It is mine.
The words haunted my waking moments and stalked the edges of my dreams. They were a declaration of ownership that had fundamentally altered the nature of my imprisonment. I was no longer an object of curiosity. I was a territory, claimed and conquered.
The changes were immediate and unsettling. The next morning, Helga arrived not with a single grey dress, but with two younger maids who carried armfuls of gowns, slippers, and velvet robes. They filled the wardrobe with a king's ransom in fabric: silks the colour of a midnight sky, velvets like crushed shadows, wools the shade of storm clouds. All in the severe, elegant palette of the Obsidian Keep. It was a uniform, a livery for his most prized possession.
Books began to appear on the low table, delivered by a silent page who would not meet my eyes. They were not stories or poems. They were dense, heavy tomes: The Dynastic History of the House of Jorvik, A Treatise on the Sunstone Alliance, The Rites and Laws of the Lycan Courts. He wasn't just imprisoning my body; he was colonizing my mind, force-feeding me the knowledge he deemed necessary for his property to possess.
I resisted in the only way I could. I wore the gowns, for I had no choice. But I consumed the knowledge voraciously. My mind, honed by years of relentless study at the Conclave, was the one part of me he could not touch, the one weapon he could not see. He wanted to shape me, but I would use his tools to sharpen myself.
On the second evening after the incident in the reliquary, Helga informed me that the King would be taking his evening meal with me. The announcement was delivered with her usual stoicism, but I saw the flicker of apprehension in her eyes. This was a deviation from all known protocol.
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced my carefully constructed calm. I chose the simplest of the new gowns, a column of dark grey silk, and braided my hair severely. I would be a statue. A stone. I would give him nothing.
He arrived as the food was being laid out on the table before the fire. He was dressed in a simple black tunic, the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, revealing the corded muscle there. He looked less like a king and more like a predator in his own lair. He dismissed Helga with a nod, and we were alone.
The silence was a third presence at the table. We ate. The food was exquisite—roasted fowl, spiced winter vegetables, warm bread—but it tasted of nothing. Every bite was ash in my mouth. I focused on my plate, on the mechanics of lifting my fork, of chewing, of swallowing. I could feel his gaze on me, as tangible as a physical touch, but I refused to meet it.
"The histories I sent," he said finally, his voice cutting through the tension. "Have you found them… enlightening?"
I did not look up. "They are comprehensive," I replied, my voice clipped.
"Good," he said. A pause. "The chapters concerning the Blood Moon ceremony. You should pay particular attention to those."
I risked a glance at him then. His face was impassive, but his eyes held a calculating gleam. He was testing me, baiting me. I refused the hook. I simply nodded and returned my attention to my plate. My refusal to engage, to show fear or curiosity, seemed to amuse him. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips before vanishing.
"You have a formidable will, little Null," he murmured. "You build your walls high. It is… intriguing."
He believed I was building walls. He didn't understand I was the wall. I was the fortress. And he would not find a way inside.
We finished the meal in that suffocating silence. When he was done, he pushed his chair back and rose, prowling the length of the room. He stopped at the window, staring out at the frozen darkness.
"The Sunstone emissaries grow bold," he said, his back to me. "They are here to see the alliance between our lands finalized. It is a treaty my father brokered, one that has kept a bloody war from our borders for fifty years."
I remained silent, my hands clenched in my lap. This was not idle conversation. This was the prelude to a command.
"Traditionally," he continued, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, "such an alliance would be sealed with a marriage. A union of bloodlines." He turned from the window to face me, and the full, chilling weight of his curse hung in the air between us. "A luxury I am not afforded."
My heart began to beat a slow, heavy drum of dread against my ribs.
"They do not trust a Soulless King. They see my curse as a weakness, a break in the chain of my lineage. They demand a show of stability. Of… companionship." He took a deliberate step toward me. "They wish to see the woman who warms the Obsidian King's bed."
The words, so crudely put, were like a slap. I flinched, a reaction I immediately hated myself for.
He saw it, of course. He saw everything. A flicker of dark satisfaction crossed his features.
"There is to be a formal reception in three nights' time. The entire court will be present, alongside the Sunstone delegation. It is a night for posturing and power plays, and I will not show them a single crack in my armor."
He was standing before my chair now, forcing me to crane my neck to look up at him. He was a mountain of shadow and power, and I was trapped at his feet.
"You will be at my side," he stated, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Helga will see you are prepared. You will wear the jewels of my house. You will be silent, you will be beautiful, and you will not falter."
He leaned down, his voice dropping to a possessive whisper that scraped against my soul.
"You will show them all that the King of Jotunheim possesses whatever, and whoever, he desires."