Face-Slapping14 min read
I Wake Twice: How I Broke a Prince and Took Back My Family
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"I wake choking on cold air."
I open my eyes to stone and iron, to a torch guttering in a dark cell. Pain lives under my skin like a second person. My hands are raw. My legs are empty at the knees. I can taste metal and old blood.
A boot scuffs the hall. A cloaked man stops at the bars. He breathes like someone carrying a secret.
"Do you remember me?" he asks.
I pull myself up on cracked palms. "You should not have come."
He crouches. "Jonas Brown sends his greetings."
My father, General Jonas Brown. I try to smile and fail.
"How is the house?" I ask, because hope cheats me still.
He exhales. "They hung your father's head on the city wall. They took everything. The emperor ordered no burial."
Cold takes me from the inside. The man's voice turns small. He reaches through the bars and hands me a chipped bottle. "For the pain," he says.
"Is this mercy?" I whisper.
He looks away. "It is the least I can do."
I wrap my fingers around the bottle because a bottle is something to hold, and because if I cannot save them, I at least can choose my end. I drink.
I think of the boy who saved me long ago, the prince with a white sleeve and a smiling mouth. I think of vows whispered under lantern paper, of maps and battles, of my brothers' brave backs. I think of the way power eats quiet things.
When the cold stops, it is gone.
"Wake up, miss!" a girl's voice shouts. "Wake! It's dawn."
I blink and the bed is warm. A scent of pine smoke fills the room. I pull the silk aside. The world is sideways for a breath. My heart hammers in a body that is whole.
"Lan?" I say.
Lan Lin, my maid. She is shaking me like she would a wet cloth. "Miss! Miss! Father says—get up. Go to the old hall. Hide. The general is calling."
I sit up too fast. Every sinew remembers the iron. I laugh because I must. "I dreamed of a dungeon."
Lan cries out. "You look paler than that dream, miss."
I stand and touch my face. There are no scars. I am seventeen again.
I remember dying. I remember the boots and the bottle, the laughter, my half-sister's face when she kicked me. I remember a metal nail and a shout that I would never be reborn. I remember the world going out.
"Why me?" I ask the empty bedroom.
Lan shakes her head. "The lords talk strange. They say the stars turned and you blinked twice. I say nothing true but I say you move like you are ready, miss."
I put a hand over my chest. "Then we will not make the same mistakes."
*
"Father, I will not marry a prince," I say at supper. My voice is steady like the strike of a hammer.
My father, Jonas Brown, slams his cup down. "What madness? The royal line—"
"I will not be used," I cut in. "If marriage is a rope, I will choose my knot."
Fisher Blair, my brother, smiles and spits a rind of fruit. "Choose quickly, sister. There are twenty suitors who will bargain for you."
"I choose Ivan Morris' son," I say.
"Orlando Malik?" my father repeats, and the whole table goes still. Orlando Malik, the second son of the house that argues with my father in the council and drinks too much tea, yes, but not the prince. "Why him?"
"Because he's the one I would rather trust," I say. "Because he is honest enough to be plain. He is the most handsome."
Fisher chokes on his laugh. "You, Katherine Porter, choose a man for being handsome?"
I stare at him. "That was my answer. Do you want to fight me now, or later?"
Father pinches the bridge of his nose. "If you insist, remember that marriage is not only for love. It is for keeping ashes to fall on the right house."
"Then I will keep the ashes with me."
*
The emperor hears my request the night of the moon feast. He is a tired old man with a voice that tries to be wind and fails.
"To which house?" he asks.
"In the name of peace," I say and walk to the hall. I kneel, and all those faces look like clouds.
"To Orlando Malik of House Morris." The name tastes like bark. "I ask your blessing."
There is a murmur. The prince — Vladimir Simon — sits across the hall like a well-tanned statue. He smiles as if the world is not cold and no family died. He looks at me with the same boyish ease that once drew me like a thread.
