The 18th of February in the 15th year of the New Order under our Lord and King

I sit. I sit or I pace in my rooms. Sometimes my hands shake for no reason at all and I cannot write anything down for days. So I sit more. I sleep. I've lost my appetite and I only eat at dinner to maintain my pretense to the King. He left me alone for almost an entire week after He returned me to my rooms from the prison but for the past several days He has been taking me again.

He was quiet the first time he took me again. So was I. I didn't fight Him or even speak a single word of protest. I felt like a doll, being moved where I was wanted yet giving no resistance to the will of the one who played with me, if what He does to me can be called playing. Maybe for Him.

Something different happened last night though. When He was done taking His pleasure from me I began to turn away from Him but He stopped me with His hand on my neck. His words were frightening to me.

"Do you wish to sleep here with me this night?" Why would He ask such a thing? He'd never done so before and I began to wonder if it was some kind of trap so I remained silent but He refused to release His hold on my neck until I answered Him.

"No. I do not wish it." He stared into my eyes for a long second before releasing me. I lay there, as still as a mouse pinned by a hungry cat, and waited.

"If you do not wish to sleep here then you may go to your rooms." I got up slowly, hardly daring to believe He would let me leave so easily. I quickly donned my silk slip and was almost to the door when He spoke again from where He lay on His back with His left arm tucked up under the pillow behind His head.

"You will come to the throne room tomorrow when you are summoned. It is time for the people to see their King's Consort." I couldn't breathe. My lungs felt filled with water and some moments passed before I could collect my thoughts.

"I'm not your wife."

"We are married in the flesh. That will suffice. If it is not enough for you, know that there is no higher power in this world than me; what I say… is." His words filled me with darkness. He views what we have as a relationship; a binding contract that I had no choice in. I could think of nothing to say so I opened the door and left His bedroom. As always, my steps were dogged by my guard. I began to run and he gave chase as if I were fleeing the Palace. He caught my wrist but I turned and pushed his hand off of me. His eyes were dark and his face seemed to hold concern for me but I couldn't bear to endure it so I ran for the stairs leading up to my rooms. There is no way out of there except the way in so my guard followed me at a much slower pace and met me at my door to let me in with his key. I couldn't look at his face for surely I'd find pity in his eyes and I don't wish for any of that, either.

The 19th of February in the 15th year of the New Order under our Lord and King

I didn't think I could fear the petitions to the King more than I had the day I needed to present my case to him so long ago. I was wrong. Though I'm no longer a petitioner, I do not rejoice in my new status as Consort.

I woke to the urgent shaking of that vindictive old woman in charge of my care. She herded me to the bathing room and into the basin almost before I could relieve myself of my morning privy needs. I could swear she scrubbed me harder than ever and my skin turned quite a brilliant shade of pink by the time she was done. Every bit of me was coated in a scented oil that both soothed the redness and made me smell like the wild summer lilacs and roses that used to grow near the woods in my small town. Mother used to come home with handfuls of them when I was young, before Father was sent to The Wall. They would give a bit of color to our humble cottage and even though we didn't have much, we felt like the richest people in town. It's one of the few vivid and happy memories I have left to me of the time… before. But there is no use dwelling on the past, for it long ago turned to smoke and dust.

I was not allowed to clothe myself until all of the oil had disappeared from my skin so I spent time by my fireplace trying to keep warm while the woman moved about my room, setting out jeweled pins and producing a blue, silken clothing item. Two thick leather belts, each the width of three of my fingers together and bearing large brass buckles, seemed rather odd beside it but by then I had become accustomed to the rather unusual items I had been dressed in. None of that prepared me for what I looked like when I was wearing this particular outfit.

The dress, if you can call it that, was long enough to drag on the floor but it was merely two lengths of fabric draped over my shoulders. The woman pulled the lengths out and crossed them so that a deep vee of exposed skin came down between my breasts, almost to my stomach. She placed my hand on it and I held it like that for her as she took up the belts and moved behind me to adjust the back. I was tempted to close the front up more but I had learned from experience not to alter anything she does. She may be a small woman, but her fingers are strong and she doesn't hesitate to pinch me for my transgressions. I felt her bring the belts around my waist and let them hang loosely at my hips while she worked with the fabric. She pulled the first belt up to just beneath my breasts. The leather was cool against the bare skin of my back as she tightened it enough to hold the fabric in place. She placed the second belt at the narrowest part of my waist and came back to the front to adjust the fabric there. The jeweled pins were used to gather up the fabric at the tops of my shoulders so my arms were bared completely.

