VI
… Ros didn't know how much time had passed before eventually, one by one, her sensations started to slowly return to her. She didn't even know for how long Joffrey had been penetrating her with the bolt – she had no memory left of it except for bright flashes of separate moments. Joffrey squeezing her shoulder. Joffrey grabbing the bolt. A blinding flash of pain. His heavy breath. Metal cutting through her flesh. His hateful eyes. A flow of blood. Dryness in her throat. Her heart skipping a beat. Blood. So much pain. So much blood.
A quiet clank was a sound that came from reality rather than recollections, though. Ros felt like she couldn't even open her eyes without wanting to scream her lungs out. Squinting, she stared past the veil of tears at the source of the sound. Joffrey was sitting in his seat comfortably, a cup of wine in his hand and a loaded crossbow in his lap. Oddly, Ros felt no emotion at this sight; all of it had been drained out of her along with all the blood and replaced with the pain, it felt to her. If anything, she couldn't help but scoff bitterly at her situation. So much for tempting death.
"You're from the North, aren't you?" Joffrey questioned calmly and took a sip from the cup. "How did you put this… 'I have fucked scum from all over the North', I believe?"
Ros stared down at the floor between them. "Yes," she spoke quietly, hearing her voice creak and feeling her throat hurt from such a simple word. "I am."
Joffrey nodded with a satisfied look. "I thought so. Lying Northern whore, with your poisonous rumors," he smacked his lips and put the cup down onto the tabletop, then gripped the handle of his crossbow and stood up from his seat. "For all the crimes you have committed, I, Joffrey of the House Baratheon, the First of My Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, hereby sentence you to die."
Ros pursed her lips. As far as pain and tortures went, she was almost ready for more of them with an odd sense of fatalism now, she felt. After all that had happened, there was no such pain that could frighten her anymore, it seemed to her. But all of these Joffrey's theatrics that accompanied it, though… Disgusting excuses of a cowardly boy who wasn't even willing to admit that he was doing all this for the pleasure of his flesh. The real torture. But if it was easier for Joffrey to twist things this way, it suddenly occurred to her, perhaps it would be easier for her as well? The whole life is a theater, she reasoned. Everyone acts and lies and everyone pretends to believe. Perhaps there was nothing wrong in pretending to believe in just one more lie, compared to a lifetime of them?
"I will execute you personally," Joffrey continued, his voice breaking for a moment. "Ask for forgiveness for your words, and it will be a good death. I promise," he added after a short pause in an unusually soft tone. "If you don't," he raised his voice again, "I will show you no mercy, as a traitor like you deserves."
Ros exhaled quietly, still staring at the floor. Treason. There it was. A pitiful, miserable excuse… And yet, an excuse she was willing to – wanting to – accept. After all this pain, after all these tortures there was nothing that she wanted anymore but to have a justification, and this one sounded so tempting. The real, sickening truth behind all these atrocities was too awful, too unbearable to accept, and her mind was desperately clinging to the faintest hopes for any other explanation. Treason was just as good as any. The few shards of rationality that were left in her mind were screaming at her, accusing her of delusion, but she wasn't listening. For the first time since she had entered this dreaded room, Ros felt a faint touch of peace and acceptance. There finally was a good enough reason for all of this gutting pain. Ros closed her eyes with a sigh. It was so easy. She just had to believe it. Just for long enough.
And, at the same time, there was no reason to try to outmaneuver Joffrey anymore. Treason is never treason for a traitor who believes in her cause. Letting it go was the only option.
"Your… Your Grace," she whispered, hearing her voice disappear halfway through the phrase as her throat produced nothing but dry gurgles. "Your Grace," she repeated slightly louder. "I was wrong." Tears started to stream down her face again, and she sobbed loudly and winced from the pain. "I was wrong, I—"
Ros wailed quietly, closing her eyes. She could hear her own voice in her head screaming at her for calling this self-proclaimed judge and executioner His Grace. A part of her mind was cursing her for this, but a bigger part couldn't care less. This way, there was peace, solace and closure. It was all that mattered in the end.
"I was wrong to call you that," she continued. "You… you are the one true King by blood, Your Grace." Her vision slowly focused on the bolt protruding out of her, a blood-smeared shaft swaying with every faint breath she took. "You are the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and… I'm sorry, Your Grace, I don't know the words," she wept, staring at the red feathers at the end of the bolt. "I'm so sorry. I would say them if I knew them. Please, mercy, Your Grace." The more she kept looking at the projectile, the more lightheaded she felt. "Mercy."
Joffrey stood silent with the crossbow in his hands, listening to her. "What is your name?" he asked quietly after heavy silence had filled the room again. "Tell me."
Ros sobbed loudly, looking at scarlet blood dripping onto the floor between her legs. "Ros, Your Grace," she whispered and raised her head, looking at the King standing in front of her. "It's Ros."
"Very well, then," Joffrey spoke unexpectedly loudly and gulped, then raised the crossbow and looked at the girl along its frame. Ros stared at the tip of the bolt lying in the groove and held her breath. Would she have the time to feel anything, she wondered? Would she even register it flying towards her?
