morpho eugenia

Ormund had been pleased. He spoke none of Lord Godric Ashford or the excitement in the solar. He simply conducted himself as he usually did at such feasts, discussing philosophy and politics with the visiting lords, occasionally asking for your thoughts and praising you to anyone who would listen– commending how wise his ward was, how faithfully you attended the sept. All the while, his hand remained on your thigh beneath the table, squeezing gently as his thumb moved back and forth over the silk. Just as he usually did. 

This should have pleased you. His touch always did. Tonight, though, your mind was muddled with flashes of memories. 

The conversation with Lord Ashford you were not meant to hear. Ormund’s rings cutting into your face as he gripped your chin. The cool sheets of his bed twisted in your fists. His hand at your waist, his voice low as he hushed you and told you to be still. 

The seventh day. 

Following Lady Hightower in the Citadel, your small hand tucked in hers. Playing in the gardens with the Hightower boys. The letter from your queen mother coldly explaining why you could not visit the Red Keep on your sixteenth nameday. The burning pressure. Entering. Stretching. Confessing. 

The seventh day.

Ser Joldwin Mormont and the ashes of his fur-trimmed cloak. Lying across Ormund’s bare chest afterward, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. His lips against yours, tasting faintly of wine. Watching one of your siblings’ dragons fly overhead, its giant shadow blackening the earth. 

The seventh day. 

Being held. The knowledge you were never truly wanted. 

The seventh day.

“You are fidgeting.”

Ormund’s voice broke whatever spell your thoughts had cast over you.

You lowered your head. “I am sorry, my lord.”

Ormund hummed. Beneath the table, his hand shifted higher on your thigh, pressing into the soft flesh through the silk of your gown. The feast carried on around you, laughter mingling with the chords of lyres and flutes as they echoed through the Great Hall. No one could see the way their host groped you in plain sight. “Are you thinking of tonight?” 

Yes, you were. And of so much more. “No, my lord.” 

“You appear sad.” He leaned closer, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear, and you shivered. “Have you a reason to be?”

You shook your head quickly. “None, my lord.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Then stop pouting so unbecomingly before our guests and smile.”

You obeyed, because you always did. You arranged your lips into something soft and pleasant, as he liked. Ormund grinned in return and squeezed your thigh once more, hard. “Much better, my dear.”

“Lord Hightower! I do hope we are not intruding, but I simply had to introduce myself properly to your esteemed ward.”

Ormund’s hand stilled upon you, though he had not yet removed it. 

A broad, heavyset man stood before the head table, clad in a fine orange doublet. The wine cup in his hand was filled to the brim, sloshing around as he gestured. Drink had reddened his round, bearded face, and a crooked grin seemed fixed upon it. Behind him stood a tall young man with dark curly hair, fine features, and bright brown eyes. Those eyes were fixed entirely upon you. Something in his look sent warmth rushing into your cheeks.

“Lord Ashford,” Ormund greeted tensely. As the man drew nearer, Ormund briefly brushed one finger beneath his nose, the faintest crease appearing between his brows. “I was under the impression that only your son would attend the harvest feast this season. It is a… surprise to see you here as well.” 

“And miss the finest wine in the Reach?” Lord Ashford chortled, lifting his cup so enthusiastically that a little spilled over the rim and onto the marble floor. Ormund’s eye twitched as he looked at the puddle. “Of course I had to come.”

Lord Robert Ashford. You knew of him, if not the man himself. He was said to be kind, if somewhat silly, with a particular weakness for feasts and fine drink, but there was not one wicked thing about him. Which meant the young man standing behind him must be…

“And this is my son, Godric,” Lord Ashford continued, stepping to the side with a proud flourish to the young man behind him. “Though I understand the two of you require little introduction. He spoke with you earlier about a certain…someone, did he not, Lord Hightower?”

Godric coughed. “Father–”

“Oh, the boy has heard such wonderful things about the princess,” Lord Ashford went on, tipsy enough he was either failing to notice his son’s embarrassment or actively choosing to ignore it. “Her grace, her devotion to the Seven, and of course I would be remiss not to mention her beauty. I fear he has scarcely spoken of anything else since the prospect of betrothal was–”

“Father, please,” Godric interrupted him, a flush creeping above the collar of his doublet. “I am certain the princess has no wish to hear you recite every private conversation we have shared.”

Lord Ashford chuckled and clapped a broad hand against his son’s shoulder. “There is no shame in admiring a fine young lady. Nor, surely, in allowing two young people the opportunity to become better acquainted.”

Ormund’s fingers pressed so deeply into your thigh that you were certain they would leave marks. You did not dare look at him, though you imagined his face had gone terrifyingly blank.

Oblivious to the storm gathering beside you, Godric bowed. “It is an honor to meet you properly, Princess.”

Remembering Ormund’s warning in the solar– and with his hand still gripping you beneath the table– you offered Godric only the smallest inclination of your head before lowering your eyes once more.

“The honor is mine, my lord,” you murmured.

Godric smiled. Ormund, however, did not. 

“Lord Ashford, I am not sure if your son made you aware of the extent of our earlier discussion,” Ormund moved the hand that was on your thigh to the back of your chair. “He made his intentions sufficiently clear. As did I with him.”

Lord Ashford’s crooked smile lowered. “Well, yes…Godric did tell me some of the conversation. But I had hoped that perhaps, upon further reflection–”

“There is nothing upon which to reflect.”

Silence quickly consumed the small gathering at the head table. Ormund smiled urbanely, one hand still gripping the back of your chair. You felt caged. 

“Your admiration for my ward is noted, Lord Ashford,” Ormund said coolly. “You are certainly not the first to admire her, and I doubt you will be the last. But this match will not be considered.”

Humiliation ravaged you like a wildfire. You fixed your gaze on the grain of the table, afraid that if you looked up, the Ashfords would see the tears stinging your eyes. You wished– prayed– that they would go away. 

Ormund sighed and leaned back in his chair. At last, he released your chair and reached for his cup, lifting it with an air of studied levity. “Now then, I would hate to keep you from the wine you traveled so far to enjoy, Lord Ashford.”

“I– well, of course, Lord Hightower,” Robert stammered, plainly attempting to smooth over the moment. He summoned an easy smile, though it came out strained, and bowed low. “Thank you again for your gracious hospitality.” 

Godric’s eyes shifted between you and Ormund before he followed suit. “Lord Hightower. Princess.”

And then, finally, they were gone.

You exhaled shakily, blinking back tears. Ormund had already retrieved the pomander from his breeches and lifted it beneath his nose, breathing deeply. 

“Lord Ashford reeks of cheap wine and horse shit,” he grimaced, keeping the pomander close. “You should thank the Seven that you will not be sent away to live among such people.”

You had smelled neither cheap wine nor horse shit when the Ashfords stood before you. You wanted to tell him so. You wanted to tell him it was cruel to speak of them with such contempt when they had done nothing more than ask for your hand. Instead, you lowered your head. “Yes, my lord.”

Ormund’s eyes narrowed as he studied you over the silver pomander. His gaze moved from the wet shine of your eyes to the stiffness of your pouted lips to your quivering chin. He knew you more than anyone had or would ever know. He could see right through you. You knew it. For a second, it looked as if he was about to say something. 

A steward suddenly appeared at his shoulder. 

“My lord, Lord Uffering requests a private word regarding the grain levies before tomorrow’s council.”

“Lord Uffering can wait,” Ormund replied swiftly, eyes never leaving you. 

