A cold feeling settles in Oak’s gut. The bridle is uncomfortable, its straps pulling tight against his cheeks, but not painful. At least not yet. He knows that it will continue to tighten and that if he wears it long enough, it will cut into his cheeks as it cut Wren’s. If he wears it longer than that, longer than she did, it will eventually grow to be a part of him. Invisible to the world and impossible to remove.
That is why it was made. To make Wren eternally obedient to Lord Jarel and Lady Nore.
Wren hated that bridle.
“I grant you that I don’t know what it feels like to be compelled to follow someone else’s orders again and again,” Oak says. “But I don’t think you want to do that, not to anyone. Not even to me.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think, Greenbriar heir,” she says. “I remember your stories, like the one about how you used a glamour against your mortal sister and made her strike herself. How would you like to feel as she felt?”
He confessed that when Wren won a secret from him in a game they played with three silver foxes, tossed in the dirt outside the war camp of the Court of Teeth. Another thing he maybe ought not to have done.
“I’ll slap myself silly willingly, if you like,” he offers. “No need for a command.”
“What if, instead, I force you onto your hands and knees to make a bench for me to sit upon?” Wren inquires lightly, but her eyes are alight with fury and something else, something darker. She pads around his body, a prowling animal. “Or eat filth from the floor?”
Oak does not doubt that she saw Lord Jarel demand those things from people. He hopes that she was never asked to do those things herself.
“Beg to kiss the hem of my dress?”
He says nothing. Nothing he says could possibly help him.
“Crawl to me.” Her eyes shine, fever bright.
Again, Oak’s body moves without his permission. He finds himself writhing across the floor, his stomach against the carpet. He flushes with shame.
When he reaches her, he stares upward, rage in his eyes. He’s humiliated, and she’s barely begun. She was right when she said he didn’t understand what it would feel like. He hadn’t counted on the embarrassment, the fury at himself for not being able to resist the magic. He hadn’t counted on the fear of what she would do next.
Oak cuts his gaze toward Bran, who has remained stiff and still, as though afraid to draw Wren’s attention. The prince wonders how far she would go if he were not present.
How far she will go anyway.
Then the door opens.
Straun enters, along with a guard wearing battle-scraped armor and bearing a scar across the broadest part of his nose. He seems familiar, but Oak can’t quite place him—he must have served with Madoc but not come to the house much. Straun looks as though he’s fighting to move, and the scarred guard is looking as though he wants to murder Straun.
Straun steps forward, going to one knee. “Queen of winter, know that I only ever wished to serve—”
She holds up a hand, forestalling the groveling he seems to be working up to. “I have been tricked by the prince often enough to know how clever he can be. Now you will not be deceived again.”
“I shall make a new oath to you,” he declares. “That I will never—”
“Make no oaths you are not certain you can keep,” she tells Straun, which is better advice than he deserves. Still, he looks chastened by it.
Oak pushes to his hooves, since she hadn’t told him to stay there.
Wren barely spares him a glance.
“Bind my prisoner’s wrists,” she tells the scarred guard.
“As you command, Queen.” His voice is gruff.
He walks to Oak, pulling his arms behind him sharply. Tying his bonds uncomfortably tight. The prince’s wrists are going to be sore by the time he makes it back to his cell.
“We were discussing how best to discipline Prince Oak,” she says.
Straun and the other guard look a lot happier at that thought. Oak is certain that, after they were punished by the High Court for their treason, it would be at least a little satisfying to see a prince of Elfhame brought low. And that was before he gave them a reason to have a personal grudge.
Wren turns to him. “Perhaps I ought to have you sent to the Great Hall tomorrow and command that you endure ten strikes of an ice whip. Most barely get through five.”
Bran looks worried. He might want Oak humiliated but perhaps didn’t expect to see Madoc’s son’s blood spilled. Or maybe he is concerned that if they have to give back the prince, Elfhame will want him in one piece. Straun seems thrilled by the prospect of some suffering, however.