"It's done," the emperor says. "So be it."
"Why?" Orlando asks later in a corner of the palace, when the cooks carry away the last of the sweet cakes.
"Because you are the most handsome in that room," I answer with the same silly truth. He blinks.
"I will remember your honesty," he says, and there is a softness like late rain in his voice.
We wed under red banners and the city throws confetti into the sky.
On our wedding day, a royal messenger halts the procession. "By the emperor's command: House Morris, march to the north. The north needs men."
I shove my veils aside. "I will ride with them."
Orlando takes my hand and presses something small into my palm — a worn medicine box. "For the road," he says. "I know enough to tie a bandage."
"Thank you," I say, and I mean it.
We leave the palace and the city behind. I brave the cold and the mud and the smell of horses. I carry a new name and the old scars in another life.
*
"Here." Orlando holds the bandage to my wrist as we camp near the hills. "Drink this."
I take the cup and feel gratitude bloom. He moves with care. He does not ask why I push myself. He only sets a hand to my shoulder when I falter, and I find I like that.
"Who would hurt you?" he asks one night, when the moon hangs like a coin.
"A man in white once built me a world on lies," I say. "He will try to rip it down again."
His jaw tightens. "If he comes near you, he will meet my teeth."
"It is not just him," I tell him. "It was the throne. Power takes hungry shapes."
He says nothing then. He only sits very still, like a watchman who does not move until dawn.
*
"She was drugged!" someone shouts in camp. "Katherine was poisoned!"
I stagger as iron cold pours through my blood. The men around me talk loud to push the sickness away. My hand moves to the wound I cut when I knew there was treachery. The pain brings me back for a few breaths.
"Who?" Orlando barks. "Tell me!"
A soldier blurts, "Prince Vladimir sent an offering to your tent today, miss. A cup. We found signs in it."
"Vladimir." I taste his name like a rotten grape. "He thought he'd have me weak."
He did not account for a woman who had tasted death and come back like a dog for the bone.
The prince hovers like a shadow. He thinks himself clever. He thinks himself loved.
I will make him show his true face.
Orlando carries me to the surgeon's tent. He stays until the infection passes and I begin to breathe again.
"Do you want me to hunt him down?" he asks.
"I want him seen," I say. "I want the court to see the way a prince plays with poison and spy, and I want him stripped of his masks." My voice is small now, but metal glints in it.
He nods. "You will have me."
*
We win the battles. We cut through the desert wind and push the invaders back. I ride with the light troops and I study men as if they were books.
"Why are you doing this?" a captain asks me once. "Revenge?"
"No," I say. "Prevention."
Fisher laughs when I tell him that later. "You plan to keep men from becoming kings by plucking their crowning feathers?"
"Yes," I tell him. "If a man can do what Vladimir did and imagine he will not be judged, then more will be hurt."
So we collect what a scholar and a doctor and a soldier can. Messages. A strange coin stamped for a desert lord. A list of names of men who met with the prince in the night. An anonymous man caught sending a flare in the wrong camp. He has an inked hand, a symbol on his wrist.
I hand the man to Fisher. "Watch him," I say.
One man refuses to speak under torture, then he bites his tongue and dies. The emperor tells us in the great hall that loyalty is rare and men have their reasons.
"Give her the search," the emperor says. "Find the liar and the traitor."
I bow. He does not know what I plan.
*
I set a trap of words. I go to the emperor and ask to be posted to the palace guard — to the inner watch that knows the comings of princes and the hushed deals. I show my medal and my scars and I smile until my cheeks ache.
"You would guard the palace?" the captain grumbles. "Women are not for that, General's daughter."
"I will be," I say. "Place me where I can watch."
They laugh, but the emperor smiles. He will do what he wants when he thinks he will be amused.
So I go into the palace. I learn the steps of the servants. I trade my uniform for a plain cloak. I make friends with the cooks. I sleep near the east gate. I learn who speaks in whispers.