When she was satisfied with the way the fabric looked on me, she tightened both belts at least one more notch each, settling the large buckles so they lined up under my left breast and the excess leather crossed the front of me and lay flat once tucked through the belt loops. I was now wearing a dress of sorts that covered me completely, aside from the scandalous open neckline and exposed shoulders, all the way to the floor. As soon as I walked, though, the hanging sections of fabric would easily separate, exposing my legs and intimate places in a most inappropriate fashion. I immediately grabbed it and held it closed between my legs. Even the old woman seemed concerned about how much of my body was revealed. She left then, leaving me standing in my room, panicked, until she returned with a needle and thread. With rapidly moving fingers, she stitched the open front of the dress closed from the bottom of the vee in front to the floor and did the same in the back from just above my buttocks down. She made a few adjustments to the gathered fabric to hide the stitched areas among the many folds. Sadly, she left the sides unstitched and with every step, my legs were revealed all the way up to the belt at my waist in a most provocative manner.

The old woman pinned my hair back from my face. Stacks of different bracelets were added to my wrists, made from silver, beads, wood and bone. Lastly, a solid silver torque necklace that was wide in the front and narrowed at the sides went around my neck. The piece looked old, as if it had belonged to someone else for a long time. A turtle design carved in the center of the widest portion was incredibly simple and made me think of the King's jewelry for some reason. It gave me an odd feeling in my heart.

Much to my surprise, I was escorted from my room by not only my usual long haired guard, but also several other men who flanked me. In total, six men surrounded me as I descended the stairs. I held tight to the sides of my dress, attempting to keep it closed over my legs. Not a single one of the guards looked at my exposed flesh but I felt naked all the same and I found myself trying to walk closer to the guard who had been both my captor and protector for so long. He showed me none of his usual empathy and kept his face as stony as he had when he had been assigned by the King to return me to my cottage. Nay, he wouldn't even look at me and I sensed a disconnection in him that I had never felt before.

The closer we drew to the King's audience chamber, the more distant he seemed to me. I watched his hair moving in the breeze created by his rapid steps. Long streaks of silver strands mixed with the black and gave him a distinguished appearance. As always, part of his hair was gathered back into a long braid that hung down his back and some of the silver marked the length of the braid as well. How long had he been a servant of the King? He had spoken of days when they were young, of knowing Him as a friend back then and believing the same man still exists inside the King. How well could they have known each other when the King appears to be yet a man in only His thirties and my guard is deep into the middle years of his life?

I had no more time to ponder this for we had arrived at the doors to the audience chamber. I could hear the sounds of many people present, the milling of the crowded petitioners. It seemed like an age since I had last been in that room. Has it really only been two months? The long haired guard raised his fist and hit the door twice, quite loudly. A moment later, all the sounds of a gathered mass of people came to an abrupt silence and the King's deep voice rang out.

"Look up and behold, the woman I have chosen from among you. Honor her, for she is New Kanatahseton!" What He could possibly mean, I had no idea. The doors opened then and my guards fanned out to spread along the walls. The King turned to face me from where he was standing beside His enormous throne which was draped with a flag bearing three large blocks of color; green, blue and white. The green field bore a circle of many yellow stars on it. He held out His arm in my direction. I was frozen to the spot, for hundreds of eyes were upon me and the collective murmurs and sighs from the people reached out to grasp at me. The King moved His fingers in a beckoning gesture and I began to walk towards Him slowly, keeping my eyes only on His hand. If I deviated my gaze from it, my fear of so many witnesses would surely make me fall so I allowed the King's power to guide me closer.

The moment I was close enough, He took my left hand from where I was holding my dress closed and brought me up beside Him. He raised my arm up and in that instant, every human present dropped to their knees and lowered their faces to the floor. I shook with horror at how they viewed me. The King lowered my arm and brought His face down next to my ear. The heat of His breath on my skin drew chills over me like an icy cloak.

"See how they worship you? You are their emblem of hope and I am their means of salvation!" I could not tear my eyes away from the people before me. Every one of them was dressed in tattered and worn clothing, dirty and threadbare from overuse. Children were there, filthy and hungry. Beside their frightened parents or older siblings, they alone had the courage to lift their faces upward and look upon their so-called emblem of hope. If everyone only knew how much I hated standing beside the King, His puppet, His toy, His tool, they would never have bowed. If I ran for the doors, screaming that it's all a lie, would they stop me? Would He kill me right in front of them? The King's hand slid upwards over the bracelets I wore, setting them clicking as his fingers rose to my skin and tightened around my forearm. I looked up into His gleaming, turquoise eyes. His dark pupils expanded as if He could read my rebellious thoughts and he whispered quiet words of threat into my ear.

