Rivek looked at his reflection in the window. Shadows crept under his cheeks and circled around his eyes. He needed a haircut. He scratched his head. It hurt his hands more than it relieved his scalp. His fingers were still tender. The night before, they had cracked and bled while he bathed.
"Keep your wounds clean," Eamon had warned, tapping the cross-shaped scar on Rivek's cheek. "You have enough scars from infection."
King Auster coughed, bringing Rivek's attention back to the task at hand. He stared past the king's high-backed chair to Fenne, the prince standing behind it. Rivek looked down and subtly shook his head. He felt a small hand on his shoulder. Willow stood next to him, a slim but sturdy presence between him and the royal guard. A servant approached and lit a fat, milky-white candle on the table between the two parties.
Rivek wrung his hands, splitting the skin again. Stupid. But he still had nightmares. He woke up, gasping for air, trying to cough the taste of smoke out of his lungs. Just the thought of open flame made him sweat.
King Auster slipped a piece of parchment in front of him and looked at Willow with furrowed brows. Rivek didn't feel like actually reading it. He knew what it said - in much longer words than necessary. Give up your lies and become a slave. In exchange, you get to live.
The notary placed a quill and a shallow, silver dish onto the table. One of the guards shoved Rivek's chair closer.
"No need to be so rough, now. Not like I'm going to run away, am I?"
The soldier took Rivek's right hand and unwrapped the bandages on it, revealing raw, newly-healed skin. Willow had not done an amazing job, but no one else would have worked on him. The guard made a shallow slice it down the middle of his palm. Just enough to draw blood. Rivek winced as the black liquid dripped into the dish.
He picked up the quill with his left hand and dipped it in the makeshift ink. He signed his true name on the parchment, an Alisian name that was too long and meant too many things. Ailinar AIlinar Rivek Ildorus. The acid blood quickly faded to red but not before burning a few tiny holes in the paper where Rivek had pressed down too hard.
Willow followed suit, saturating the quill tip, which was quickly melting down, with his blood and dashing her name below his. She wrote quickly and left no holes in the paper.
King Auster nodded and melted a strip of red wax over the candle flame. He dabbed it next to the signatures and pressed his ring into it before adding his own name, again in blood. He turned to Willow, "He belongs to you now."
Willow grabbed the wrist on Rivek's bloodied hand. He bit his tongue, holding back the retort he had immediately thought up. She ran her finger in a zig-zag pattern across the cut, and it pulled itself together like a tightened dress seam. All that was left was a thin, red line which she quickly hid and she re-bandaged it.
Rivek raised his now mended hand. "Now, that I am no longer under the jurisdiction of His Majesty, King Auster, I have something I would like to say: You are a very, very, horrible person."
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