***

Dinner was excruciating. The King seemed to only have two modes of being: lounging and leering. He had prepared for her a seat on his right, at the head of the long table. She wondered if that was better or worse than if he'd had her sit alone at the other end. He obviously did not consider this occasion to necessitate as formal an approach as she had been prepared for. While Autumn had changed into evening wear and had donned her slim royal tiara, with colourful Veldian ammolite stones set in a golden bandeau, the Wizard King’s own crown had gone.

The great hall was just as large and empty as the throne room had been. There were fewer candles in use as she would have liked, making it difficult to see any details around her. Autumn thought that she could discern benches lining the dark stone walls, paintings and curtains, as well as a second level high up above her head, where guests could theoretically bend over the railing to peer down at them. Properly lit and furnished, this place could have been a grand dining room, or perhaps even a ballroom. It begged the question: who had built this castle, and why? The Evil Wizard King was a king of none. She doubted that there ever had been anyone filling these halls.

The two constructs that served them dinner were more obviously inhuman than her knight. They both had sandy hair and rabbit ears, as well as paws instead of feet. One of them looked profoundly unimpressed by everything, while the other one seemed as though he might bolt away at the first loud noise. Neither of them met her eyes as they set steaming platters of venison on the table and retreated to stand with her knight at the edge of the room.

Autumn stared down at her plate and vibrated with indignation. Venison? She was to eat this right in front of a man who’d been grown from a deer? How crass! Was the king trying to make a point? And if so, what sort of point could it possibly be? But then again, should she really be offended if she didn’t even properly understand the context? Autumn didn’t know how her knight felt about this. Perhaps he didn’t mind.

The knight, she reminded herself sternly. Not her knight. She had to be careful not to claim things too hastily in this place where apparently claiming was powerful — and forever. She glanced at the man in question’s face, hoping to divine any sort of hint about the situation from his expression. But he was impossible to read, seemingly content to stand passively in the gloom where the candlelight barely touched.

The king was already eating, and Autumn looked uncomfortably at her food once more. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. Consumption is a powerful act — once you partake of his land, you will belong to it. So this was it, then. After this, there would be no turning back. In the eyes of magic, this meal would make her Autumn of the dark lands and of Veld no more, forever. The thought filled her with dread and a strange sort of excitement, all at once.

Princess of Veld no more.

Third daughter no more.

She took a deep breath and decided to make the plunge, but as she reached for her cutlery, another memory surfaced in her mind. I’ve not chosen you because you’re an obedient, demure little thing. I’ve chosen you because you’re a handful.

Her eyes flicked up to the knight once more. Perhaps, she mused, the time had come to commit her first small rebellion — if only in her mind. In all likelihood, it would not change anything at all except for making her feel better. But that was still valuable in itself, and so she decided that made it worth trying. Gaze firmly affixed to the man whose face she could barely see in the shadows of the room, Autumn cut off a piece of meat, gathered it on her fork, and then consumed her first taste of this land and bound herself to it. To the land. To venison. To the deers of the Wizard King, and hopefully his (her!) knight.

She gloated internally in the glee of this small transgression for about a full minute before the King’s frustratingly deep and rumbling voice broke into her thoughts and brought her back to the unpleasant reality of the situation.

“Are all of our dinners to be this silent, then? I was given the assurance that you would be a — how did your mother put it? — a vivacious conversationalist.”

By which her mother had meant that Autumn was opinionated and not particularly embarrassed about it. Other women found her engaging; men tended to suggest that she see a healer for her obvious hysteria. It was the reason why she was still unmarried and her sister Winter was, despite being the youngest. Out of propriety, her wedding should not have come before Autumn’s — yet no one had complained very loudly when she’d announced it, and she herself didn’t hold it against her sister at all. She was well aware that everyone always wanted the third princess, but none ever wanted to have her. It hadn’t bothered her. Until fairly recently, that is.

She put down her fork and glared at the king.

“You will forgive me if I find it difficult to converse with someone I know nothing about, your majesty.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Oh please, none of that here. We are to be wed, Lady Autumn. I implore you to use my name.”

She tilted her head to the side with a tight smile. “You see, this is exactly what I mean, future husband. I do not believe that I’ve been made aware of your name yet.”

“Has it been forgotten, then?” he asked with some surprise. “And here I thought that the legend of my… betrayal… still endured.”

He had said the word with a strange emphasis, and Autumn suspected that his version of the story might be fairly different than what had been passed down to her. But while it would have been fascinating to hear it from his — assuredly — biased perspective, it was neither appropriate dinner conversation nor the kind of tale one asked of their host upon first meeting. Besides, she was burning with a rather more mundane sort of curiosity.

