* [This scene contains content some might find upsetting. Please check the post/chapter titled Episode Five: “Broken Earth” Content Warning List and Pronunciation Guide for a list of content warnings.]
[This scene also has a plot summary at the end for those who need to skip this scene but still want to know the important plot points of it. Happy (and safe) reading!]
This always happened. When Belle had been away from Richard for any period of time, whether because he was traveling or because she was, the first night back in his chambers, in his bed, brought with it the memory of the true first night. Stepping through the doorway into his bedroom, she was stepping into the past.
One stride, and she was twenty again, seeing the sickness of this enormous room for the first time.
That night five years ago, the ladies of Muse House had spent hours trying to prepare her, both physically and mentally, but she couldn’t remember anything they had said. She brought forth their faces, their magics in her mind’s eye, hoping she might be able to see their words as well. Her mind showed her only a kaleidoscope of grief-flavored Chaos—flashes of hair and skin and voices and scents and the feel of foreign fingers in her hair and soft palms scrubbing her skin.
Until finally her mind snagged on a brilliant magic and beautiful face. Magic like liquid sunshine and skin of warmest brown. Golden eyes and plump, two-toned lips. She radiated power—it wasn’t just the defined muscles, or even the pulse of her magic, it was her attitude as well. The way she held herself, her unwavering gaze. The other women had showered Belle with advice for dealing with the Crown Prince, but this woman had said only one thing to her.
“You can survive him.”
Those were the only words Belle could remember any of the ladies saying to her, and she clung to them. Gripped them with everything she had as she entered the room and saw that magic of violent orange waiting for her on the balcony.
“My bride,” he said.
She bowed and felt the happy bloom of his magic. He touched her, pulling her up straight, and she did not flinch. You can survive him.
There were chunks of that night that Belle didn’t remember. Truthfully, there were whole weeks, whole months that Belle didn’t remember. She often thought that when Thorne I had broken this mountain to build his castle, he had accidentally broken time as well. Belle felt like she lived some days three different times, but then she would blink and find herself half a year in the future. And then there was this night, that had pulled Belle back into it a hundred times over.
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“My great-grandfather…” he was saying as he circled her, his magic like a thousand hands sliding all over her body, “Thorne the Third, was cursed with Chaos, like me. He was a human monster. By the time he’d lived to see his fourth year, his mother could see it in him, just like mine could see it in me. She called Priests to exorcise the Chaos from him, and his father beat Order into him. But the Light would never take root, and the Darkness always filled him again eventually. By the time he’d counted out fifteen years, the Priests were treating him two days out of every seven, but it was never enough.
“They knew a cursed man couldn’t rule Lushale, so his uncle was set to reign in his place—but Thorne the Third’s Chaos overtook him. On his twenty-fourth birthday, he killed his uncle and took the crown. For ninety-nine nights, a monster sat on the throne. Do you know what happened on the one-hundredth night?”
Belle couldn’t remember if she had responded or not, but she remembered his next words.
“On the hundredth night, the Priests brought to this castle the most pious of the children who lived in their temple, a girl of just fifteen. She told Thorne that Mother Light had come to her in a dream and said it was her destiny to wed him. To hold his Chaos at bay, and guide him in the way of Order. If she did this, Lushale would grow into a power the world had never seen before. If she did not, Chaos would reign. The cities would fall, and the land would be lost to monsters.”
Here, he paused, both in his speech and his circling. His gaze on her was a physical sensation, a suffocating weight, a total invasion. When he stepped toward her from the left, the air in the room went still and stuffy.
“I’ll tell you something you can never repeat,” he said into her ear. “Never. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Though my great-grandfather is long dead, my mother still fears him. Not for the man he was, but for the monster he became when his queen was gone. And sometimes...” The strong, thick fingers of one of his hands slid up her back to wrap around the back of her neck and clench. “…Sometimes she fears me too.
“But I knew it the moment I saw you. You are my queen, my bride. A girl of Light, surrounded by Darkness in that place, with those beasts. I knew I had to free you from Chaos, so you could free me too.”
Richard stepped around in front of her, and for just a moment, she saw through his magic to the face within.
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SUMMARY FOR THOSE WHO NEEDED TO SKIP THE SCENE:
Belle remembered the first night she spent with Richard, when he told her the story of his grandfather, Thorne III. Richard said that Thorne III had also been born “cursed with Chaos” like Richard had, and that he had multiple exorcisms growing up to treat his monstrous nature, but none of them stuck. Thorne’s uncle was supposed to rule in his place due to this Chaos, but Thorne killed his uncle. Thorne ruled as a monster until a girl living at a Temple of Order said she had a dream where the Light Mother told her she was to wed Thorne and tame his Chaos, and she did. Richard said that he knew when he met Belle that she would do the same for him.