by some past sin that she couldn’t remember. She refused to accept the idea that her predicament had come from the prince being, for some unknowable reason, so cruel to her.

  However, little after the time in which the would normally be having lunch, a messenger had arrived at the townhouse, with two letters from the palace.

  One was an official one, but it spelled good news; apparently her sentence had been changed overnight, perhaps some act of mercy, and she was no longer to be sent back. Instead, she would be on house arrest beginning the next dawn and in the mean time, she wasn’t allowed to leave the city. Breaking that rule could suppose heavy consequences that she refused to read.

  The other was from him. It was short, just three short paragraphs between the meaningless pleasantries of the letters of the nobility. It said that he apologized for having their breakup be public, but that he had good reasons for it, ones that he hoped could communicate to her in person in due time. That he accepted that once she heard them, she wouldn’t forgive him, that it was a risk he willing to go with once he decided on the breakup. And that he was working to make sure that she suffers the least possible consequences from the fallout.

  Rose didn’t know what to think.

  After reading the letter, her jaw moved. She was going to let that horrible laugh out again. Upon realizing that, she covered her mouth with both hands.

  She was terrified of that laugh. After having heard it in the morning she thought it was from someone else, and after realizing that it was coming from her, she thought she was completely losing her mind. And at the moment, it wasn’t entirely out of the question.

  “And why wouldn’t you laugh?” A voice in her mind, or at least something that felt like it, asked at some point; the thought entering her brain as if someone had stabbed her right in the head. “This is all a cruel joke, it has to be. So why wouldn’t you laugh?”

  Her lower lip trembled, but it kept whispering inside her mind.

  “Oh, come on, Rose. Is it really so difficult to accept that maybe this fairy tale like of yours for the past couple of years has actually been some kind of elaborate prank?”

  “Yes” She replied.

  “Think about it. You’re a girl who came from nowhere. From a family in the middle of nowhere who lost its title over a century ago. The only reason you really have anything is because your dear old dad was best friends with the king and they died together.”

  Rose breathed deep, looking at a beautiful painted landscape. There weren’t portraits in the townhouse, but she could imagine her father, dressed in his armor, like the last time she saw him, atop a white horse. Just galloping through that meadow. On his route to war.

  “Did you really think that the prince actually cared about you more than something to be charitable with?”

  “Yes… He loves me.” She replied, her voice barely a whisper, but harsher than she has heard it before.

  “Are you still speaking about that in present time, Rose?”

  Her vision was cloudy. She wasn’t crying again, but she could barely see.

  “Look, here’s the thing: You have the right to think that maybe he wasn’t just trying to get a laugh out of you, although I wouldn’t discard it for entirely emotional reasons. Maybe, instead, you’re something that he pitied.”

  “Pitied…? Me?”

  “Of course, enough to go out with someone like you in public. At least until he found someone else.”

  Rose thought of the girl in pink, and shook her head. “She’s not his type.”

  “That perfect little doll is the type of any powerful man. You’re not.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me, Rose, did he ever control you?”

  Rose blinked several times, bringing her hands to her head. She wanted to silence that voice, silence those thoughts, she wanted to grab them and crush them under her blood soaked hands. She looked down at her hands. They weren’t soaked in blood, of course. They were daintier than those of most women of her province, but since she arrived at the capital, she couldn’t but compare and found that most noble ladies there had even more delicate fingers. Hers were almost manly next to them.

  “Control me?”

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  “Yes, control you. Of course, he never threatened you, or really forced you into anything; but he would often disagree when you asked him about his opinion in certain things, wouldn’t he? Things like being against risque attire, against you wearing those high heels, against you going to certain places. Control, Rose, he was controlling you.”

  “What? No, no, absolutely not. I asked him his opinion and he gave it to me. I always did what I wanted, I just wanted feedback, and then decided on my own. He wasn’t controlling me in any way.”

  “Did your decisions ever stray from what he thought?”

  Rose staggered. Memories rushing through her head as if the thought was not just listing them one by one, but had let an entire box of them right in front of her. There were so many, and the voice was right, every time he gave his opinion, she would agree with it and do what he said. It was almost automatic.

  “What now, will you say that all of that was always voluntary? Or maybe it was because he knows that you always strive to be a good girl?”

  She screamed, her throat raw. She rushed to the umbrella stand, picking up one and kicking on the ground and walls with it. She wasn’t breaking anything, but after a few minutes, the voice in her mind finally fell silent. Rose felt to her knees, grabbing her head by her temples. Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She… She should look for a doctor. She was clearly sick, very sick. She needed help before someone, most likely herself, got hurt.