“And what is that name, then?” she inquired, and lest he made the mistake of thinking her pleasant or polite, she added: “Only where I come from, we know you as the Evil Wizard King.”

The man blinked, then tossed his head backwards and laughed.

“The Evil Wizard King!” he exclaimed. “Oh, how delightful. I can just about hear the capitals. I suppose it is not so far off, Lady Autumn, as I am both a wizard and a king. As for evil, well.” He fingered the rim of his goblet thoughtfully, the smirk on his face fading into something soft and amused. “Well, evil is often only a matter of perspective,” he murmured.

He grabbed his goblet and sipped from it, before meeting her eyes over its edge. As he pulled the glass back, a red drop of wine lingered on his lips and he licked it away slowly.

“My name, dear lady, forgotten though it may be, is Eltanin. Eltanin Darkmore, of a long and ancient line of Darkmore wizards, who once ruled in the East over the mountains. But that was in a different time.”

“I see,” she murmured back, then looked down at her plate before their shared eye contact could overwhelm her. His irises were of a rich dark brown, and his heavy eyebrows did them a disservice. “And why do you wish to marry, sir Darkmore?”

If he wasn’t going to call her by her proper title, then neither would she. The king sipped from his wine once more, rather than answering her question.

“Why does it matter?” he replied finally. “My business is my own.”

“Not once we’re married, it is not. I will be the queen of this land, won’t I?”

He smirked at her again. Stars above, how she wanted to do violence to that smirk. No one decent ever smirked that much. It was the condescending, evil cousin of a smile, only related in that it also lived around the mouth, bracketed neatly by his dark goatee.

“Then I will tell you my reasons once we are married, my lady. As only at that point will they concern you. In the meantime, I am sure you have more pressing matters to occupy your attention.”

“Such as surviving, you mean.”

He seemed to be exasperated, once again, by her use of the term. “I suppose, if you insist on putting it like this.”

“How else should I put it? None of your other dulcineas ever made it out of here alive, did they?”

He blinked at her slowly, in the manner of a cat. “Made it out of the castle, yes. Made it out of the forest? Well. How should I know? Their fate was their own and I had long stopped paying attention.”

Her hands tightened around her cutlery. “So you just tossed them out? Into your accursed deadly forest?!”

“With a little care, there’s no reason to follow in their footsteps, Lady Autumn,” he shrugged, as if none of this was of any great concern to him. “No harm will come to you in my castle.”

She grit her teeth and tried very hard not to attack him with her butter knife. “And what did they do to displease you? I’d like to know so I don’t do the same, you understand.”

The Evil Wizard King — Eltanin — shrugged once again, and leaned back in his chair with his wine goblet held loosely in one hand.

“Nothing,” he said. “I simply wasn’t ready to wed.” His lips quirked up in the shadow of a smile — thankfully not a smirk this time, as she could not be responsible for her actions if he gave her another accursed smirk while talking about sending women to their death — and he subjected her to a lascivious once-over. “Seeing as I am ready now, there is very little that you can do to displease me, my lady.”

“Is that so,” she managed to grit out through the red haze of her fury.

“Mhm-mhm. Although I would advise you not to leave the palace grounds. I think you will find the spectres rather excitable past the walls. You have been provided with a knight, as I’m sure you are aware by now, who has been instructed to protect you.” He made a vague gesture in the direction of the construct still waiting at the edge of the room. “Do make his job easier by staying in his line of sight, will you? I understand how that might feel stifling, my lady. But if it is of any consolation, know that I have also instructed him to serve you in any manner that may please you. As long as it does not displease me, of course,” he chuckled.

A surge of protectiveness rose within her. She wanted to grab the deer man and hide him from the king’s notice and all of his insinuations, even though she was well aware that it was a ridiculous impulse. She felt her fork start to bend under the pressure of her thumb and forced herself to relax her grip.

“Certainly,” she said through gritted teeth. “I will be good for him. But I might find it very difficult to be good for you, seeing as you have yet to give me any clear answers as to what exactly I am supposed to do — or not do — while in your castle.”

“I have told you not to leave the walls, have I not? What else could you possibly need to know?”

“What did the other women do, and what happened to them,” Autumn grit out. She did not intone it as a question, as she was far passed treating this as a polite conversation. The king’s prevarications was getting on her last nerves. “If surviving two months here was only a matter of not leaving the castle, then surely someone else would have succeeded by now. What is the catch?”

“No,” he replied.

“I apologize, I do not understand what you mean by ‘no’?”

“You do not need to know this information.”

“I beg to differ! I think this is rather critical information, actually!”

His lips thinned. No longer was the Wizard King relaxed, nor was he lounging. He leaned forward to place his goblet back on the table, then raised a hand between them and snapped.