The first week was a masterclass in humiliation.
Branimir did not raise his hand to her. He never had. That was not his method. Branimir understood — with the instinct of a predator who has studied his prey for three centuries — that bruises heal and bones mend and the body forgets, but words burrow. Words nest. Words lay eggs in the dark places of the mind and hatch into things with teeth.
He used words the way other men used fists.
On the first morning, he seated her at the far end of the breakfast table — not at his right hand, where the Lady of the House sat, but at the foot, below Thalyra, below Veyra, below the empty chair that had once belonged to Cyrath and was kept vacant as a memorial to his memory and a rebuke to anyone who dared forget him.
Below Clara.