The steward shifted uneasily, wringing his hands. “Yes, my lord, but, erm…Lord Orme has joined him in the western gallery…and now they are disputing with each other. Quite loudly, I may add.”

Ormund exhaled hard through his nose. “If you could use your eyes, you would see that I am currently occupied.”

“Yes, my lord. But the matter is drawing attention, and…”

Ormund’s fingers tightened around the pomander before he finally lowered it. “Fine.”

He turned back to you, regarding you with such intensity that the clamor of the feast seemed to ebb around you. “You will remain seated here until I return.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I will not be long.” His hand settled briefly at the nape of your neck, thumb pressing into the divot beneath your ear. “When I come back, we will retire for the evening.”

Your stomach churned. The seventh day.

“Y-yes, my lord,” you whispered.

Ormund held your gaze for another moment, as though searching for the truth only he could uncover. Then he withdrew his hand and rose from the table. You watched him follow the steward toward the western gallery and disappear beneath the archway.

The moment he was out of sight, the stiffness in your bones left you. You slumped in your chair and looked across the crowded Great Hall. The feast continued all around you– lords and ladies mingling, eating, drinking, laughing without a care. Without any knowledge of what these walls truly held.

Why did Ormund restrain you so? Why did he keep you from everyone? Why did he refuse to do the one thing expected of him as your guardian? You were of age. You were a woman in every sense. Would it not serve his interests as your kin to arrange a marriage for you? His sons had gone, and he had been widowed for years. Would it not suit him to be rid of you at last, free to take another wife of his own?

The thought made bile turn in your throat the moment it formed.

Why?

Why did the idea of Ormund with a wife make something sick and vicious twist inside you? Why was any of this happening?

Why was he so cruel? Why did you want him to be?

You understood, at least, his refusal of Aemond. Ormund had told you often enough what such a match meant: brother wed to sister, blood folded endlessly back into itself. Targaryen wickedness in its truest form. He would not permit you to remember that such customs belonged to your heritage as well.

But what of the others? Ser Joldwin, all those years ago, broad and steady and strong. The Martell boy. Every lord and heir who had been dismissed for some fault Ormund alone had deemed unforgivable. Perhaps each of them had shortcomings, that might have been true. But Godric seemed precisely the sort of man Ormund should have wanted for you– young, courteous, well-born, heir to a respectable house.

So what did Ormund want? To keep you as his ward forever? To hold you in his bed one night, kiss your mouth, and tell you how good you were, only to admonish you hours later for whatever sin he had decided lived inside you?

The ceaseless shifting in reality left you dizzy.

“Princess?”

So lost were you in thought that you had not noticed Lord Godric Ashford return to the head table and lower himself into the empty seat beside you.

You startled, and he immediately raised both hands in apology. “Forgive me, Princess. I did not mean to frighten you. I only hoped for a moment to speak with you, if I may?”

Your eyes flitted from Godric to the archway through which Ormund had disappeared. At any moment, he might return and find you speaking to the very man he had forbidden you to entertain. He would punish you, surely. The thought made something low in your belly begin to warm like embers. “Lord Godric, I…I am not certain it is proper for us to be speaking without a chaperone.”

Godric hesitated, glanced out over the crowded Great Hall, then looked back at you with a small, playful smile. “Surely a chaperone of a hundred feast guests would suffice?” 

Ormund would not think so. You bit your lip. You knew precisely what he would have you do. Turn up your nose at Godric and tell him you obeyed your guardian in all things. Then scurry obediently to Ormund and confess what had happened, so he might find some reason to bring about the end of House Ashford. 

But you always did what Ormund wanted. When had you last considered what you wanted?

The answer should have been simple. Godric was young, kind, and handsome. He wished to marry you. Surely this was what any young woman would want: to be admired by a good man and offered a life beyond the walls that had confined her.

Did you want to speak with him? Perhaps.

Or perhaps you only believed you ought to want it.

“I promise you, my lady, I shall do nothing to scandalize your reputation– aside from perhaps subjecting you to a few poor jokes.” Godric placed a hand solemnly over his heart. “I swear it upon my life.”

You could not help but giggle. You could scarcely remember the last time someone had been so light with you. Years ago, perhaps. “I believe you, Lord Godric.”

“Now my father, on the other hand…” Godric glanced towards the table where Lord Robert was engaging in a loud and animated recounting of some story, wine cup spilling with every exaggerated hand movement. Godric sighed. “He seems to be on the precipice of a scandal every time he steps foot out of Ashford. I am certain you could guess that from his earlier…revelations…which I should apologize again for.”

“There is no need to apologize. Your father was very kind.”

“Ah, you are being lenient with him. He can be a fool, but he is also my father, so I suppose that makes me one as well,” Godric chuckled, and his grin widened when you laughed with him. 

For a few moments, the two of you sat together and watched as Lord Robert continued his tale. Then Godric’s expression softened. 

“Did…Lord Hightower tell you anything of our conversation earlier?”

Your smile faltered. You remembered every word, pressed against the boarded door in that forgotten corridor. But you could hardly admit you listened to a conversation never intended for your ears. Or that Ormund refused you any true explanation of what happened. 

You chose your words carefully. “He told me only that you had spoken with him.”

“I see.”

“I do hope he was not unkind to you.”

“No more than might be expected of a man guarding something very precious to him.”

The words flooded you with warmth. Your gaze dropped to your hands, pressed into the sky-blue silk of your gown. The one Ormund chose for you. 

Godric continued, voice genuine. “Lord Hightower seems very protective of you, Princess.”

“He has always been so. Ormund is like a…a father to me.” You felt bile briefly rise in your throat. You swallowed it. “He took me in when I was just a girl. Oldtown is all I have ever known.”

“There is much virtue in that, my lady. A guardian should be concerned for his ward’s safety and reputation. Truly, I would think poorly of him if he were not. But…” He hesitated, glancing toward the western gallery before leaning nearer, his face suddenly gone serious. “You are no longer a child, Princess. And marriage, as you know, is not some minor matter to be settled without your input. A guardian may offer counsel, certainly, but I do not believe any woman should be forced into a marriage she does not desire…or denied one she might.”

You blinked at him, stunned. Ormund spoke of unsuitable bloodlines, weak heirs, vulgar fathers, and men whose intentions he did not trust. He spoke endlessly of what he would permit and what he would prevent. Never once had he asked what you desired. The concept was as foreign to you as Dothraki. 

Godric cleared his throat after a few seconds of silence. “Forgive me. I do not mean to speak against Lord Hightower.”

“N-no, no,” you stammered quickly. “You have said nothing wrong.”

He nodded, though concern lingered in his eyes. “Then may I ask you something else?”

You should have refused. You should have told him it was time to retire. You should have found Ormund. Instead, you found yourself nodding.

“Are you…happy here?”

The question struck you like a slap to the face. 

Happy? 

You had never considered it. Happiness was not a concept widely spoken of in the Hightower. Maybe there were moments. As a child, playing with the Hightower boys in the gardens. When Lady Hightower would sing you lullabies to sleep. Ormund’s bed, warm beneath you in the darkness. His lips against your brow when you memorized all your scripture. 

Moments that were fleeting. But moments that stuck. 

Then you thought of locked doors. Of punishments. Of Ormund’s voice, loud and raging, his mood shifting at the drop of a pin. Of the seventh day. Of sin. 

“I…” Your fingers tightened together in your lap. Would you confess? “I am…content.”

