I Think This is Supposed to be a Honeymoon

Natalia

The notion was still unbelievable to me. Married. At eighteen, with my nineteenth birthday just around the corner, I was already a wife. The ceremony had been executed with a grandeur befitting any royal union, and the reception that followed was a feast of staggering proportions. Yet, I could find no value in either spectacle. I didn't love Viktor, and I knew scarcely a soul in the teeming crowd, save for the friendly but distant acquaintance of Markus and Isaak. Among the hundreds of guests, I could count my familiar faces on one hand. A profound sense of discomfort settled over me; I felt like a silent prop positioned carefully in the grand theater of someone else's life. When the reception finally drew to a close near the stroke of midnight, relief washed over me. I was exhausted and craved nothing more than the solace of a bed. But my hopes were swiftly dashed. As the maids helped me out of my bridal gown, I wasn't led to a quiet chamber but was instead hurried downstairs and ushered into a waiting vehicle.

Wait a moment. A dreadful thought bloomed in my mind. Don't tell me he actually has a honeymoon planned. The entire wedding had felt like a hollow performance. Since neither Viktor nor I shared any affection, wasn't the logical next step for us to retreat to our separate beds? To compound the absurdity, he hadn't even given me a ring!

Now, seated across from him in the rocking carriage, the words tumbled out of me, sharp and blunt. "You cannot be serious. Are we actually going on a honeymoon?"

A flicker of amusement touched his voice as he replied, "A marriage is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Why shouldn't we have a honeymoon?"

Was it too much to hope for a divorce? Or perhaps just too soon to ask for one? The idea had been a faint, abstract possibility before, but now, trapped in this swaying carriage beside him… Damn it all. Divorce was a fantasy. In this nation, Viktor was the law. This knot he had tied could not be undone unless he was the one to loosen it. Maybe my best strategy was simply to be as annoying as humanly possible.

"Now that the wedding is concluded," he stated, his eyes never leaving the book in his lap, "I should not have to remind you that the rat is under my authority. It would be in your best interest to start acting with some semblance of propriety." How did he always seem to read my thoughts? Oh, no. A cold wave of panic crashed over me. Jace! How could I have forgotten him? What kind of guardian was I? He had no idea what was happening!

"Where's Jace?" I demanded, my voice tight with fear.

"He is being cared for," Viktor said coolly. "And so long as you behave yourself, the rat will continue to be well looked after."

Jerkface. There were moments I truly detested him, and this was one of them. Just the other day, he and Jace had seemed to get along so well. How could he be so cruel now, using him as leverage? I swallowed the furious question and asked another instead.

"Where are we going?"

"To my summer manor. You seemed to enjoy it there."

What? We were returning to that place! But all those people had died there! What was to stop their ghosts from rising after dark to haunt me? A better thought occurred—perhaps they would torment Viktor instead. The image of them succeeding in unnerving him was so wonderfully appealing it was almost comical.

Still, the grim reality remained: a great number of people had lost their lives there during the fish catastrophe. I wasn't certain I wanted to live at that manor, regardless of how long this supposed honeymoon was meant to last. I considered voicing my reservations, but I knew it would sound foolish. After all, people had died at the palace too, and I managed to live there without issue. But that was different. The deaths Viktor had caused at the palace were clean, almost sterile, as if he had simply willed them to drop. They hadn't bled. The deaths at the manor had been messy and violent. Knowing Viktor, even if I protested, he would simply tell me to endure it.

I didn't speak to him for the rest of the journey. Instead, I surrendered to the exhaustion from the day's overwhelming events, allowing the gentle, rhythmic rocking of the carriage to lull me into a fitful slumber. It was a shallow sleep, however, and the moment the carriage jolted to a halt, I was instantly awake. My eyes opened to darkness. When I realized we had arrived, I turned to look at Viktor. He was fast asleep. In repose, he looked peaceful, almost serene. The telltale lines of tension I was so used to seeing etched into his features were gone, making him appear completely different. It was a stark reminder of the immense pressures of being king. I suppose, in all this time, I hadn't truly seen him as human, even if I fundamentally disagreed with how he ran his kingdom—in my eyes, he would always be a dictator. But seeing him like this, so worn out and vulnerable, it was easy to forget this was the same man who could extinguish a life without a second thought.

Gently, I placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him. He stirred, disoriented for only a moment before he was fully awake and alert. I was still half-asleep myself; I wished I knew how he did that.

The carriage door swung open, and Viktor stepped out. He extended a hand to me, and I followed him onto the gravel drive. The staff greeted us in much the same way as they had before, though the atmosphere felt heavier in the dead of night. A sudden, piercing loneliness struck me. I missed Morgan. I wished she and Jace were here. I could just picture Jace, his eyes wide with wonder at the king's magnificent horses, or splashing wildly in the lake and scaring the fish, or just being his joyful self.

After the staff bowed, Viktor and I walked inside. As we approached the main living area, I instinctively turned toward my former room, but Viktor stopped me.

"What are you doing?" he asked. What did he think I was doing?

"Going to bed."

"Not in there, you aren't," he informed me. I furrowed my brow, but I was too drained to mount a proper fight. I would deal with it in the morning. Right now, all I wanted was to sleep, and I didn't care where.

We entered his room, and I began to search for something to wear. I found some of his clothes and, too tired to care about the impropriety, I took them into the restroom to change out of my traveling gown. When I emerged, Viktor was already in bed, deeply asleep. I paused, taking in the scene. There was only one large bed before me and nowhere else in the chamber to sleep. A line had to be drawn somewhere. I was exhausted, yes, but I wasn't that exhausted.

Leaving his room, I slipped back into my old one, collapsed onto the bed, and was instantly consumed by sleep. I dreamed of my life before this world. I saw my school days with friends, the late nights spent studying for exams, my treasured collection of stuffed animals—yes, I collect them, sue me—movie marathons, and the simple, ordinary rhythm of my everyday existence.

I woke sometime in the deep of the night, my face damp with tears I’d shed in my sleep. A groggy haze enveloped me, but it was quickly pierced by a dawning, soul-crushing despair. I wanted to go home.

"I want to go home," I whispered into the oppressive shadows of the room. Until this very moment, my mind had treated this entire ordeal as a strange, dreamlike state, a bizarre fusion of nightmare and fantasy. It had been protecting itself, assuming that at any moment I would wake up in my small pink room, tucked into my bunk bed with a good book under my pillow and my tattered teddy bear, Rosie, by my side. As the finality of my situation crashed down, the stark realization that I might never see my home again, a fresh wave of tears began to stream down my cheeks.

"I just want to go home," I chanted quietly, over and over, as if the words themselves were a magic spell that could tear through the fabric of reality and transport me back.

But there was no magic. There was only the darkness, and eventually, I cried myself back to sleep, only to be woken the next morning by the maids.