  She went outside.

  Her stomach was rumbling. She still was wearing the dress from the previous night, the only change was exchanging her high-heeled boots with slippers, which only made her look even more disheveled.

  “Oh, the city, how much I will miss you!” She exclaimed, looking up towards a tree.

  It was as if she was in a trance, she could feel the smile in her face, she could hear what was coming out of her mouth; most of it praises and the occasional giggle, she could feel her body moving. And yet, she couldn’t control it. She couldn’t even think about it. Everything was back to being a nightmare, one that she was praying to wake up from soon enough.

  Then the rain began, and the trance broke.

  Rose hid under a large tree, located in a corner right as the avenue turned around.

  Her mind was once again hers and now just clear enough.

  She studied the street for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out where exactly was she, to no avail.

  There was a great wall of white brick in front of her, and on the other side of the street, another wall, this time made of red brick. She didn’t recognize the exterior of any of these mansions. Although at least, she did know she was in the area of the larger homes, so she must have walked for at least… Oh, no. By foot, this part of the neighborhood was at least three quarters of an hour away. There was no way she could return to the townhouse right now, at least not while the rain keeps intensifying.

  And not only that, she could feel those thoughts slowly returning.

  They were calling her pathetic, weak, making fun of her for this spiral she was going through.

  The moment the idea that she was losing her mind appeared inside her head, the voices picked it up and ran with it, laughing at her for how much losing the man she had at some point grown to love was affecting her. They mixed it with the whole idea of it being some incredibly elaborate and incredibly cruel prank, laughing at her for succumbing to exactly what those bastards wanted. Except that they weren’t bastards. Not him at least. The accusations replayed inside her mind, every single one of them several times. She remembered the blurred up faces of the attending nobility, some of them becoming clearer. She knew a few, some of them she had spoken to, and she had assumed good of them. But inside her mind, they were all looking at her, grinning like beasts. All of them were in on the joke, every single one of them wanted to make fun of the countryside girl; give her a life out of a dream and then smashing until only the broken up debris of who she thought she could be remained. She could hear their laughter. A smile was beginning to form in her lips, but she shut them as hard as she could. She was finally sure of it, she was completely losing it, and it likely wouldn’t be long until she finally broke.

  Lady Rose Wynthart leaned towards the tree, resting her head and much of her upper body against it.

  Her mind was drawing blanks, she didn’t know what to do next at all. That is, until she saw a black carriage, one with the royal coat of arms, coming up the street, and stopping just a few paces away from her.

  “Lady Wynthart?” A man stepped down from the carriage, umbrella in hand.

  He was of average height, middle-aged maybe, with a rosy and round face. And dressed in a perfectly tidy black suit.

  She had seen him before at some point but couldn’t quite place him. Maybe it was because it felt like there were rocks inside her skull instead of a brain.

  “Lady Rose Wynthart?” The man repeated the question, walking towards her until, after merely a few seconds of staring at her face, he flinched. “Oh, by the olive crown, are you alright?”

  Rose tried to nod, her lips twitching into what she wanted to be a reassuring smile, but instead her head shook, and a high-pitched whimper came out of her mouth. The man looked around, seeing that there didn’t seem to be anyone, and pointed towards the carriage, placing the umbrella above her heart.

  “Lady Wynthart, please come. His Highness would like to speak with you.”

  “I’m sure he does.” Rose answered, harsher than she wanted. And not exactly what she wanted to say. “Are you going to bring me with him? Me? The criminal he threw away?”

  He smiled, warmly. “And, I cannot in any good conscience, criminal or not, let you get sick here under the rain. Please follow me.”

  Rose didn’t want to meet him. No, scratch that, she actually did. She wanted to hug him as he told her it was all a nightmare. Or maybe have him reveal that indeed it was a prank, but that he wasn’t throwing her out or anything. He was just testing her loyalty. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do, she had heard of many noble ladies who did exactly that with their asshole husbands, and now they are happier than ever. The husbands, of course, having actually broken up afterwards and finding someone new who wouldn’t do such a thing to them. But in her current state, Rose would accept any of that. She just wanted to wake up.

  So, taking the man’s hand, she was helped into the carriage, one identical to the one she had gone to the ball in the previous night.

  Maybe even the same one, although she had no real way of proving that, and then closed her eyes.