Silence fell over the dining hall like a heavy curtain. The crash of plate on flesh still echoed, and no one could believe what they had just witnessed. Everything had happened so fast that the whole room froze, unable to react.
"How dare he?!" Delaney shrieked, her voice raw. "I will kill him!"
"Silence!" the king growled.
Servants snapped back into motion at the command, scurrying to their posts as the tense air tightened.
"He has always been a disgrace to this family," King Orion began, his voice calm but cutting. "Having given birth to a waste like him may be my greatest undoing." His words were measured, but the temperature in the hall rose with each sentence. Everyone felt the calm before a storm.
"He has made me lose face among other kings, who taunt me for producing a worthless son. Today he has disgraced me in front of the palace staff. Perhaps I have been too soft." Orion's voice climbed.
"Jude!" he called to his right hand.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Jude answered, kneeling on one knee.
"Bring the boy out to the city central square," the king ordered. "Give him one hundred lashes with the fire copper weep."
Faces changed at the mention of the punishment. Delaney and the other step-siblings smiled triumphantly. Daisy and Gabriel's mother went pale.
"Orion, are you crazy?" Gabriel's mother cried. "If you want to kill him, do it. But why tear his body in the city square?" Her voice trembled.
The fire copper weep was no ordinary instrument. It was a magical artifact—dangerous and rare. Even the lowest-grade pieces were at least second rank, while the highest could reach fifth. Gabriel was not a cultivator. He could not withstand such a thing for long. One hundred lashes would be fatal; ten lashes might finish him.
"I have made my decision," King Orion said, then strode out of the dining room.
In Gabriel's Room
Daisy and Samuel paced, worry etched into their faces. Gabriel sat, oddly calm, fiddling with his interface.
"What are you both so worked up about?" he asked without looking up. "It's not like you're the ones being punished." His tone was careless, as if the sentence did not concern him.
They glanced at his bruised body and then at his expressionless face. For a moment they admired the mental fortitude that seemed to hold him together.
A sharp knock came at the door. Knock. Knock. Knock.
Gabriel felt his heart skip. The sensation was unwelcome and foreign. Fear — real, sudden fear — washed through him. He swallowed it down and composed himself.
"Scram out of that room or I'll break in and fetch you," a thundering voice called from outside.
Gabriel rose and walked to the door with a calm that surprised everyone. Guards and palace staff who had gathered to watch were expecting to drag out a terrified, weeping boy. Instead, Gabriel opened the door on his own.
There was no tremor in his step. No panic in his face. He moved with a quiet dignity that looked almost regal—an odd majesty in a boy they had long mocked. Murmurs spread through the crowd. Where was the cowardly waste they all knew?
Gabriel stepped out, and for the first time in a long while, the palace watched him with something close to awe.
Gabriel forced the fear down as he stepped out into the daylight. No one knew the whole truth — after an accident too shameful to speak of, he had developed a phobia of canes and whips: bambusiphobia. A public flogging with such instruments was, for him, worse than death. Those who understood the artifact called the fire copper weep knew this punishment was practically a death sentence. Still, somewhere inside him he found the courage to face it. If he survived, he told himself, he would be a different man — someone no one could trample, someone who might one day rule.
News of the punishment had spread through Sun City, the capital of the Sunfield Kingdom, long before they reached the square. By the time Gabriel arrived, the plaza was packed. People clamoured for a glimpse of the prince being humiliated. Many men thought the king should have killed him long ago; they resented Gabriel's looks and charm and believed public disgrace was fitting. Even so, a royal being shamed in public was a rare spectacle, and the crowd buzzed with morbid curiosity.
Guards led Gabriel toward the center of the square. At the entrance he caught sight of his family. His mother and Daisy stood with tear-smeared faces, being comforted by Samuel, who himself looked as if he might break. Gabriel's chest ached at the sight. He wished, more than anything, that he could be a better son and brother. Instead, he felt he was only a fountain of pain and disgrace for them.
He passed by them without stopping. As he moved past his father, King Orion's voice called out. "Are you not going to say anything to me?"
Gabriel felt a flash of anger at the idea that a public square was the right place for that conversation. He paused, then walked on. He knew his father expected him to kneel and beg. He would not. Not in this life, and not in any other.
King Orion looked astonished. He had thought the offer of clemency — the chance for Gabriel to bow and be spared the worst — would be seized. Instead his son ignored him entirely.
The king tried to reason with himself. He had not spared Gabriel out of pity; he had done it to appease Delaney, who wanted the prince humiliated before her eventual destruction of him. But Gabriel's refusal to humiliate himself made Orion's plan backfire. Still, Gabriel was his son, and the king had been reluctant. Delaney had forced his hand.
Anger rose in Orion's chest. Gabriel's conduct was a public slap in the face, an insult to the throne. With a tight jaw he issued another order. If by some miracle the boy survived the lashes, he would be thrown straight into the palace dungeon.