Vladimir walks with the court like a cat. He steps into rooms drawing warmth with him. He smiles at the emperor and frowns at me. I meet him often in the corridors and I do not flinch.
"You are dangerous, Katherine," he says one night in the corridor. "Why do you watch me?"
"Because you are dangerous," I answer. "Because you are careless."
He laughs and the laugh has no sunshine left. "You are funny."
"I am not your plaything," I say.
He turns pale, then red, then his face is a mask of control.
"I will take what is mine," he says. "Do not make me need to break you."
"Try," I tell him.
*
"I found a note," a guard whispers to me. "Vladimir paid a desert lord to send men to light a signal. He told them we would be distracted — and he did not go. He let others go."
My hands go ice-cold reading the paper. It uses words that smell of money and old wine. It names a few low prisoners and the man who died with a tongue bitten through. It gives an address for a house outside the city.
All the threads lead to one knot.
At last I say, "Bring the court to the Hall of Judgment during the moon festival. Bring the emperor. Bring the princes."
"Why?" Orlando asks.
"Because the world will watch," I say. "Vladimir will meet his truth in front of everyone."
He takes my hand. "We will do this your way. We will do this together."
*
The day arrives like a tide.
The Emperor's Hall is full. Banners hang like bright waves. Servants stream in and papers are handed. I stand at the dais and I feel every eye like an insect crawl.
Vladimir sits opposite, surrounded by his silver-braided men. He frowns like a man who expects a jest. He looks at me and thinks I tremble.
I smile. "My lord," I say. "I bring proof."
"Proof of what?" he asks, like a man waking to a small trouble.
"You would know if you had never fed on girls' trust," I tell him. "You would know if you had never made men your tool."
I hand the emperor a sealed packet. Inside are letters—handwritten bargains, names, the signature of a desert lord, and a string of tokens stamped with Vladimir's private mark.
"When my family fell, someone bought the silence of men," I say. "When my brothers died in the north, men followed orders given for false reasons. When this man—" I point to Vladimir— "sent fire and signal to wrong camps, my brother's troop marched to death."
The hall roars. "Lies!" Vladimir cries.
"Do you deny this?" I ask, voice like cold iron.
"My lord, this is a woman accusing a prince," says a noble. "We need proof."
"Here." Orlando steps forward and hands the emperor a tattered notebook. "I found this in a house outside the city. It lists meetings, sums, and a promise by Vladimir Simon."
The emperor looks at the notebook and his hands shake as if with age. "Read it," he says.
A loud-voiced steward reads aloud. The words are simple but the truth pierces like knives: Vladimir's promises to desert lords, his plan to mislead our scouts, the reward for silence. The steward reads the line: "We will make the General's force seek glory, and the prince will benefit."
Vladimir's smile dies. "Fabrication!" he cries. "I did no such—"
"You drank from a cup you thought would make a woman weak," I say. "You thought that would make your way safer. You sent a man to light a signal that led to my brother's near death. You kept an agent who attacked my home."
"How dare—" he starts.
"Bring forward the desert lord," I say.
A tall, sun-browned man is dragged in. He spells his guilt with a cough. He refuses to speak at first. Then a note is shown where his inked mark is the same as those on the tokens.
"What do you want of him?" Vladimir snarls.
I step close. "Tell them why you acted," I say. "Tell the emperor why you betrayed our men."
The desert lord looks at the emperor, then at the crowd. "He paid me," the man says in a voice like rust. "He promised coin. He promised..." He shivers and looks away.
"Vladimir," I say quietly, "name the men you used."
He gapes. For a heartbeat his face goes from arrogant to blank. "I did it for the throne," he says then, as if someone else told him to say it.
Silence snaps like a whip.
I open my cloak and fling out a small roll of paper. "Here are lines you signed," I say. "Here are names of your secret men. Here is the man who lit the signal. Here are the wounded who almost died because you liked the idea of glory without risking your skin."