Godric did not appear shocked. Nor did he demand an explanation. He merely regarded you with a quiet sadness that made you feel more exposed than Ormund’s scrutiny ever had.

“I hope you will not think me forward, Princess, but I meant what I told Lord Hightower,” he said. There was a sincerity to him more pure than anything you knew possible. “I have heard nothing but good things of you, and what little time I have spent in your company has only made me wish to know you better.”

Warmth rose into your cheeks. 

“I cannot pretend to know whether you might ever desire such a match,” he continued. “But if you were willing, I would still like the opportunity to…entertain the prospect. If that is what you wished, of course.” 

Surely you should wish that. Surely you ought not to be thinking of Ormund’s hand gripping your thigh beneath the table. Surely you ought not to wonder what it would feel like if Ormund were the one offering you such a choice.

If he were asking you to be his.

Before you could respond, the musicians reached the end of their song. A livelier tune began almost at once, the beat of the drums rising above the conversations as couples moved toward the center of the hall. Godric glanced toward them, then stood. 

“Now, this may embarrass me so thoroughly that you decide to be rid of me altogether, but I must ask regardless.” He turned back to you and held out his hand. “Would you dance with me, Princess?”

You looked once more towards the archway. Ormund would return any second now. He would see you, dancing with Godric in front of the entire feast. He would see you being held by another man. If he did not kill you, he would surely kill Godric. 

“Yes,” you whispered, heart beating violently against your ribcage. You placed your hand in Godric’s. “I would.” 

Godric led you into the center of the hall crowded with dancing bodies, one hand holding yours while the other hovered near your waist, as though he feared even the smallest impropriety might send you fleeing back to the head table. 

“You should know,” he spoke loudly over the music as he guided you into the first turn, “that I was once declared the finest dancer in Ashford.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well…I was seven,” he admitted. “And the only competition was my sister, who could not yet walk. And the judge was my mother.”

Your laughter rang through the hall as he spun you beneath his arm and guided you back into step.

You should have been happy. You were dancing with a handsome young man who had made his interest in you plain. Godric was courteous. He kept his hands precisely where they belonged and made no attempt to grope or possess you. He complimented your dancing, whispered jokes near your ear, knew every step, and led you well.

Yet all you did was look over his shoulder, searching for Ormund.

Your gaze swept over every face, every couple, every archway. He was nowhere to be seen. Something inside you deflated and the realization came with a flush of shame: perhaps you were doing all of this for him. You wanted him to see you. You wanted him to want you. 

When the final notes rang through the hall, Godric drew you gently to a stop. Around you, the other dancers bowed and separated, their laughter mingling with the applause.

“I must say, my lady,” Godric was still slightly breathless from the dance, his hand holding yours lightly, “I think we make quite a fine pair of dancers.”

You blushed and lifted your free hand to smooth a few stray hairs from your face. You were about to say something, what exactly you could not remember, when a familiar, low voice spoke directly behind you.

“Lord Godric.”

You turned. 

Ormund stood only a few paces away, the crowd having parted around him. Conversations nearby were already quieting. His eyes, blue and still as a frozen pond, were fixed upon your intertwined hands. His face was empty. Terrifyingly, completely empty.

With sudden, perfect clarity, you knew you had gotten what you wished for. And you knew you had made the worst mistake of your life.

“Lord Hightower,” Godric said, his voice turning cautious. He followed Ormund’s gaze and untangled his fingers from yours. “I was only telling the princess that she is an excellent dancer. Whatever lessons you must have arranged for her–”

“Do you make a habit,” Ormund uttered, his voice carrying loudly enough to silence those nearest you, “of disrespecting your hosts?”

Godric blinked and glanced at the confused faces gathering around you. “...My lord?”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“I– of course not, Lord Hightower.” Godric gave a nervous, uncertain laugh. “We were only dancing.”

“Dancing? Only dancing?” With slow, imposing steps, Ormund advanced into the center of the hall, closer to you. “No, Lord Godric, I think not. I think what you have done is force yourself upon my ward after being expressly forbidden to do so.”

Panic overtook Godric’s expression. “Lord Hightower, I-I did no such thing–”

“But you did, did you not?” Ormund continued, his composure making every word more horrible to endure. “I made my refusal perfectly clear. You pretended to accept my authority, and then, the moment my back was turned, you disregarded my wishes. You disrespected my house. You disrespected her.”

You wanted to interject and defend Godric. You wanted to cower behind Ormund. You did neither.

“You took advantage of her,” Ormund declared, gesturing toward you as though you were evidence to be presented before the hall. “You knew the princess to be quiet and kind. You knew she was too gently raised to humiliate you with a refusal before half the Reach. And so you waited until I was absent and imposed upon her courtesy.”

Godric’s face reddened with the pressure of the entire Great Hall watching this encounter unfold. “The princess agreed to dance with me. She wanted to.”

Ormund’s eyes shifted to you and the hall seemed to contract. Something sharp flickered in his gaze as he tilted his head. 

“Did she now?” he asked, so softly it was barely a whisper. 

Godric turned to you, an obvious plea in his expression for you to absolve him of whatever crime Ormund had laid at his feet before the assembled houses of the Reach. You felt as though you had committed treason against the Crown itself. No– worse than that. As though you had sinned beneath the very eyes of the Seven.

Contrition flooded you so completely that you could scarcely bear Ormund’s gaze. Instead, you fixed your eyes down at the marble floor of the Great Hall– the same floor you had once raced across as a child. 

“Is it true?” He stepped closer until the polished leather of his shoes entered your lowered vision. “Did you wish to dance with him?”

Your voice trembled when you finally answered. “...yes.”

Tears blurred the marble beneath you. Still, you forced yourself to lift your head. Ormund’s face had gone flat once more.

He regarded you for what seemed like minutes, then gave a single, measured nod, as though you had confirmed something he had already known. “I see.”

Ormund’s gaze lingered upon you for another awful moment before he turned toward the watching hall, putting his hand on your arm. His grip was tight. “The princess is plainly unwell,” he announced, his voice once again smooth and measured. “I fear the excitement of the evening has overtaken her.”

A few sympathetic murmurs moved through the crowd. You were unwell, but not for whatever reason Ormund was claiming. You simply kept your eyes fixed above the crowd and willed yourself not to start crying. 

“Please,” Ormund continued, offering the gathered guests his courteous, practiced smile that did not reach his eyes, “return to your dancing. There is no reason our feast should be interrupted.”

Then he looked to Godric. “You may rejoin your father.”

Godric’s mouth parted as though he might object, but whatever he saw in Ormund’s face silenced him. He bowed stiffly instead. “Of course, Lord Hightower.”

Ormund moved his hand from your arm to the small of your back. “Come, my dear. I believe it is time to retire for the night.”

You allowed him to steer you through the parting crowd and out of the Great Hall. By the time the noise of the feast had faded behind you, you were sniveling like a pathetic child. Nothing remained but the sharp echo of Ormund’s footsteps and the hurried patter of your own as you struggled to match his long strides through the stone corridor.

Perhaps you should apologize. Perhaps you should explain yourself. If you could only make him understand, then perhaps he would–

Your head snapped backward.

A cry tore from your throat as Ormund seized a fistful of your hair and wrenched you toward him. You stumbled helplessly beneath his grip, dragged backward until your spine struck the stone wall.

“You fucking insolent slut,” he hissed. His fist tightened against your scalp, wrenching your head back until tears sprang anew to your eyes. “I cannot leave you out of my sight for a single minute before you whore yourself before a hall full of lords?”