"Do not choose this day to defy me." I shook my head in a silent word of acquiescence and He brought His left hand over to cup my face so He could lean down and kiss me. I suppose, dressed as scantily as a prostitute, I should not have been surprised that He would use me so in public, going so far as to open my lips with his and kiss me as lustily as if I were in His bed. His hand dropped from my face as He released me from His kiss and I feared He might fondle me as well before everyone there but He merely rested two of His fingers on the necklace I wore.

"My mother's jewelry suits you well." I made a noise in my throat as my hand rose unconsciously to the collar I wore and my fingers grazed over the King's, causing the crowd, who had at last gotten to their feet, make another sound of awe and admiration. They thought us in love!

"Well played, Lily." The King breathed as His lips quirked upward in the briefest of smiles before He guided me to sit on a large cushion of a deep red color that had been set beside the throne. I kept my head tilted up to Him, afraid of displeasing Him, and moved my lips into what I hoped resembled a smile as I seated myself on the cushion. The King released my hand and I quickly made an attempt to cover my legs as much as possible with the fabric of my dress. It became apparent that it was a useless endeavor, for I had sat upon the bulk of available fabric, and my fidgeting drew the King's attention. I could feel His eyes on me even before His hand settled on my left shoulder. That familiar tingling feeling of the orb's power prickled through me and my hands grew numb even as I tried to tuck the slippery fabric into a place it would stay. The numbness became almost painful as my fingers refused to cooperate and only when I gave up and folded my hands in my lap did the sensation recede as if it had never existed. The King turned His wrist and stroked the skin of my neck with the backs of his fingers to show His approval of my obedience.

I sat through what felt like hours of the King hearing the petitions of the people of New Kanatahseton. He was generous to them, granting most everyone what they asked for. He permitted the people to look upon me and I tried to smile kindly to assure them that I was no different than they. In truth, I was deeply saddened to see each and every one of their faces and hear their stories. Many of them were just as I had been: starving, without any other choice but to ask for the King's generosity because there was simply nothing left anywhere. Many of them were widows, as my mother might as well have been, either from their husbands never coming home from The Wall or having died from some other cause: fire, an accident, starvation or murder.

When the King granted their requests, many fell upon their faces in gratitude, even gathering up a bit of my dress to kiss the hem. The King allowed it. I was mortified and wanted to stretch my hands out to them, to touch their burdened shoulders, kiss their crying little ones and assure them of a better future but I couldn't. I had no hope to offer them except the illusion of my presence. My words would have all been lies and I refused to take part in it more than I absolutely had to.

At last, with the dying light of early evening, the flow of petitioners ceased and the throne room echoed in emptiness. The King rose to His feet and took my hands to raise me up from the cushion. He escorted me through the doors in the back of the throne room as the guards closed in around us in the shadowy corridor. I couldn't look anywhere but at the floor. My heart broke for the people of this place and I stumbled over the front of my dress. The King stopped and faced me. Our entourage of guards stopped as well but the King waved them on. Only my personal guard remained and he seemed to disappear into the shadows.

"You disapprove of my ways." I couldn't look at Him but He lifted my chin up until I did. Try as I might, I couldn't prevent the tears that fell from my eyes. The King used His thumbs to brush them away but I knocked His hands aside and covered my face.

"They're suffering! All of them! How can you say I'm their hope when I despise even my own life? I would give anything to be free of this place!" The King grasped my arms and pulled me close to His body so I was forced to look up at His face.

"You are their hope. You represent what I can do for everyone… and not all will like how it is done. Yet look at you- you are loved, protected, fed and clothed- just as all my people will be under my rule. You are an icon of what life will be and your stubborn defiance is only representative of the struggles this nation will face along the path of real freedom." He tightened His hands on my arms for emphasis when He spoke on my willfulness. After staring at me with His frightful, glowing eyes, He turned His head toward my guard.

"Take her to her rooms." My guard materialized from the darkness to take a lantern from the wall but I shook my arms free of the King's hands, gathered up my dress and walked away.

"I know my own way." Dutiful as always, my guard followed me and for some reason, I began a diatribe of angry words directed to him, as if he could somehow answer the questions I had.

"How does He think I could be happy here? I'm a prisoner! I might as well be kept in the dungeons! How can He treat the people so? They suffer under His hand yet He keeps us all locked away within His Walls. We lack supplies yet He disallows trade from Outside!" By the time we had reached my door, I was panting and I leaned against the door frame to catch my breath.