Joffrey slowly tilted his head sideways, his mouth opening just a little as he squinted his eyes, looking at Ros. Suddenly, after a few more seconds, he scoffed sharply and lowered the weapon, looking at the bolt protruding out of her stomach. "You…" he hissed and pursed his lips, his eyes filling with rage again. Ros exhaled quietly, looking at him with her eyes wide open. "What have you done?!" Joffrey extended his free arm towards her, pointing at her hips, and the girl shuddered, staring at him in shock and feeling her heart start pounding in her chest from anxiety again, a feeling she had hoped had finally abandoned her just a couple minutes ago. "That's… You… You've ruined the covers, you cunt!"
Ros whimpered pathetically, gingerly looking down at the bolt. Dark red blood was leaking out of the wounds, streaming down her skin. Ros could feel everything. She could feel the flow crawling against her groin and her buttocks, she could feel the blood-drenched fabric of her tunic clinging to her body, she could feel the stream of blood trickling from between her legs and down her inner thighs; finally, she could feel all this wetness pooling up under her hips, forming a dark red puddle that was giving the very air around her the heavy smell and taste of iron. A pool of blood in the rich covers of the King's bed.
Ros gulped and raised her head, staring at Joffrey in fear. A grimace of fury was painted on the young King's face, and the girl shuddered at the sight, realizing what she had done. Every single bolt in her body was deserved, every last one of them was there for a reason. She had to be thankful for the punishment… instead, all she had done in return was ruin the bedsheets with a bloodstain.
Not just a traitor. An ungrateful one.
"Your Grace," she whispered in shock, staring into the King's eyes and hearing her voice break. "I… I am so sorry, Your Grace…" She felt tears start welling up in her eyes again.
"You're sorry?" Joffrey scoffed and tilted his head, looking at her. "Well, what does it matter now?!" he exclaimed loudly, and the girl flinched, closing her eyes and feeling her chin tremble. Her fingers wrapped around the leather belt tighter, and she made a clumsy attempt at pulling herself up from the edge of the bed – an attempt that ended with a cramp running along her pierced arms and Ros dropping back down into the puddle of blood with a wet sound, howling from the jolts of pain that shot through her entire body.
"No, no, no, no," Joffrey chuckled condescendingly, and Ros froze, staring at him. "What is the point of that now?" The King scoffed and started to walk in circles nervously around the room again, glancing at the girl. Ros couldn't take her eyes off him, her teeth digging into her lower lip. "What is the point?!" Joffrey suddenly kicked a tall metal stand next to his seat with an unlit candle on top of it, and Ros gasped as the unstable piece of furniture crashed down loudly onto the floor from the King's outburst.
"I-I just wanted to—"
"I don't care what you wanted to do!" Joffrey screamed back at her, and Ros flinched, feeling the all-too-familiar wetness of tears on her cheeks. She blinked and took a deep breath cautiously with her chest; tears were choking her, turning her breath into a series of short and quiet gasps.
Suddenly, Joffrey exhaled loudly and raised the crossbow again, and Ros froze in place, looking at the weapon through her tears. A kind, almost sympathetic grin illuminated the young King's face, and Ros couldn't help but smile back at him weakly, feeling the anxiety in her chest fade away again. "Thank you," she mouthed soundlessly. He was a merciful King, after all, and no words could describe the relief she was feeling now. Even after all that she had done, even after her ungratefulness, he was merciful. He shouldn't have been; she didn't deserve it. And yet he was.
"You can sit all you want."
The crossbow clicked quietly, and before a slightest suspicion could creep into Ros' mind, the feathered bolt darted towards her body and smashed precisely into her pubic mound, shattering the bone and slicing through the delicate flesh between her legs before finally coming to a full stop, deep inside the wooden plank under the blood-soaked layers of bed sheets.
Ros' mouth opened in a silent scream as her body arched, her legs immediately closing tightly around the fletching of the bolt sticking out of her mound. As pulsating waves of terrible pain rushed up her body, a sound finally escaped her lips; an inarticulate high-pitched raspy squeal, a pitiful attempt of her ruined vocal cords at expressing the agonizing sensation that was radiating from her destroyed crotch. Ros' whole body shook in convulsions as the mind-boggling pain washed over her; her thighs were opening and closing as the muscles in her legs were contracting, red feathers of the bolt between them quickly becoming dyed into the darker shade of the girl's blood. Shaking and squealing, wiggling around on the bolt that was pinning her to the bed and only tearing the wound wider, Ros felt the all-enveloping pain, the one that had taken over her entire body by now, the one flaming in her arms, in her leg, in her womb and now in her groin, start burning the last shards of her sanity away… and it was so far from the cleansing, welcome pain that she had been longing for, hoping that it would bless her with deliverance. How could she have been so wrong, Ros realized in horror, feeling it taking over her. This pain was anything but cleansing. It was so awful… Unthinkably awful. With tears in her eyes, she desperately tried to fight it, to push it out of her mind, but it was too late. The soft brushing of the bolt's fletching against her inner thighs was the only distinct sensation that lingered for a little longer before fading away like all the others, and then, pain was all that there was left.
The wailing that resounded across the room was a desperate scream of madness, above all else.
