The silence after his pronouncement congealed, heavier than the marrow cooling on the platters. Henry rose, the legs of his chair shrieking against the stone like a violated thing. He lifted the silver tray—a handful of grapes lying upon it like a crushed, dark constellation—and cradled it in his palm.
"I will retire, Mother."
He moved past her seated figure, a shadow gliding through the feast of ghosts. The cloying dagger-point of her perfume fought the greasy smell of cooling flesh.
"Don't tell me you are carrying that to her," Caroline's voice lanced after him, a disgust so profound it threatened to sour the very air. "To that shrieking, barren thing in your chambers? Feeding a creature that provides nothing but noise is a sacrament wasted."
Henry did not pause. His silence was not refusal; it was annihilation.
The towering doors swung open, only to reveal another specter—Emily, materialized from the corridor's gloom. Backlit by the hall's dying glow, she froze. Her wide, luminous eyes lifted to his, and in that suspended moment passed a whole condemned history: stolen touches, shared venom, all decayed to this—a servant blocking a king's path to his wife. His gaze held hers, cold and impervious as polished jet, before sliding away as if she were stone. He stepped past, the chill of his proximity a physical wound.
His footsteps echoed down the torchlit corridor, steady and inevitable, the grapes trembling faintly on their tray—a paltry, poisoned sacrament for the woman he had ruined, carried in the hand that had forged her chains.
---
The door groaned open, and a new, deeper cold invaded the room. Gisela lay bound to the bed, the silence around her thickening into a suffocating shroud. Her heart battered her ribs—a frantic, caged thing. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, measured the cold floor, each one a nail in the air.
Then he was there. Henry. He settled on the bed's edge, his back to her, his attention consumed by the tray. She stared at the unyielding line of his shoulders, dread a liquid ice in her veins.
With sacerdotal care, he selected a single grape. It glistened, a fat, purple jewel in the low light. He brought it to his lips, and his tongue, slow and deliberate, traced its taut skin—a lover's caress, a poisoner's test. Something in the gesture snapped. He turned.
His fingers caught her chin, a vise of bone and will, forcing her face to his. The pressure parted her lips. Panic, bright and wordless, flared behind her eyes. The grape pressed against her mouth, a cool, insistent intrusion. She swallowed—a reflex, a defeat. It fell into her, a cold, smooth stone sinking into the void of her.
The moment crashed over her. His obsession with the fruit was not indulgence, but ceremony. A ritual of dominion. The grape sat inside her now, a dark seed of his will, taking root in her terror. He had not just fed her; he had made her complicit in her own consumption.
She measured him through a haze of dread, her thoughts skittering like hunted things. The silence he left after his question was a pit, and she was falling.
His hazel eyes, twin pools of stagnant water, held her submerged. "What… do you want more?" The words were a trap laid bare. Her voice had deserted her, a treasonous thing.
"Silence is its own answer."
He chose another grape.His gaze, a possessive weight, pinned her as he brought the fruit to his mouth. His tongue did not merely touch it; he took it slowly between his lips, rolled it in the dark warmth of his mouth, letting it soak there before withdrawing it, slick and shining under the feeble light. It was no longer a grape, but an offering transformed by intimate violation.
"Wait—is that how you—" she stammered, the horror dawning.
"If you refuse," he interrupted, his voice a winter stone, "it is because you are unworthy of sustenance. Your deserves no rain." He began to pull his hand back, the ultimate revocation.
"No!"
Her hand flew out,clutching his wrist—a brittle shackle of bone and fear. He did not resist. He allowed it, his smile a thin, cruel line. Then he moved, using her own grip as a lever to guide his hand, to press the wet, violated fruit against her sealed lips. The pressure was inexorable. Her lips parted on a choked gasp, and the grape, steeped in the taste of him, slid onto her tongue. She convulsed, swallowing the essence of his dominion.
It's just saliva. It's just a grape.
The thoughts were hollow,childish charms against a true curse. She twisted her face away, seeking escape in the cold stone wall, but there was none. The proof was inside her now, a small, digestible monument to her submission. He watched the line of her throat work, his expression one of quiet, academic satisfaction. He was not feeding her. He was teaching her the flavor of her own captivity.
He selected another grape. This time, he did not simply place it in his mouth. He bit into it with a slow, deliberate pressure, letting the skin burst audibly between his teeth. He held it there, a glistening, torn hemisphere visible between his lips, the other half hidden within the dark warmth of his mouth. A bead of juice, black as a beetle's shell, traced a path down his chin.
He leaned in. She flinched, a primal recoil, but the hunger he had cultivated in her pit was a stronger chain. It pulled. Her head lifted from the pillow, a marionette's jerky motion, her eyes fixed on that ravished fruit.
A cruel smile touched his lips, stretching the juice upon his skin. The grape was held fast between his teeth—a trophy, a taunt. She strained upward, her neck corded with the effort, her mouth opening in a pathetic, yearning circle. She was a breath away, the sweet corruption almost upon her tongue.
His throat moved. A single, swift convulsion. He swallowed.
The empty space where the grape had been was a mockery. A low, broken sound escaped her.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you… little one?" His voice was a clinical probe, cold enough to sear. He did not wait for an answer. He picked up the next grape, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. He presented it, not to her mouth, but to her gaze. Then, with agonizing slowness, he fed it to her. Not with grace, but with a mechanic's precision. She ate, bite by excruciating bite, her teeth grazing his skin, each mouthful a communion of shame. The juice ran down her chin, unheeded. Each swallow was a confirmation. Each grape was a covenant, written in pulp and salt, sealing her complicity in her own delicious ruin.