"He calls what He does to me love!" I slid down the door and cradled my head in my arms, balling my hands into fists. I was unable to stop weeping. I don't know what I was expecting of my guard. He had displayed such coldness to me earlier that I was shocked when he sat down beside me and pulled my head against his shoulder. I turned into him, clung to his arm and wept against it. He neither touched me affectionately nor spoke a word of comfort but somehow I knew this was the only consolation he could give to me- and I was grateful for it. Unlike the King, my guard's shoulder was a normal human temperature and I could detect only the smell of wool fabric, leather and the warm, earthy scent of his skin and hair. No singed odor of fire or burning, no acrid smoke or sulfurous stench that constantly surrounds the King and His overly heated body.

When I finally ceased my tears and regained control of myself, he helped me to my feet and opened my door. My fire was out so he rekindled it for me and lit the lanterns in my room from the one he carried. When he was done I asked him to draw water for a bath. By working a long handle similar to that of a well, water was carried up from somewhere below in the Palace. It would come out of the spout cold at first but after a minute the water would be steaming, as if drawn from a boiling cauldron. There must be water kept on a fire for just this purpose. I had seen a similar basin in the King's chambers for His use.

At last the basin was almost full and I lifted a small urn of dried lavender petals from a shelf on the wall to sprinkle a pinch into the water. They swirled in the contained maelstrom of the basin, tossed about like leaves in a storm and powerless to alter the whims of the more powerful force of the water. Much like myself. I returned the urn to the shelf with a sigh and when my guard finished filling the basin, only the dripping of the spout made any noise in the room. He rounded the basin and paused in front of me. I dared then to raise my eyes to his face, shadowed by the light of the lantern hanging on the wall, and he did a most inappropriate act for his role: He leaned close and kissed the top of my head. I wanted to hug him. I should have but in the next instant he was gone, leaving me alone as the door to my bedchamber closed and the clicking of the lock echoed in the emptiness of my rooms.

I wept as I shut the bathing room's door and unclothed myself with shaking hands. The belts made loud noises as they fell to the tiled floor and the silken fabric made none, billowing as it did when I dropped it carelessly from my body after removing the pins from where they sat on my shoulders. I pulled the necklace from its place on my throat and stared at it. Another woman wore it once. The mother of the monster who sits on that throne. Is she aware of what she created? I can only hope not.

I placed the many pieces of jewelry I had been adorned with on the shelf with the dried flowers and stepped into the water. It was much too hot and my skin quickly turned red but I welcomed the pain of it. I submerged myself up to my face and then dunked under, letting the heat burn away some of my torment. When I came up for air I was dizzy so I leaned over the edge of the basin and stared into the far corner of the bathing chamber with my back to the door as the light outside faded to blackness, leaving me with only the comforting glow of the lantern.

Several times I submerged my body for long enough to overheat and it was during another of my cooling down times where my arms and head hung over the side of the basin that I heard the door to my bathing room open behind me. A waft of cold air blew over my wet skin and I clenched my teeth at the interruption of my solitude. That cursed old woman! Always invading so she can monitor me and guarantee that my insanity will last until the end of time. She must know she irks me so! I spoke into the darkness of the far corner, irate and rude in my anger.

"Can you not leave me be for one moment? I promise I'll refrain from drowning myself in your absence!"

"Is that what you routinely attempt to do when you bathe alone?" The voice that responded was not that of the raspy old woman, nor the silence I had been expecting. It was the voice of the King and I flung myself down into the water with a cry as he shut the door. Even in my own chambers I'm not safe from His presence. I curled up under the water, drawing my knees to my chest and hiding myself from His sight. I refused to answer Him but my heart pounded frightfully, whether from the heat or the scare, I do not know. He casually undressed, accustomed now to my silences for Him, and stepped into the basin on the other end of the large, stone oval. The basin is more than big enough for two, that much is for sure, but I felt terribly crowded by the King as He settled down with a sigh and closed His eyes.

The steam in the room moved in slow spirals and clouds, disturbed by the air the King had let into the chamber when He entered and His movements as He had joined me. I shifted on my end and the King opened His eyes. They seemed to ignite the foggy haze between us, reflecting the golden light of the lantern and infusing an icy cast into it.

"I would have had you come to dine with me but I was informed that you had chosen to bathe instead. I find it to be relaxing as well."

"It was relaxing."

"Oh? You did not sound relaxed when you spoke of suicide. Did you try it? Is that why Grandmother watches over your baths?"

"She's your grandmother?" I was horrified that I had been so awful to a woman related to the King.

"No, she is not my grandmother by blood. It is simply a respectful term for a woman of her age. But I do wish to know. Did you try to drown yourself?" I tightened my arms around my body.

"What if I had? What if every time I bathe I hope to drown?"

"Then I would be forced to bathe with you to keep you from it."

