Weeks passed in the eternal, violet twilight of the Courtesan Wing, each day a perfect, monotonous copy of the last. Clara learned to exist in the spaces between moments, in the quiet, hollowed-out landscape of her own mind. Her performance of obedience was flawless. She was a statue during the lessons of stillness, a ghost during the lessons of service. She was Number 820, a creature of silent, graceful compliance.
But every night, she was taken from her cell. Every night, the true education began.
Rulien's private antechamber had become a second, more intimate hell. It was a place of soft velvets, chilled wine, and the most profound and terrifying violation she had ever known. He was, as he had promised, peeling away her layers, not with a blade, but with a clinical, relentless precision that was far more terrifying.
He was teaching her the art of pleasure. And it was the cruelest torture of all.