He yanked again and the back of your head struck the stone with a dull crack. You clawed at his wrist, desperate to relieve the searing pull at your roots, but he twisted easily beyond your grasp.

“O-Ormund, I am– I did not–” you sobbed, reaching for him again.

His grip only tightened. You felt strands of hair pull and snap beneath his fingers.

“Please,” you cried. “It hurts–!”

“I have given everything to raise you. Everything.” Ormund spat the words, flecks of spittle striking your cheeks. “My house. My food. My protection. My own bed. All I have ever asked of you is obedience and respect.” He wrenched your head farther back. “And this is how I am repaid? You make a cuckold of me before half the Reach, shamelessly flaunting yourself for some boy?”

“It was only– we only danced–”

“You might as well have sucked his cock in the Great Hall.” His body crushed yours against the wall until you were flattened beneath his weight, the scabbard of his sword digging painfully into your hip. “Is that what you wanted to do? Hmm? You accomplished so much in the little while I was gone. Perhaps you did that as well.”

Your face flushed in shame as you gasped at his words. “No, Ormund! No–”

He leaned closer until his face hovered mere inches from yours, pure vitriol burning in his eyes. Ormund’s fist remained tangled in your hair, holding you helplessly in place. Then, suddenly, he froze. The fury in him shifted as he lowered his head, the bridge of his nose grazing your jaw. 

He breathed in. Ormund’s face twisted at once with disgust, as though he were suppressing the urge to gag. “You smell of him.”

A broken sob escaped you, your scalp still burning beneath his grip. There was no reasoning with him. Still, your heart twisted, and you tried. “I b-barely touched him, my lord. Please. You must believe me!”

The muscle in Ormund’s jaw flexed. Without warning, he wrenched you away from the wall and dragged you after him. His pace quickened as he marched you through the corridor, forcing you to stumble in order to keep from being pulled from your feet. Servants flattened themselves against the walls at the sight of him– the master of the Hightower hauling a princess of the realm by her hair while she sniveled and sobbed behind him. None dared intervene. They only lowered their eyes and stepped aside.

“You are an ungrateful, treacherous brat,” Ormund growled. “You may lie to me. You may lie before every lord in that hall. You may even kneel in the sept and lie beneath the faces of the Seven.” He shoved open the door to his bedchamber and pulled you inside. “But the Father sees what is hidden.”

The door slammed shut behind you. Ormund released your hair only to seize the back of your neck. Though the force of his grip kept your head fixed, your eyes shifted toward the bed, already knowing what would come next.

Instead, he steered you toward the adjoining bathing chamber and threw open the door. Heat and steam billowed from within. Servants still moved around the claw-footed tub, pouring steaming, scented water from brass ewers. At the sight of Ormund storming inside with you trapped beneath his hand, they startled and pressed themselves against the tiled walls. 

“The Father judges every falsehood,” Ormund continued, his mouth close to your ear. “Every wicked thought. Every secret desire.”

“I did not–”

“Do not lie to me again.” His fingers dug harder into your neck. “You may deny it until your tongue rots in your mouth, but your body has already betrayed you.”

Ormund lowered his face once more, breathing against your hair, your cheek, the bare skin above your collar. A shudder of revulsion passed through him. “His stink is everywhere.”

He dragged you toward the filled tub. “You will wash it off.”

One of the servants, an older woman with a weathered face, hesitantly stepped forward. “My lord, we were not expecting the princess until later. The water is still too hot–”

Ormund’s head snapped toward her, his gaze blazing. “Leave. At once.”

The servants did not argue. They bowed hurriedly, abandoned the remaining ewers, and fled from the chamber. You did not blame them. For who would want to defend you, who had so obviously sinned before your lord?

Ormund pushed you towards the tub. “Undress.”

You did not move. You could not. Perhaps Ormund had seen glimpses of you before, the shape of your body beneath the sheer nightgowns he often gifted you, the outline of your breasts when candlelight illuminated the fabric. But those moments belonged to the night, in the darkness, when you could tell yourself his eyes were closed or turned elsewhere. 

You had never stood naked before your guardian. 

Your hair hung tangled around your face, scalp still throbbing where he had pulled. Tears and snot wetted the cupid’s bow of your lip, and you were shaking so violently that your teeth had begun to chatter. You had been diminished to nothing. 

“M-my lord,” you whispered, turning towards Ormund. “I can call the women back, they will help me–”

“No.” Ormund stared at you with open contempt. “You will not. You were comfortable enough flaunting yourself for that boy. Now, you discover modesty?”

Your cheeks burned and you hung your head. “Please, my lord…”

Ormund stepped nearer, hands twitching at his side. “You behaved like a harlot in my hall. You may undress like one here.”

Humiliation rippled through you like a wave. You began to believe he was right. You had disobeyed Ormund. You had accepted Godric’s hand. Why? Because you wanted a reaction from Ormund. And now, you had one. 

Your fingers fumbled for the ribbons at the back of your gown. They would not obey you. Each time you caught one, it slipped from your trembling grasp. 

“You are moving too slowly.”

“I-I am trying…” you sputtered. “But my hands…they will not cease trembling…”

The faint rasp of metal leaving leather made you freeze. Ormund drew the small dagger he carried at his belt.

“My lord, please don’t–”

Ormund caught the back of your gown in one fist, and with one swift movement, he cut through the ribbons. The bodice split open with a series of sharp snaps, the ruined ties falling loose around you. Ormund dragged the blade downward, severing embroidery and silk without care until the gown sagged from your shoulders and exposed your breasts. You gasped and tried to catch the fabric, but Ormund had already sheathed the dagger. He seized the torn gown and wrenched it down over your hips, leaving you naked in a pool of shredded blue silk.

Feebly, you crossed your arms over yourself. Ormund was quicker. He grabbed you by the upper arm and hauled you toward the steaming tub, his chest rising and falling with each furious breath.

“In.”

You lifted one trembling foot over the rim. The instant your toes touched the water, scalding heat shot through you. You recoiled with a yelp. “Ormund, it is too hot–”

“Good.” His hands closed around your shoulders. “Perhaps it will burn his stink from you.”

He forced you down. You cried as the searing water engulfed your body. You tried to rise, but Ormund held you beneath the surface of the bath, his fingers biting into your shoulders. Before you could catch your breath, he had dropped to his knees beside the tub and seized a sponge from the tray. 

He caught your wrist and began scrubbing your arm. The rough sponge dragged over your skin again and again, leaving it flushed pink and burning. Ormund’s eyes were wild, his movements frantic. Beneath the fury, there was a panic, a desperation you had witnessed only a handful of times before. It terrified you. 

“Men bow to their lords,” he muttered, dragging the sponge from your wrist to your shoulder as though he meant to strip away the skin itself and uncover something clean beneath it.

You recognized the words at once. Scripture, recited in the sept while you knelt beside Lady Hightower. Now Ormund spoke them in the bathing chamber she had once shared with her husband– only she was dead and rotting somewhere in a crypt, and you were grown and naked beneath his hands. 

“Repeat it,” he hissed. “As I taught you.”

“M-men bow to their lords.”

“Lords bow to their kings.” The sponge moved across your collarbone, then up the side of your neck.

“Lords bow to their k-kings…”

“And kings and queens bow before the Seven Who Are One.” He scrubbed the tender skin beneath your jaw. The same place where, in the darkness of night, he so often buried his face. 