"I did not try."

"Why did you feel the need to assure Grandmother you would not, then?"

"She merely thought I was trying, once. And ever since she has watched me or looked in on me when all I want is to be left alone!" I slapped my hand down into the water, sending a splash over the side and in the King's direction. To my utter horror, it hit Him in His face, making Him close His eyes and flinch. The King didn't answer my angry words or react to my offensive behavior. He merely bent his knees and lowered himself down further into the water. He submerged Himself completely for a moment and I watched Him rub His head with His hands under the water.

He came back up and pushed His wet hair back from His face. He pinned me with His luminescent eyes once more as steam rose from His shoulders, lending an additionally fearful quality to His presence. His arm rose from the water and He offered His hand out to me.

"Lily, I know you are unsatisfied with me. But try, just try to imagine yourself happy here. With me."

"I can't. A woman cannot love a God the way you wish to be loved by me." I was unprepared for His answer.

"I am not truly a God. I have the powers of one with the Apple, yes, but right now, right here, I am only a man."

"A man with such bright eyes that shine with an unnatural light of their own. Why aren't your eyes dark, as they should be? Or if they must be blue, why are they not like mine?" I was in dangerous territory, asking such things, but if He would pretend to be humble, then I would pretend to be mighty. The King sighed and sat back against His side of the basin.

"The Apple… changed me. My eyes used to be dark. Some would have described them as the color of honey or an amber stone. I accepted the changes to my body as I learned to use the Apple. Great gain is never without sacrifice."

"What else does that… Apple do? Besides forcing people to bend to your will and feel things that are not real?"

"Lily." His tone was a warning yet I chose not to heed it. I spoke into the darkness of the room.

"Should I not know the man who desires me to love Him?" The King sat up straight then and used His grip on the sides of the basin to raise Himself onto His knees and forward until He was looming over me. He reached down into the water and dragged my ankles until my legs were out straight and I had only my arms to cover my body. The King straddled my legs with His knees and rested His left hand on the edge of the basin beside my right shoulder.

"It shows me things… visions of the greatness I can attain to… the power I can wield. It has kept me young, Lily, and intensified the elements of my emotions… and the desires of youth." As He spoke, He lowered His voice and His body until He was whispering and His mouth was a mere hair's breadth from the skin of my neck, forcing me to tip my face backwards. He softly kissed me there and then pulled back.

"Your defiance angers me; it always does. It enrages me, yet it is attractive and… arousing as well. Another effect of the Apple, no doubt, unless it is just the power you have over me." He took my right hand from where I grasped my left shoulder and slowly moved it down under the water and onto His stomach. He pressed my fingers flat on His skin and then covered them with His palm as He pushed my hand down onto His arousal.

"You see? Even without the Apple here with me, its effect is still manifest. And you… You." He kissed me then and closed my fingers around Him. I didn't even try to fight His will, for even without the Apple to control me He would have His way for greater strength alone. Despite my rejection of His desire for me, His touch had become attuned to what my body needed to react and even without His toy, His Apple, near at hand to aid Him, He succeeded in making me feel pleasure from His determined attentions. One unwilling climax from me at His hands and He took me there in the bath for His own, where each and every sound, along with the water splashing on the floor as He held me, was amplified to an echoing dissonance that still rings in my ears. And His eyes in the darkness…

Does it even matter how much I hate myself for it? Should I not fight Him for the principle alone? But then it begs the question: How much more so would my resistance fuel His desire? He has not had to use the Apple to control me in His bed for days simply because the idea of it is more repulsive than the intimate acts He wants. But somehow I feel worse for having experienced His twisted lust in my rooms, the place I had always fled to as a refuge from Him.

I fear that orb. I fear what further changes it will cause in Him. He's already frighteningly unstable and if after only fifteen years of using it, it has changed Him so… What will another fifteen bring? Before He left me this night, He disclosed a final bit of information to me that truly inspired my fear of that Apple He treasures so much. Had He told me before He took me, I may have fought merely for the hideous terror His confession filled me with. It is probably why He waited. His youthful appearance is a creation of that thing. His face and form, at most appearing as that of a man in His thirties…. He confessed to me that He was already thirty and one when He took up the mantle of King of New Kanatahseton. A disquieting revelation! And yet my thoughts cannot but help turn to my guard, for not only has he watched his friend take power and kingship, transform into a madman and acquire those frightful eyes, he has also witnessed Him remain agelessly young while he himself becomes wrinkled and silvered as the years pass.

I feel as if I must be trapped in some strange, nightmarish land where reality is corrupted and time and space cross and tangle into indecipherable knots. Oh, if I could only wake from it…