Dax

As much as I enjoyed spending time around Jade and Helios, they became exhausting very quickly. We had spent the majority of the day wandering about the town, stopping by vendors that interested us, and all I craved was to go upstairs and lay by myself for a while.

And that was exactly what I did as soon as the three of us returned to the castle.

After saying our goodbyes for the evening, we parted ways to different wings of the castle. Me, to the wing with my chamber. But Jade and Helios wandered about, talking between one another. I made a mental note to ask about their interaction the next chance I had.

I walked alone, basking in the silence of the halls.

All the stress with the war and the upset townsfolk had really taken it's toll on me, I couldn't even remember the last time I had bathed.

I took a detour in my walk to my chamber to the back stairwells for the maids to use, and waited for one of them to pass by.

After a few minutes, a familiar maid brushed past, hardly even realizing I was there.

"Mildred." I called gently.

She turned back and her eyes scrunched into a face of confusion.

"Highness, what are you doing in this part of the castle?" She asked slowly, as if it took her longer to create sentences.

"I was waiting for someone to pass by. Would you be too bothered to run me a bath?" I asked her with a smile.

Mildred had been working for me longer than any other maid, and she did her duties quickly without complaining. She had a quiet strength to her.

"Of course, your highness." She said with a slightly more tired version of the smile I had given her. "But you are aware that you could have called any maid in the castle with one word. Why wait by the stairs?"

"I didn't want to inconvience anyone too much."

"We work for you, highness. Our job is to be inconvienced by you." She told me with a weak laugh.

Mildred was short and thin, her graying hair always pulled into a tight bun, and she was awful at hiding anything from me.

"After you run the bath, you are to go straight to your quarters and get some rest." I told her gently, laying my hand on her shoulder. "Not to be impolite, but you look like death itself."

"I won't disagree with you, but I cannot go back to my quarters after this, I must finish my nightly duties."

I held up my hand.

"Tell another maid to cover for you, these are direct orders from me, Mildred."

She smiled and nodded.

"In that case, let's get a move on, shall we?"

Mildred accompanied me to the bathroom joined to my chamber and began to draw the bath while I sat in my room with a book in my lap, reading carefully.

"The water is ready, highness." She said, stepping into the room with me. "If you find it not to your liking, I will be in my chamber."

I rolled my eyes.

"Mildred, you are the only one I fully trust in this castle, and please," I met her tired eyes. "Call me Dax when we are alone. You practically raised me, I should be the one bowing to you."

She smiled and waved me off. "Enjoy your bath," she paused. "Dax."

And with that, I found myself alone in my bed chamber.

With the book tucked under my arm, I  made my way to the bathroom and laid out my towels for when I decided to get out of the bath.

Many kings hired private butlers to bathe them and dress them, but I found it tedious and rather intrusive, so I avoided hiring one at all costs.

I laid my book on the small table by the tub and undressed.

The water was scented with rose petals and other oils, making the room smell as fragrant as a meadow during the spring, and I immediately found myself relaxing. Deciding to take a bath is the best decision I could have made in that moment.

I slowly submerged my tense body in the warm water and breathed a sigh of relief. As much as I wanted to read in the tub, laying there with my eyes closed felt too nice.

A door opened in the distance, and I assumed it was Mildred returning to make sure I was satisfied with the water, so I called out to her.

"Mildred, the water is perfect, I swear. Please go rest as I asked you to. I absolutely cannot have my best maid working herself to death."

I waited for a response, but the room stayed eerily silent.

I opened my eyes to find myself alone in the bathroom, so I strained my head to look out into the bedroom to see if Mildred was in there cleaning but I saw no one.

I began to stand to check the door, perhaps I was hearing things.

But I was immediately dragged back down into the bath.

A scream ripped from my throat for just a moment before a hand clamped over my mouth.

"Make this easier for the both of us, and please stay quiet." A man whispered in my ear.

He pulled his hand away from my face.

"What do you mea-"

But my question was lost with my screams as he plunged my head under the surface of the once relaxing bath water.

I thrashed and screamed underneath the suffocating water, but his hands remained in my hair and on my shoulder, holding me down.

I found myself panicking. I was going to die. I was going to die right there with some random man in my bathroom, drowning me. I would never see my next birthday. I would never get to confront Helios and Jade about their nighttime fiascos. I would never get to see another summer solstice festival with my most treasured people. I would never see Kai again. I would never be able to kiss him and hold him again. This was it.

