When the mage had left, whatever brief calm she’d held herself together with disappeared with him. Erek managed to get her through the door behind the throne, a door she had never been near before, before she broke down. It had been a near thing and her hysteria had overwhelmed her and left her a sobbing wreck on the stairs up to the prince’s chambers. Erek had been forced to catch her as she started to collapse, and in the end just held her as she fell apart in his arms.

Her breakdown had been so total that she’d apparently fainted and been carried the rest of the way. She woke up on a couch in the common rooms of the prince’s suites. One of her younger sisters, Fina, was wiping her forehead with a wet cloth, and several other siblings were within steps of her.

Erek was sitting in a chair a few yards away. He was watching her in obvious concern, but giving her a little space.

“Are you okay,” he asked in a soft voice when he saw she was looking towards him.

She was about to answer affirmatively, but then stopped herself. She had just committed to sacrificing herself, her very soul, for the good of her family, so the least they owed her was the chance to be honest.

“I’m not even close to being okay,” she finally said, grimly. “I doubt I will have a chance to be okay again.” She felt her eyes water with new tears again, but she forced herself to remain together enough not to break down again.

He frowned, but didn’t say anything. She decided that there wasn’t really anything that could be said.

“What an unmitigated disaster,” came another voice from the doorway. She didn’t have to turn to recognize her brother, Denas, and his haughty, entitled voice. “About the only good that came of it was getting rid of her.” Denas gestured towards her. “At least it’s not a total loss, and now we don’t have to waste a dowry on her.”

Her self-pity evaporated under the bloom of anger that suddenly sprouted in her. Couldn’t she get this one night to gain comfort in the face of her sacrifice? Didn’t she deserve some sympathy and support in considering her doom?

Before she could work herself into enough of a frenzy to finally stand up to him, her other brother took it upon himself.

“You are a wretched thing, Denas,” Erek said. “You are a slime with very few redeeming features and the thought of you eventually being prince is enough to make me sick. You will bring down the house in your arrogance, pettiness, and sheer stupidity.”

“How dare you talk to me that way,” Denas responded angrily. “I’m to be prince, and you will kneel before me. I’ll have retribution for your insults.”

“I accept your challenge,” Erek said coldly. His hand gripped the hilt of the sword by his side, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.

Denas paled as he apparently realized the opening he had given. It was common knowledge that Denas was no match for his younger brother’s martial skills. Erek was destined to a generalship in the armies, and he took his studies, both in books and in combat, seriously. It took little imagination to know how that duel would end.

“You would try to assassinate me over that fucking whore?” he asked incredulously. “I made sure that she was to be promised to Fremens. Aran was going to arrange a little accident as soon as she gave him a son. She wasn’t going to have more than a couple of years before she was dead anyway. This way she does some good before she dies, and we don’t have to whore her out or deal with the fucking brats that she would have spawned.”

Erek’s face turned purple in anger, but before he could draw his sword a hand flashed out from the hallway behind Denas and smacked his head hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor. Denas’s hand went to his sword and he twisted back to his feet, his face twisted into rage. That stopped as soon as Denas saw who the hand belonged to.

Prince Alain stepped into the room with a grim expression on his face. He looked down on his oldest son with obvious disdain.

“You dishonor yourself,” he said, simply. Denas flushed at the rebuke.

“But --” he started.

“Enough,” his father interrupted, his voice lowering in anger. Denas flinched back at the tone. “Leave now,” the Prince continued. The princeling flushed again in anger, and then spun around and stomped from the chamber like a petulant child. Bree stifled the thought that this observation might not be too far from the truth.

The Prince turned towards Bree and put his hand on her shoulder. It was a hand of comfort that she had craved for as long as she could remember, but that wasn’t her father’s normal way. Her tears began again, and not for the last time that night.