Your voice shook. “Kings and queens bow before the S-seven Who Are One...”

The sponge dragged down your other arm. “All sins may be forgiven.”

“All sins may be forgiven...”

Ormund seized your knee and yanked your leg toward him, scrubbing harshly over your calf. “But crimes must still be punished.”

You swallowed a sob. “But crimes must still be…punished.”

At last, the sponge slipped from his hand and struck the tiled floor with a wet slap. Your entire body was rubbed pink and raw from his touch. Ormund remained kneeling by the tub, chest heaving as though he had just come from hours in the training yard. The water had finally cooled in the tub around you, though your tears had never once ceased. 

Men bow to their lords. Kings and queens bow before the Seven Who Are One. Crimes must still be punished.

The words could not cease circling your mind. 

Crimes must still be punished. Crimes must still be punished. Crimes must still be punished.

Steam from the bath had loosened Ormund’s brown curls, leaving them wild around his face. The sleeves and front of his doublet were soaked through. His collar sat crooked. Strands of hair had fallen across his brow.

You had never seen him so disordered. Ormund was particular about every detail of his appearance. Now he looked just about as ruined as you felt.

He rose and reached into the tub. You flinched, but his hands closed around your waist and lifted you to your feet. Water streamed from your body, droplets tracing the curves of your breasts and the softness of your stomach before falling back into the bath. The cooler air tightened your skin, your nipples pebbling as you shivered beneath his hands.

Ormund held you there, naked and trembling before him. Then he bent toward you. His nose brushed the wet skin beneath your ear. He inhaled once before moving lower to breathe against your neck and shoulder. You scarcely dared move.

At last, the terrible tension in his body eased.

“Clean,” he murmured. His hands tightened possessively around your waist. “You are clean again.”

Seemingly satisfied with his work, Ormund stepped back and surveyed you. His gaze traveled from your wet hair to your breasts, then lower still, lingering over the glistening curls at the apex of your thighs. 

He drew a slow breath, steadying himself, before turning away to restore some measure of order to his appearance. He straightened his collar and smoothed a hand over his damp curls, though the soaked fabric of his doublet clung stubbornly to him. Then he reached into the tub and took your hand. “Out.”

Water streamed from your body and pooled across the tiles as you stepped over the rim. Ormund kept one hand around yours and the other at your waist. Then he retrieved the linen nightgown the servants had left folded over a nearby chair and tossed it toward you without looking. “Dress yourself.”

You clutched it against your chest, relieved merely to have something with which to cover yourself. “Y-yes, my lord.”

With shaking hands, you pulled it over your head. The fabric caught against your wet skin, clinging to your breasts and thighs despite your efforts to tug it loose.

When you had finished, Ormund turned back. For a moment, the two of you merely stared at one another. Then he lifted a hand and brushed a wet tendril of hair from your face, his touch impossibly gentle after the same hand had scrubbed your skin raw only moments before. “Do you understand why I do this for you?”

You nodded slowly.

“Then tell me.”

You swallowed. “To…purge me?”

“Yes.” He stepped nearer, cupping your cheek. “I have told you before, and I will continue to tell you. At your core, you are a wicked creature. However earnestly you may struggle against it, the sins of your forefathers live within you. That is why you disobey. Why you cannot always recognize the corruption in your own desires.”

Your breathing grew shallow at his words.

“It is my duty to purge it from you, to discipline what is wicked and preserve what may yet be made good.” Ormund’s hand settled more firmly against your cheek, holding your face toward his. He studied you expectantly. “Do you understand me?”

“I understand you, Ormund.”

“Good girl.” His hand fell away. He turned and left the bathing chamber without another word. You remained where you were for a moment, waiting until you trusted your legs not to collapse beneath you, then wobbled after him.

The bedchamber had grown dim behind the closed shutters, illuminated only by the wavering glow of candlelight and slivers of moonlight. Ormund stood beside the wardrobe, peeling the soaked doublet from his body and revealing the muscled planes of his back. Though he so often slept without a shirt, you turned away bashfully. 

When Ormund faced you again, you kept your gaze fixed upon the ornate rug beneath your bare feet.

“Right,” he said. He dragged a hand over his jaw and glanced from you to the bed. Then he inclined his head toward it. “On the bed, then. Ready yourself.”

Your heart seemed to stop. Your gaze snapped up to him, your brows drawing together. “M-my lord?”

He scoffed as though you were a fool for questioning him. “It is the seventh day. Surely you did not imagine yourself excused…particularly after tonight. I have all the more reason now to question your purity.”

Your mouth opened, then closed again. “B-but, my lord…the bath–”

“The bath did nothing but remove the taint of horse shit from you,” Ormund spat. He advanced upon you. “As I told you before, you managed a great deal in the few minutes I was gone. How am I to know you did not give yourself to Lord Ashford?”

The accusation was absurd. Ormund had been absent for perhaps ten minutes. The hall had been filled with half the Reach. Surely he could not truly believe that you had…

“I said, on the bed,” Ormund repeated, each word sharpened by warning. “Do not make me say it again.”

You hurried toward the bed and crawled onto it. You had done this so many times that the motions should have come as second nature. Yet each time, every part of you trembled with the same terrible mixture of dread and anticipation…and something hotter beneath them both that you could never bring yourself to name.

You shuffled backward until your head met the pillows, then lowered yourself flat against the mattress. Ormund remained at the foot of the bed, the pale skin of his bare chest almost luminous in the candlelight. He looked at your position with a scowl, then closed his hands around your ankles. With one sharp pull, he dragged you toward him until your ass rested at the very edge of the mattress.

He tapped the outsides of your quivering thighs. You parted them, allowing him to step between your legs.

Ormund looked down at you. Your breasts rose and fell beneath the damp nightgown, each breath shallow and unsteady. “You are nervous tonight.”

You began to shake your head, but he clicked his tongue. “Remember what I told you. Do not lie to me.”

Your throat tightened. “I-I am nervous, my lord.”

“Why?” The question was edged with mockery. Ormund reached down and caught the hem of your nightgown between his fingers. “This should hardly surprise you by now. Or…is there something you are trying to hide from me tonight?”

“No, my lord. I swear, I have nothing to hide–”

“We shall see.” He began to draw the nightgown upward. Higher and higher, until the cool air brushed over your calves and thighs, raising gooseflesh in its wake. Higher still, until the fabric gathered around your waist and your sex lay completely exposed beneath his gaze.

Ormund inhaled, and you could have sworn his breath trembled. His thumbs pressed against your puffy pussy lips, parting you beneath the candlelight. You were unbearably sensitive after the scalding bath, and the sudden touch of cool air on your exposed flesh drew a helpless whimper from your throat.

Ormund stilled. His hands remained firmly in place, holding you open as his narrowed eyes lifted to your face. “What was that?”

You swallowed. “N-nothing, my lord.”

“Nothing?” he repeated softly. “Have you learned nothing tonight?”

“I did not mean–”

“Your mouth lies,” Ormund murmured. “But your body confesses so readily.”

Humiliation burned through you. You turned your face toward the pillows, but his voice sharpened.

“Look at me.”

You obeyed. Ormund studied you with a feverish focus. Without speaking, he prodded your entrance with the tip of his middle finger. The sensation made you jolt. He steadied you with a hand pressed firmly upon your hip. “Stay still.”

You tried, desperately. You fixed your eyes upon his face and willed every muscle to quiet, though your breath came shallow and uneven. 