I pushed at his arms, my feet still kicking wildly, but he remained steadfast.

And I resorted to the last option I had.

I took every single ounce of panic and fear in my body and directed it to my hands, and all at once I let the power flow out, delivering an extremely painful shock to my attacker.

His hands released my body and I shot out from under the water, gasping for air. My instincts took over and I jumped out of the tub while the man remained dumbfounded by the shock in the corner. I ran into my room, screaming at the tops of my lungs. If I wasn't fast enough to get out of the room, perhaps someone would hear my pleas for help.

Just as I reached the door, though, the man's hands grabbed my arms and yanked me back, slamming my naked body on the floor.

"You have made this much worse on yourself, Dax." The man said pulling a knife from his boot. "Just know that I warned you."

"Please," I found myself begging for my life. "I haven't done anything to you, please spare my life and let me try and correct whatever wrong I have committed to create this anger in you."

I scooted away from him on the floor, but eventually backed myself against a wall.

"There is no wrong you can right." He said, almost questioning his sentence. "Your very existence is a danger to those around you."

The man stopped for a moment as if he were contemplating something, but quickly shook the thought away.

He pounced on me, holding the knife against my throat.

"Please, I don't want to fight you." I whispered. "Please, please."

But his determination did not waver.

I found no other option but to fight back.

I raised my knee with as much strength I could muster and collided it with his groin. The man groaned and stumbled away from me, his knife sliding from his hand.

I bolted for it and took it in my own trembling hands.

"Please," I begged him once again. "I don't want to fight you. I don't want to hurt you."

But, as expected, he continued his pursuit of his prey.

"You won't stab me." He said with the utmost confidence as he made his way to my trembling body. "I can see it in your eyes."

I held the knife out, but he snatched it from my hands and slammed me into the wall with his hand around my throat.

"Your attempts are futile." He told me, gripping my throat tighter. "Stop halfheartedly fighting me and just give in. Give into death. Accept defeat."

He lifted my small body off the ground and raised it into the air, my feet kicking wildly.

"Please," I choked out against his grip. "Y-You can ge-get out of here before the g-guards c-come back."

I pulled at his hands in futile attempts to escape.

"You d-don't have to ki-kill me." I gave one last attempt. "You c-can get out of he-here and go back to y-your family."

He tightened his hold again, cutting off my air fully and I began to suffocate.

I found myself whispering an apology to Kai, for never going back to save him, for not helping more the night he was taken away. And I closed my eyes, accepting whatever awaited me after death.

But the man's grip loosened and he dropped me to the floor where my body fell with a hollow thump. I laid there, gasping for air and unmoving.

"What did you just say?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked, heaving for air.

"What did you say just then as you were dying, as the life left your body?"

I gasped again and repeated what I had said back to the man.

His eyes grew wide as I spoke, as if I was confirming some larger suspicion he had, but he once again shook away the thoughts in his head and continued his assault on my body.

This time he chose the most basic level of violence, and he resorted to kicking my body repeatedly, watching as I curled into a tight ball and absorbed every blow, but I never fought back. With every blow I could feel something inside me snap and break, whether it would be a physical bone or a mental piece of me, I felt myself deteriorating.

"Why won't you fight?!" The man yelled kicking me the hardest at the last of his sentence. I coughed hard, little drops of blood ran from my lips. "Why won't you fight?" He asked again, but quieter this time around as if he were desperate for an answer. He dropped to his knees.

"You are supposed to be a monster." He told me. "So why won't you try to kill me too?"

I couldn't muster the energy to answer him, even barely lifting my head off the wooden floors was too much effort, so I let it slam back down, creating more ripples of pain across my body.

The man stood and took a step away from me. His eyes were wide and wild as if he were a rabid animal, cornered and desperate for any sort of escape, but he stayed deathly still as he stared at my unmoving form.

He whispered something, but I couldn't make out what he had said. My mind began to cloud over, delirious from the pain, and my eyes began to close, heavy from exhaustion.

"Please, if you are going to kill me, just do it." I managed to speak over the metallic taste in my mouth. I didn't think that I could handle any more suffering, any more abuse at the hands of this stranger.

But there was no answer, and the room stayed eerily silent.

I wanted to open my eyes, to lift my head and look the man that would kill me in the eyes. I wanted to be brave in my final moments, just as my father had. But the exhaustion plagued my body and I fell into the depths of unconsciousness, helplessly.