Chapter 24 – The Twisted Concubine Palace
Lune was waiting for Viola on the banks of the lake, the waters shimmering brightly with moonlight. He turned around as soon as he heard the soft rustle of her feet on the grass, a sly smile on his lips. It meant trouble, thought Viola, and she told herself not to be tricked again.
“I want to hear about Princess Guinev,” she said boldly while she was still striding towards him.
“I heard she had already left the palace,” he said.
“Yet the knight who was supposed to escort her to the Kingdom of Parus is now rotting in some graveyard. If you’re going to lie to me, at least make it less obvious,” she snapped back. Lune tilted his head and Viola became on guard, stepping back as if to avoid a blow, and awaited his answer.
After a few moments of silence which stretched awkwardly, he relented, saying, “It must be the Emperor’s orders for I really don’t know. But if you really want to, I can find out,” he added, the mischievous grin back on his face.
“No, I have to see it with my own eyes,” she said grimly, resolutely refusing to be lured by his casual attitude. Without as much as blinking, Lune was suddenly beside her, Viola’s hair in his hands in a firm but gentle grip. In response, her hidden dagger came out of her sleeve and into his chin, its sharp tip pressing lightly against the skin.
“I may be a prisoner, but it doesn’t change the fact that I was groomed to be the Crown Princess. My training is too good for your tricks to work twice.”
If Viola had thought this would finally slam her seriousness into Lune, she was mistaken. With his smile unwavering, he said, “Serious women turn me on. All right then, I’ll give you what I want. Maybe you can give me what I want? In exchange?”
Ignoring the last part, she said, “What? Where?”
“The Palace of the Concubines. You can see it for yourself.”
Viola’s shoulders slumped in defeat, deflated, as the air of defiance left her. Without looking back at her, Lune gestured for her to follow with a tilt of his head. Deflated, she followed without a word.
She whispered to herself, “The Concubine’s Palace? Well, that’s where I will end up after the six months. I suppose it won’t hurt to see it now.”
*
The hour was late. All was quiet, save for the chirping of crickets. For quite some time, not a single soul could be seen in the labyrinthian hallways of the Concubine’s Palace. When they finally encountered one, Viola kept her head down. She did the same with the second, the third, the fourth, and so on. After a while, she began to dare a peek and saw that she was practically invisible to the servants. All they saw was the figurative rank of the Royal Knights’ commander beside her.
Lune has boasted that his rank among the nobility was second only to the Royal Family itself. She felt that perhaps it was more than just a boy trying to get inside a woman’s skirts. If it was indeed real, she needed that authority to be able to move and act more freely. Perhaps there was an advantage letting him have her.
She shook her head, as if the thought was a mosquito or bee trying to get inside her ear. ‘What on earth am I thinking? Marrying him? How would that work, if it was even possible?’ she chortled.
Still, the idea was worth considering. If by the off chance, she did marry him, this knight of Arpen would have to follow the laws of Koronis instead. After all, it was customary in all the kingdoms for the culture of the higher-ranked partner in a marriage to take precedence. Since she was only a few heads away from being a Crown Princess, while Lune was a nobleman who was near the bottom of the line of succession to the throne, it stood that such a pairing would be of Koronis and not Arpen.
‘I suppose the benefits of wedding him would, in a way, outweigh that with the Crown Prince,’ she mused. Of course, this was only possible if Lustian gave her up while Lune actually had the courage to propose to her.
Soon, the beginnings of a plan began to form as she stared at his brawny back, the shifting of the muscles apparent under this robe. It wasn’t long, though, when her thoughts turned to their first night together. Viola caught herself from her thoughts starting further. She was thankful he kept walking without a glance backward or else, he would see her rosy blush.
“Here we are. Wait, why is your face so red?”
Lune’s voice cut through the haze clouding her mind. To cover up her lapse, she stammered, “No, it was nothing. Probably the heat. We’ve been walking for quite some time now.”
Nonplussed, he said, “Come inside then. I’m sure the party’s still happening.”
Viola’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘What kind of party could there be in the middle of the night?’ Bracing herself for some sort of trick, she went through the thick wooden doors in front of them. For some reason, some long-forgotten words from her childhood nanny sprung up from memory.
“I worry about the princess. She is either ignorant about the true side of an ordinary nobleman, or she just chooses to ignore them.”
Those words were quickly blown away like leaves in the autumn wind. At first, she thought the hall was on fire with all the smoke. But it had none of the acrid scent of a burning building. There was some sort of unfamiliar sweetness in the air, with the slightly unpleasant tang of spilled wine and other alcohol underneath it.
But that wasn’t what made it clear, though. It was the sight in front of her: naked men and women were everywhere. On the luxurious rugs covering most of the floor, on the huge pillows almost large enough to be a child’s bed, even on the tables that littered the hall. Entangled with each other, their hands, lips, and tongues were running over each other’s bodies.
“What is happening?” she gasped, half-certain of the answer as she saw pairs of eyes unfocused while one or two stumbled as they tried to get up. Maids that were going to and forth to pick up the leftover food, bottles, plates, and bowls scattered all over tried to avoid the squirming bodies and the stumbling people.
“Drugs,” said Lune.
Viola wanted to ask, “Is that it?” Yet the more she inhaled the smoke and scents of the room, she felt her body treacherously responding. Lune’s lone word suddenly began to make more sense. And the more sense it made, the more she felt a cold feeling inside her chest.