Ormund paused, the tip of his finger still pressing against your hole. “What shall I find tonight, hmm? That you have been faithful to the Seven above? Faithful to me? Or shall I find you have let Lord Ashford fuck this pretty little cunt?”

You squirmed beneath his gaze, feeling as though you had been scalded again by his brazen words. “N-no, my lord.”

Ormund hummed in response. Then, once again, he used his other thumb to spread your pussy lips open, his gaze transfixed on where his finger rested.

“Look at you…” His voice was hushed, contemplative. “I have barely touched you, and your pussy is already fluttering.”

You whined, horrifically embarrassed, but he shushed you before you could protest.

“You are thinking of that Ashford boy, aren’t you?”

You shook your head immediately, adamant. You could hardly remember Godric’s face now. 

Ormund tutted. “Words.”

“No! No, I am not.”

“Then why,” he asked, his gaze never leaving you, “is your cunt weeping?”

You had no answer, other than your body had answered before your mind.

“It is no matter,” Ormund sighed, thumb still holding you open. “You are a deceitful bitch who will learn her lesson regardless.”

Slowly, Ormund began to push his fingertip into you. A broken moan tore through you at the burning intrusion, though you had felt this so many times before. The walls of your pussy clenched around him, and you tried to will yourself to relax your muscles. Breathe, you commanded yourself. Obey. 

His hand stilled, the tip of his finger seated inside you. He did not look away. 

“If you are not wet for Lord Godric,” Ormund whispered, finally lifting his gaze to yours, “then who is it for?” 

For a moment, you were no longer in Ormund’s chambers. You remembered attending the sept with Lady Hightower, kneeling beside her before the bejeweled statue of the Father. You remembered her lessons, her gentle voice, the certainty with which she had spoken.

“You must always tell the truth,” she had taught you. “For the Father sees all.”

The words echoed now, impossible to ignore. You were compelled. You had to confess.

“You.”

Ormund groaned at the confession, his hand tightening at your waist. 

“Do you hear yourself, you harlot?” His voice rattled maniacally, the rings on his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of you. “Do you not hear the lewdness of your own words? Lusting after me, your own guardian?”

Shame flooded through you. You should have lowered your eyes. You should have taken back the confession. But there was something in his voice that told you he was not reprimanding you. Ormund wanted you to say it. He wanted you to confess.

Before you could even think of a response, Ormund’s mouth twisted. Then he spat.

A hot, wet glob landed directly on the swollen pearl at the top of your cunt, obscene and shocking enough that your whole body shuddered. The sensation was like nothing you had ever felt before. Vulgar in a way that made humiliation burn through you even as a moan slipped from your throat.

Ormund saw it, because just as the Father did, he saw everything. A wicked, knowing grin spread across his face.

“Theeere it is,” he murmured, voice low and rough with satisfaction. “Moaning like a bitch in heat. Acting like the whore you are.”

Your face burned and you turned back into the pillows, trying to stifle the whimpering sounds that were attempting to escape you. 

Ormund leaned closer, caging your body in with his, the tip of his finger still inserted into you. “You think I do not know you? I raised you. I made you.”

Your thighs twitched instinctively, as if you could push him away. For a moment, he withdrew slightly, as if it were finished. As if Ormund would simply wipe his hand on the handkerchief he always kept on him and declare the matter settled. It had always been that way before.

The ritual– the inspection that occurred every seventh day– always ended the same. Ormund would stop at the first knuckle, claiming only to feel enough to confirm that your maidenhead was still intact. Then he would withdraw, disappear into the bathing chamber for a few moments while you caught your breath alone on the bed, and return composed once more.

Afterward was the part you cherished most. Perhaps it was the only reason you endured the ritual at all. Ormund would take you into his arms. He would press his lips to your brow, your cheek, sometimes even your mouth, and tell you how good you had been. How faithful. How untouched. He would allow you to rest against him, your head upon his chest, while he kissed the top of your head and held you as though you were something precious.

And for a little while, you no longer felt like a ward. No longer like an unwanted addition to his household. For a little while, you felt like a wife would.

You felt wanted.

But this time, Ormund did none of that. Instead, he pushed forward. 

You gasped at the invasion, hands tightening around the sheets as his finger slid deeper than it ever had before. It was only one finger, and still you felt stretched open by it, your body struggling to make sense of the unfamiliar pressure. Pain mixed with pleasure, a strange concoction that was better than anything you had ever known. 

Ormund watched the reaction move across your face.

“She is so tight,” he whispered, almost in a trance as he looked down at where his finger disappeared inside you. “So untouched. So desperate for more.”

Your stomach twisted at his words. Of course you were untouched. You could not imagine ever being touched by anyone other than Ormund. 

“So obedient for your lord,” Ormund added, voice husky. “And still you asked me not to stop.” 

His thumb moved slowly, the pad of it pressing against your aching clit right above where his finger held you open. The sensation struck through you so sharply your thighs closed his hand, though he pried them back open with ease. 

Ormund’s thumb began to circle your clit, slow and deliberate, while his finger remained seated inside you. The two sensations seemed to pull against one another: the deep stretch of him, the slick pressure of his thumb, the unbearable intimacy of being watched while your body answered him so honestly.

“Do not be so quiet now, my sweet girl,” Ormund commanded you. “Not when your body is finally telling the truth.”

His finger began to move. Slowly at first, dragging almost to the tip before pressing back in. The stretch came easier now, slicker with your growing arousal. His thumb kept circling with maddening precision, steady enough that something began to gather low in your belly.

A coil. A warning. A want. It was overwhelming. It was maddening. It was completely and utterly terrifying. 

“Ormund…”

His finger curled slightly inside you, pressing against a soft place that made you see stars, and you cried out, back arching. 

“There we are,” Ormund breathed. “That is what you have been trying to tell me.”

“N-no,” you said, though the denial sounded weak even to your own ears.

Ormund leaned closer, mouth skimming your jaw. “You want this. You have wanted this every time I stopped.”

Your lips parted, but no answer came.

The coil inside you wound tighter and tighter, every pass of his thumb dragging you closer to some precipice you did not understand. Your thighs began to tremble. Your breath broke into small, helpless whimpers. Panic and pleasure tangled together until you could no longer tell which one made you shake.

“Ormund, please,” you gasped. “S-something…something is happening!”

“Is it?” His voice was calm, almost cruelly so, his eyes fixed on your face. Then, just as the feeling rose so sharply it frightened you, Ormund withdrew completely. His finger slipped out of you, and his thumb left your clit all at once.

The loss was immediate. You whined, hips lifting after him before you could stop yourself, your cunt clenching around nothing. 

Ormund stepped back from the bed, composed and distant, as though whatever had existed between you moments before had vanished entirely. He reached for the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, and cleaned your glistening arousal off of his finger with a maddening calmness. 

You propped yourself up on your elbows, chest heaving. Sweat had beaded on your forehead from the intense pleasure that was there just moments before. When you spoke, your voice was small and confused. “...My lord?”

Ormund did not look at you. “I have confirmed what I needed to know. You are untouched. That has not changed. But you still disobeyed me.”

You stared at him, searching his face for some sign that he did not mean it. Some indication that this was a test, that Ormund would relent as he always did. That he would gather you in his arms, kiss your face, and fall asleep.

He did not. 

“You are not forgiven,” Ormund said matter-of-factly. Then came the words you never expected to hear. “You will return to your own chambers tonight.”

Your own chambers. You had not slept there in years. Not since before Lady Hightower had died. 

