"You will do no such thing." Hilda's voice cut through the desperate plea, sharp and final. It was not a suggestion, but a command born of decades of steel. "You will endure. You will stand your ground. That is what a queen does."
"Endure?" The word burst from Gisela with a bitter, disbelieving laugh. "Endure until I lose all hold on my own life? In the name of what—a crown that feels like a millstone? Until I end up like my own mother, fading to a whisper in a gilded courtyard? If she had seen her end, I know in my bones she would have run too."
Gisela rose, the simple grey gown swirling around her. She took a step closer, her tear-streaked face hardening into a mask of resolve. Her amber eyes, still wet but now blazing, held Hilda's unflinchingly.
"So tell me plainly," Gisela said, her voice low and perilously steady. "Will you help me save myself? Or will you stand there and prove yourself as useless to me as every other pillar of this prison?"
Hilda's silence was profound. It was not agreement, but a storm of calculation and fear held behind pursed lips and a pained gaze.
"I will take that as consent," Gisela said, her voice gaining a firm, decisive edge that brooked no argument. "We leave tonight. Not for Germany—that is the first place he would look. We go south. To Spain. We will take a carriage at the moon's zenith."
"Gisela," Hilda breathed, her voice trembling for the first time. "Child, are you certain this is not a terrible mistake born of fresh pain? If the King discovers this… the consequences will be catastrophic. For you, perhaps. For me…" She left the awful truth unspoken: For me, it will mean a traitor's death.
"My decision is made. Do not question it." Gisela's voice held the unyielding tone of a sovereign issuing a decree. "I know the odds are against us. I know it is a desperate gamble. But as they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. We only need to be right once."
"O-Of course, my Queen," Hilda whispered, the words thin with dread. She lowered her gaze, unable to meet the fierce resolve in Gisela's eyes. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled faintly where they rested in her lap. She was not looking at a heartbroken girl any longer, but at a force of nature she was bound to follow—straight into the abyss.
"You may go. I require rest," Gisela said, her voice weary but firm.
She watched Hilda's retreating back—a silent, fearful silhouette that disappeared through the door without a backward glance. Alone again, Gisela moved to the bed and lay down, clutching a pillow to her chest like a shield. Her gaze fixed on the window, on the slice of freedom it represented, until exhaustion began to pull her under. Her eyelids grew heavy, fluttering shut.
CRASH.
The door was flung open with violent force, slamming against the stone wall. Gisela jolted upright, her heart hammering against her ribs.
He stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the torchlight of the corridor. Henry. His expression was unreadable in the shadow, but his presence was a physical shock in the quiet room.
He stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him with a soft, ominous click. He did not speak. He simply began to walk toward the bed, his steps slow, deliberate, and filled with a terrifying purpose. Gisela's breath caught. She said nothing, her body frozen, waiting for the next assault, the next demand, the next cruel lesson.
"W-what do you want?" The words broke from her in a stutter, her eyes locked on his advancing form, tracking his every move as if he were a predator circling its cornered prey.
He reached the bed. In one swift, silent motion, his hand shot out and seized both of her wrists in a vise-like grip, yanking her forward. Her breath hitched, becoming shallow and ragged.
"Please," she whispered, the defiance gone, replaced by pure, animal fear. "Just leave me be. Must I plead? Must I worship at your feet before you'll grant me peace?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he used his grip on her wrists to haul her upright from the bed, her body unfolding helplessly before him, a puppet on his strings. He shoved her backward. She stumbled, her legs buckling, and landed hard on the cold floor. He followed her down, one hand coming to cradle—not choke, but possessively encircle—the column of her throat. His thumb tilted her chin up, forcing her tear-filled eyes to meet his burning gaze.
"You shift with every hour," she wept, her voice cracking. "But today… today you have become something truly vile."
"I will be residing in this chamber from now on," he stated, his voice devoid of inflection, as if commenting on the weather. "With you. As a husband should."
"What?" The word was a disbelieving gasp.
"Is that a problem?" he asked, his thumb stroking the frantic pulse beating beneath her jaw.
A new, more profound terror eclipsed the physical fear. How will I escape now? The thought screamed through her mind. The plan, fragile as it was, shattered in an instant. Her path to freedom was now blocked by the very jailer who would be sleeping beside her.
Gisela forced herself to rise, his hand still a claiming weight on her neck. Every instinct screamed to recoil, but she mastered the tremor in her limbs.
"Not at all," she breathed, the lie smooth as silk against her raw throat. "I am… pleased." The words tasted of ash. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her own hand and closed her fingers around his wrist, guiding his grip away from her skin in a show of false intimacy.
His gaze dropped to where her hand held his, then lifted to her face. Something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of surprise, then a darker, more intrigued gleam.
"Little one," he murmured, the epithet now laced with a new, unsettling curiosity. "You are beginning to become… interesting."
Before she could react, his freed hand slid to her waist, pulling her firmly against him. The sudden contact was a violation.
"Can you please stop this… this absurdity!" she demanded, her composure fracturing as she pushed against the solid wall of his chest. Her struggle was fierce but futile; he held her easily, a rock against the tide of her panic.