A murmur becomes an uproar. Some people cry out. Some pull out knives, but their hands shake.
"Shut him up!" someone yells.
"No," I answer. "Hear him."
Vladimir's face drains. He moves like a man in a fever. "I was protecting my future," he cries. "I was trying—"
"Hiding in other men's deaths is a way to build crowns?" I spit. "You call that a future? You call that honor?"
"No!" he screams. "You cannot prove it. You have only lies!"
"Bring Lieutenant Marek," I say. "He is a scout who survived the south trap."
A soldier in mud-stained leather limps forward. He drops to one knee and thrusts his hand to the crowd. "We followed the false flare," he says. "We were set into a trap. We should have died. We were saved by a strike from an unseen hand. A woman fought like a demon and took the enemy captain."
I look to the prince and say, "The man you hired to mislead the scouts? He carried a token with your mark."
Vladimir's skin blanches. He tries to laugh, but the sound breaks.
"Enough!" he cries. "This is a witch hunt! There is no proof that I ordered—"
"Why did you send the wine?" I press. "Why did you send the agent out of your camp?"
He is quiet. He seeks a face in the crowd and finds none looking at him with trust. He finds only the hard set of people who watched their sons nearly die.
"You're making accusations!" he says. "You will be punished for slander!"
"Then punish me in public," I say. "Let the world watch a court. Let it be said what you did."
He staggers like a drunk. "You have no right—"
"Right?" I say. "I have my father's bones. I have my brothers' names on my tongue. I have the ledger with your signature. I have the witness who marked your coin." I point to the desert man, to Marek, to Orlando who had stood with me.
He looks not for a blade but for sympathy. He notices faces that once bowed now stare. He sees the long line of soldiers who lost sleep and fathers who lost sons. He sees the emperor, who tilts his head like a judge weighing a coin.
"Take his sword," I tell the captain at my elbow. "Take his emblem."
They do. Men unhook Vladimir's sword, and the prince's eyes go wide.
"No!" he shouts.
I call the guards. "Hold him," I say.
The prince lunges and men seize him. He pounds. "I am blood of the realm! I am the son of your emperor!" he screams.
"Not if you give blood to buy your way to power," I reply.
They drag him to the center of the hall. I step onto the dais. "You betrayed soldiers. You drugged a woman and blamed enemies you paid. You sent a man to starve my brother's camp. You supported the death of men so your name would shine. Now you will answer."
Vladimir goes white as paper. He begs. "Katherine—stop—please—"
"You will not kneel to me," I say. "You will kneel to those you betrayed."
They force him down on the marble. He is loud and he fights. People lean forward, mouths open. A junior lord takes out a small cloth and covers his hand with shaking fingers and says, "This is my son's letter who died in the north."
Vladimir's chest heaves. He realizes there is no more mask. He is naked in his crimes.
"Apologize," I tell him.
He spits. "I will not!"
"Then listen." I read the ledger's final line where his signature sits, a smile curled into a lie.
He weeps then, a thin male sound that no one respects. Guards drag him to his knees and cut his braid and his silk. He is ordered to speak to the emperor.
"I—" he says. His voice breaks. He will not lie again.
"Do you confess?" the emperor asks.
Vladimir's shoulders cave. He looks at me as if I had given him poison as well. "Yes," he says. "I confess."
He tries to stand and falls. "I was afraid," he says. "I wanted—"
"Beg for pardon," I say.
He looks up and there is a minute where he smiles as if a child asking forgiveness, then he vomits the pretense. He begs. "Please! Please!"
The crowd reacts.
"Who made that man a prince?" a woman cries. "Who raised him to be soft that he could sleep while other men bled?"
A thousand whispers ripple.
The imperial steward steps forward. "For treason—" he begins.