The feast, the bath, the feeling of something coiling in you as Ormund used his fingers upon you like an instrument– it all came crashing down at once. You were unsteady, disoriented. Lost. 

He was sending you away from the only place where you knew how to exist. The only place where you had ever felt wanted.

You scrambled from the bed, your feet landing unevenly against the rug. Before you could think better of it, you reached for his arm.

“My lord, please.” Your voice shook. “I-I cannot sleep there.”

Ormund did not move.

“Please,” you whispered. “I can only sleep here. I have only ever slept here.”

He refused to answer. He remained focused on the handkerchief, wiping the finger that had been inside you moments ago. 

“Please, Ormund. I-I love you.”

He always liked hearing that. You lifted yourself onto your toes and pressed a desperate, open-mouthed kiss to his cheek, waiting for the familiar response. Waiting for his hand to come to your face, for his voice to soften, for him to tell you that everything was all right.

Ormund did not.

Your heart seemed to collapse inside your chest. You could not understand how he could stand there so calmly when you felt as though you were breaking apart.

“I was so ungrateful,” you sobbed. “I was t-treasonous, my lord. I was wicked.” Your hands tightened around him. “I should have rebuked Lord Godric. I should have listened. I was an insolent fool.”

Not knowing what else to do, you sank to your knees before him, head bowed as though you were kneeling before the altar in the sept. The posture came instinctively from years beneath Ormund’s instruction, a familiar act of surrender and supplication.

“Please forgive me,” you whispered. “I will do anything you ask of me. Please.”

You remained there before him, the room silent save for your trembling breaths and quiet sobs. Your forehead stayed bowed, your hands clutching the fabric of his breeches as though letting go would mean losing him entirely. 

Finally, Ormund looked down upon you. “You hear yourself, do you not?” 

You lifted your swollen eyes toward him.

“You beg for forgiveness, but you do not yet understand what it is you are asking forgiveness for.” Ormund crouched until he was level with you, hands on your shoulders. “This is not about Godric or a dance or a foolish mistake. It is about what lies beneath it, the thing I have warned you of for years.”

You shivered beneath his touch, the words chilling you. 

“The dragon within you.”

It felt as though the entire world had narrowed to this room, to this moment, to you kneeling before him. As though every lesson in the sept, every warning, every correction had led you here. 

“I have spent years trying to protect you from the worst parts of yourself,” he continued. “And still, when temptation came, you reached for it. That is why an apology is not enough.”

Your breath caught in your throat.

“You must learn that your impulses do not rule you. Your desires, your pride, they do not rule you. Not even the dragon that plagues your soul.”

“What rules you is none of those.” Ormund leaned closer, his nose brushing yours. “It is me.”

With that, Ormund rose to his feet, though you remained kneeling. His hand went to the leather belt at his waist, the same belt from which his sword scabbard hung. Slowly, he unfastened it and set the scabbard aside on the chest near the bed. He turned to you and gestured for you to stand. 

You obeyed instantly, rising on shaky legs. 

“If you want forgiveness, you will listen to me,” Ormund said, undoing the belt until it came loose in his hand. “You will disrobe. You will set yourself upon the bed. And you will take the strokes of my belt in penance for your sins. Will you do that for your lord?”

You nodded. You would do anything he asked of you. Hands trembling, you reached for the hem of your nightgown and pulled it over your head. You were bare, naked as the day you were born. It felt different from the bath. This time, there was no steam to soften the room. This time, you could clearly see Ormund take all of you in: the line of your calves, the curve of your hips, the plane of your stomach, the weight of your breasts. His eyes moved over your body shamelessly, intense and hungry.

“Onto the bed,” he ordered. “Face away from me.”

You complied, turning from him and crawling onto the mattress. Before you could move too far, Ormund caught your calf in one hand, signaling for you to stop once you were on all fours near the edge of the bed. His touch lingered there for a moment, and then his hand slid upward, palm dragging from your calf to your thigh, then higher still, until it settled over the soft curve of your ass. His fingers squeezed once, firm and possessive, before dropping lower.

You heard the soft whisper of leather as Ormund folded the belt in his hand. You could not see his face from where you knelt, turned away from him, but you could feel his gaze moving over you. The back of your neck, your trembling spine. Your exposed cunt, surely glistening now with arousal though you could not understand why. And then your ass, presented bare and vulnerable to him, where he intended to mark you. 

“You will pray the Seven’s lesson as you were taught,” he said, though his voice had gone strained. 

A familiar molten heat, like what you felt just a few minutes earlier, had begun to unwind in your belly. You nodded, eyes on the bed below you. “Yes, my lord.”

Leather cracked across your skin. The sound came before you could even register the pain, sharp and booming like thunder. You cried out as a bright line of heat bloomed over your ass, fingers clutching uselessly at the sheets. 

“The Father,” Ormund breathed, voice low. “Tell me His vow.”

You remembered learning your lessons. It was Ormund who taught you when you were just a girl. Before you knew what you would become. What he would become. 

“I-I submit to all judgement,” you recited shakily. 

The belt came down again, landing just below the first one.

You jolted forward, a broken sound spilling from your mouth as the second stroke landed just below the first. Heat spread through you in terrible waves and your knees trembled, but Ormund’s free hand caught your hip to hold you up. 

“The Mother.”

“I seek mercy.”

The third stroke fell harder.

You sobbed again, and shame burned through you at the sound, but Ormund only stepped closer. You could feel him now, the heat of his body just behind yours, the roughness creeping into his breathing. 

“The Warrior.”

You pressed your forehead into the sheets, squeezing your eyes shut, willing yourself to submit. “I will have c-courage.”

The fourth stroke cracked across you, closer to your wet sex. The sound that came from you this time was not a sob, but a moan. You heard Ormund utter a low curse under his breath from behind you. 

“The Maiden, now, girl. You should know this one by heart.”

“I will guard my innocence.”

Next, the fifth stroke. You cried out, smothering your sounds in the sheet, but this time Ormund made no attempt to hide the rough, ruined exhale he made in response. 

You realized there, completely naked on his bed, the bed you had shared with him for years, that Ormund was enjoying this. 

“The Smith,” he ordered you. 

“I will be remade.”

The sixth stroke landed and pain sparked through you, body sagging slightly before Ormund caught you with his hand. His wide palm moved from your waist to the punished, red flesh of your ass. 

“Ormund,” you whispered, though you didn’t know what you wanted of him.

His breath shuddered. “The Crone.”

“I will s-seek wisdom.”

You could hear how close he was. Hear it in the uneven pull of air through his teeth, in the way his hands trembled against your skin.

“Now, the last,” he said.

Like a final judgement, the seventh stroke came down. Hard.

Your cry broke open, high and helpless, your body finally collapsing forward into the sheets as the hurt bloomed through you in a final, burning wave. Ormund followed you down at once, his body bowing over yours from behind.

“The Stranger,” he panted into your ear, bare chest pressed against your back. “Tell me His vow.”

“I will leave behind what I was.”

The belt slipped from his hand and hit the floor. You heard the unmistakable frantic tug of laces being loosened, the rustle of breeches as Ormund shoved them down with no patience at all. 

You did not understand what was happening at first. You only knew he was behind you, breathing hard, one hand gripping your hip so hard it bruised while the other was moving between your bodies with a frenzied desperation. 

Then you felt him. The hard length of his cock, pressed against the swollen skin of your ass. You gasped at the silky, heavy, throbbing sensation. Perhaps you had felt it before, but between sheets, between linen, pressed against your back in the dead of night. You did not know, or did not want to know, or even fully understand what it was. But you knew now. 

You heard movement, skin rubbing skin. Ormund’s fist worked himself in quick, uneven strokes, the leaking head of him pressed against the raw flesh. 

Ormund groaned low in his throat, the sound muffled against your shoulder as he bent over you.

“Do you feel that, Princess?” he rasped. His hips jerked forward, the stiff length of him dragging on your ass. The contact made him shudder violently against you. “Do you feel me on you? This is what you do to me. You have bewitched me, heart and flesh alike.”

Your face burned so hot you thought you might cry from the humiliation of it. Bent beneath him in the bed he once shared with his wife. Marked by him. Listening to the rough, wet sound of his hand moving over himself while his body trembled against yours. 

You turned your head instinctively, trying to look back. To see the reality of what was happening to your innocence. Ormund’s palm came down between your shoulders, forcing your face down into the sheets. 

“No,” he ordered, voice ragged. “Do not l-look at me. Stay down.”

You obeyed. A broken sound left him at that, like a laugh. 

“My good girl,” Ormund breathed. “My sweet, good girl.”

His hand moved faster. From behind, you could feel every frantic pull of his fist in the rhythm of his body: the way his hips twitched, the way his thighs pressed against the backs of yours, the way his hot breath puffed against your neck. Ormund dragged the head of himself lower, close enough that you could feel the swollen head of his cock brush your cunt. 

“Do you want it?” he asked. “Do you want your guardian to finally take you? Do you want me to give you my cock and fill you with my seed so everyone will know who you belong to?”

You did. You wanted it so badly. You wanted Ormund to fuck you, to finally take the virginity he treasured so much. 

“Do you want it, my darling girl?” Ormund repeated shakily, dragging his cock up and down your slick folds, the leaking head of it bumping against your swollen clit. “If I pushed in right now, would you open for me? Would you let me take what is rightfully mine?”

Your fingers twisted into the sheets. You did not even know what you were asking for. You only felt the compulsion of the Father move through you. “Yes, my lord! M-make me yours…”

Ormund groaned. But, to your dismay, he did not push himself into you. Instead, he drew himself back, dragging his cock against your skin as his fist resumed its desperate rhythm. 

His mouth found your shoulder, open and trembling. His teeth grazed you once, biting down lightly. 

“You are mine,” he said against your skin. “Whether I fuck you tonight or keep you untouched for the rest of your life, you are mine.” 

Ormund’s hips stuttered hard against you. “Tell me whose you are, Princess.”

“Y-yours…”

“Say it properly for your lord.”

“I am yours, Ormund!”

With a final, low groan, Ormund collapsed over you, body shaking. You felt something hot and wet spurt across the marks of your ass. His hand kept moving through the violent pulses, dragging every last wave out of himself while he panted your name into the back of your shoulder. 

Finally, the spasming of his cock subsided, and his weight softened over you. Ormund remained bowed over your body, trembling as he pressed his forehead between your shoulder blades. His lips moved slowly along your spine. His palm, sticky with release, spread tenderly over your waist, drawing you more firmly beneath him. 

“My precious girl,” he whispered, pressing another damp kiss to your back. “My beautiful, perfect princess. You did so well for me.” 

You could do nothing but lie there beneath him, overwhelmed and exhausted, your body aching everywhere he had touched you. 

Ormund wrapped both arms around you, rolling onto his side and bringing you with him. He gathered your naked body so tightly against his own it felt like he had never intended to let you go. His release remained warm upon your skin, trapped between you as he fitted himself along your back. One arm circled your waist and the other slipped beneath your head, drawing you into the shelter of his bare chest. Ormund kissed the hairs at the nape of your neck, then your shoulder, his mouth lingering over every place it touched.

“Come here,” he murmured. “My pretty little thing.”

Ormund turned you carefully within his arms until you faced him. His hand moved slowly through your hair, smoothing it back from your flushing, tear-streaked face as he pressed kisses across your cheeks. He did not seem to care that you were both disordered and sweaty, that his breeches remained tangled around his thighs, or that his seed still clung to your body.

Your eyes burned. “I-I thought you hated me… That you would send me away forever.”

“No.” Ormund cupped the back of your head, keeping you against him. “No, my love. Never that.”

A sob escaped, and you buried your face against him, clutching at him as though the Hightower itself were crumbling around you.

Ormund drew you fully atop him, arranging your body over his with practiced intimacy. Your cheek rested above his thumping heart. One of your legs slipped between his, your naked bodies fitting together beneath the rumpled sheets as naturally as though you had been made by the Seven for this. 

“You frightened yourself tonight,” he murmured, rocking you gently against him. “You forgot what I taught you. But you remember now, do you not?”

You nodded silently. Ormund tipped your face upward. His gaze moved over your swollen eyes and trembling mouth with such devotion it hurt. 

“I forgive you.”

Finally.

Finally, the words you had spent the entire night longing to hear. The words you had wanted since the moment you realized your Valyrian blood was something impure. 

The weight of it all overwhelmed you, his forgiveness, his naked body beneath yours, the certainty that he was not sending you from his bed. It all crashed over you at once, and your body shook with the force of your tears. Ormund gathered you closer, shushing softly as he kissed your forehead, your temple, your quivering lips.

“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you. Must I say it a thousand times? I love you.”

You pushed yourself further into him and sobbed harder. You believed Ormund. You always did. For he always told the truth.

“I-I am sorry for the wickedness in me, Ormund,” you stuttered, tears wetting his chest. “I should have been better for you.”

“Oh, my sweet girl.” His fingers combed gently through your hair, the same hair he so often praised for lacking the silver-gold of your blood. “You are not the first woman to struggle against the wretchedness within her.”

Ormund shifted beneath the covers, drawing you higher upon his chest until your face rested within the curve of his neck. His lips brushed your brow again and again as though he could not bear to stop kissing you.

“The Seven have blessed you, though,” he continued. “They did not leave you among your diseased kin who would encourage that fire. They did not leave you in the Red Keep. They did not leave you to dragons.”

You lifted your face from his chest. The candles had long since sputtered out, leaving only moonlight to illuminate the handsome angles of his face. The face you loved, the face you worshipped so dearly. Ormund cupped your cheek and brought your mouth to his.

The kiss was slow and delicate, nothing like the frenzy whose presence still marked your bodies: the angry welts left by his belt, his seed drying against your thighs. Ormund kissed you with the solemnity of a husband sealing a vow before the gods. When he pulled away, he did not allow even an inch of space to form between you.

“You were given to me,” he whispered against your mouth. “To raise. To correct when you wandered. And to cherish when you returned.”

A smile spread across Ormund’s face, full of such love and adoration that your soul ached with it. “And you will always return to me.”

Ormund took your hand in his and pressed it flat over the steady beating of his heart. Then he brought your fingers to his lips and kissed each tip one by one. “The Seven knew you needed something greater than blood or the Iron Throne. Greater even than dragons.”

Your eyes grew heavy as the last of your terror loosened beneath his attention. Ormund drew the covers more closely around your entwined bodies and tucked your head beneath his chin. “They knew you needed a home. A father.”

You nestled deeper into his chest, lulled by the heart beating beneath your ear. Sleep had nearly claimed you when his arms tightened around you.

When Ormund spoke again, his voice was so hushed that you thought perhaps you had dreamed it.

“They knew you needed me.”

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