"No," I say. "Not the state. Not death. Let the world see him fall like a man. Let him be stripped of titles, cast out of court, exposed as one who would buy war and hide behind silk. Let him be the lesson."
The emperor nods like a tired judge. "I strip him of rank. He is banished from court, his estates forfeit. He will wear a plain robe and dine last in the kitchens. His name will be struck from the ledgers."
Vladimir's face crumples like paper in rain. He does not yet understand how small he has become until the room shifts and people snatch at him. They turn their faces; some record on ledgers, some spit.
He falls to his knees and claws like a drowning man. He cries out. "I will give you coin! I will return it! I will—"
"Beg," I say. "Beg for the men whose lives you mocked."
He screams and sobs and begs and is dragged away. The people move like a tide around him. Some shout curses. Some whisper that he will crawl back to power. But the emperor has stripped him of his polished posts. Men who once kissed his hand now avert their eyes.
I walk off the dais and feel Orlando's hand on my arm. He says nothing. He only squeezes.
They leave Vladimir in the hall with guards. He has been seen. He has been cut down into a man.
*
He grows smaller in the weeks that follow. He seeks the emperor and begs to be pardoned. He comes to my father with trembling hands. He tries to make bargains. I watch every meeting.
"Please," he begs once on my father's threshold. "My mother will be disgraced. I will make restitution."
"Beg me on your knees," Father says.
Vladimir kneels and the cameras of gossip raise like birds. He kisses the floor and his voice cracks. "Spare me," he says. "I will kneel and serve. I will do anything."
"Anything?" Father asks.
"Anything," he sobs.
"Then be a servant to the families your orders broke," Father says. "Mend what you can. Speak their names aloud. Bury what you hid."
Vladimir looks up. "Yes."
He tries again to buy pardon with coin. They take his wealth for the men of the regiments he misled. They pull down his banners. He walks the streets now in a plain robe with his head bowed while people shout.
One day, he collapses in the central square outside the Hall. He is sweating and a small group circles him. He reaches for mercy like a beggar asking for bread. "Please," he cries. "Forgive me."
A woman who lost a son slaps his face until he breaks. "You want forgiveness? Live with our wounds!" she says.
He begs, and men laugh, and someone takes a stone and scrawls a line across his old crest. He crawls then, and crawls again, and nobody offers a hand.
The court posts his fall into the bulletin and the city prints his humiliation in ballads. The prince who thought himself above men is now a joke and a cautionary tale. He will never again be trusted with decisions, nor pushed into rooms of power.
*
I stand on the roof of our house that night when the moon is full. Orlando is beside me, his hair silvered in moonlight.
"You have taken back what was ours," he says.
"We took it," I answer, because he and I learned how to fight as a pair. "You gave me your medicine box and your hand."
He looks at me and says the thing that fell like warmth into my chest months ago: "I married you because you told the truth. I love your truth."
I smile, and there is a quiet that is not war. Below us a child laughs in his sleep. There is still the ache of bones that cannot be replaced. There is still a scar across the city where men died. But my brothers' names are not stolen. The emperor knows what transpired. The prince is broken in the sight of many.
I press my palm to the small wooden box Orlando gave me the day he left. I remember the apple I left on his table, the humble thing that made him laugh. I remember the day he woke early to treat the wounded and came home smelling of oil and cedar. I let the moon keep that memory.
"Will you ever forgive me for marrying you to stop a crown?" I ask him.
He tilts my chin with his finger. "You married a man for a house. I married a woman for the world she would make. We will grow."
On the rooftop I open the little medicine box and find, tucked inside, a folded scrap of paper. It reads in his hand: "Stay. When you are tired, come here. When you are angry, come here. When you want to laugh, come here."
I close the box and lay my head on Orlando's shoulder. The moon watches us. The city hums with small lights. The world is not safe. But we have made a place inside it.
I think of what I could not save, and of what I could. I breathe. I am alive again, and I will make a life that remembers names.
The End
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