5.

His smile is like a blade, bright and sharp — a crooked, cutting thing she fears might destroy her. But she is fifteen and naive, and though her pulse pounds at her temples, she smiles coolly back. He is the King of Ravka, after all: the head of the powerful, influential Lantsov family. Only a fool would not smile back; only a fool would not foresee the consequences.

It turns Genya's blood to ice when he follows her to the door of the throne room, still smiling like a child presented with a new toy, and takes her hand in his own. It might have been a gesture of kindness, were his fingers not knotted with her own so tightly that she cannot pull away.

"I hope to see you again soon, Genya," he says. There's a faint trace of wine on his breath, thick and pungent. She closes her eyes as if to erase this moment — his smell, his touch, everything they promise.

"Th-thank you, moi tsar."

Only when Genya is out of his sight does she begin to run.

~x~X~x~

On the night of her sixteenth birthday, he comes to her room. His loping gait is familiar to her — soft, steady, purposeful steps, like a lion at the head of his pride, knowing what it wants and able to claim it. Through the closed door she catches the sound. But she cannot understand.

He enters without knocking. Simply opens the door as if invited. When he smiles, it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Good evening, Genya."

She curtsies low, her unbound hair sweeping over her shoulders. She was preparing to change, and thanks the Saints she was still clothed when the King arrived. His presence is utterly unexpected, unprecedented. Her pride bristles at the thought of standing before him without even the faintest touch of makeup, her hair loose and untamed. But she keeps her voice steady when she replies, "Good evening, moi tsar."

"You must forgive me," the King says, in that silk-smooth voice that seems to twine around her, entrapping her, binding her where she stands. "I meant to greet you when you were attending to the needs of my wife, but my presence was required elsewhere."

My wife.

Why isn't he with her, at this hour of the night?

Suddenly, the wrongness — the simple, gut-twisting feeling that this is not right, not at all — rises up in Genya, and her heart pounds. In a moment, she might have been naked. In a few minutes, she might have been asleep. But the king did not knock. The king never, for even a moment, considered her privacy.

"With all due respect..." Her throat is dry. Clenched. "Why would you look for me, at this hour?"

"I wanted to see you." He closes the door with his arm. "Surely that is not such a surprise."

"You see me often, moi tsar."

The King takes a step closer, so that she is forced to move away. The wall is cold against her back through the thinness of her gown; cold that pinches the back of her neck. She can't breathe. Why can't she remember how to breathe?

"Is it such a crime," says the King, smiling with chapped lips, "that I missed the sight of your beautiful face?"

She should smile and nod. Smile and nod and thank him for the complement, like a puppy, barking at his heels for a scrap of approval. So why does it feel so sick, so ugly, when he looks at her?

Genya's heartbeat pounds so loud, she can feel it pulsing in her throat, burning in her face. "I..."

He takes a step closer; they are nearly touching. Any closer, and they will be touching.

The King's breath is hot on her collar bone, and for the first time, Genya resents the sweeping neckline of this elegant gown, though it was a gift from the Queen. The Queen requested that she wear it today, in fact, rather than the kefta. In honor of your birthday, she had crooned. Pretty thing.

"Humility does not become you." The King's eyes rove over her body, a gaze like touch that makes her tremble. "You are beautiful, Genya."

Genya forces a laugh out of her lungs. "Then if you will honor my request, moi tsar, I need my beauty sleep."

His irises glint in the half-light. Hungry. "Of course."

Silence falls. He does not step away. In her mind, Genya talks to herself. This is a dream. Her heart races. This is a dream. Nightmare bleeds through as he catches a strand of her auburn hair, tucks it behind her ear.

All at once, Genya's perilous calm gives way. She braces one hand against his chest. "Don't touch me," she breathes.

He looks at her, disbelieving. His hand is on her face, his fingers on her cheek. "Genya," he purrs.

"Don't touch me," she hisses through her teeth, and then she shoves the King as hard as she can. But instead of pulling away —

Instead of pulling away —

His kiss is aggressive, insistent, his lips pressed hard against her own. They taste like the Queen's rarest, most expensive wine. Horribly, through the fog of he is kissing me, all Genya can think is, the Queen will not help me. She would despise me, she would kill me if she knew. And without the Queen —

Both his hands are knotted in her hair, her face locked in his grasp while he presses his lips against hers, smearing her lipstick. It feels like forever before he withdraws. And when he smiles, there's no fear in it. No regret. No mercy. He is the King, and she is a servant. A servant.

His servant.

"No." Her voice is a whisper; the strength in it has fled from her. "No."

And then he's kissing her again, and she finds the will to scream, but it's into his mouth, onto his lips, and when she screams he kisses her harder. And his hands aren't in her hair anymore; they're all over her, where no one has ever touched her, where no one has ever had the right to touch her.

"No, no, no —"

She fights him, but he only presses her against the wall, against his body, against the wet, ravenous touch of his lips. She wills it to stop. Begs the Saints for it to stop. But it doesn't.

Not when she truly screams, like she's never screamed in her life, so loud that her throat aches.

Not when she gathers her pride and bites her tongue, resigning herself to whatever happens next.

Not when the delicate lace at her back tears under his grasping fingers, and she knows that she will never again be the girl who wore this dress — the girl who was the Queen's beloved, who was a child of the court, who believed herself an esteemed Grisha and not a servant.

Genya Safin is quiet until it is over. But when it is, at long last, over, and the King has gone, and she is fumbling for her nightgown in the dark, the tears begin to flow, and keep flowing. And she knows that these tears are not like those she cried as a child; they will cease to show themselves, they will cease to redden her eyes, but they will not end.

In Genya's heart, the tears will never stop flowing.

~x~X~x~

A/N: This is not an easy scene to have written (I myself, thankfully, have never experienced anything like this), but its effect on Genya's development is undoubtedly critical. It is tragic; it is painful. But it is part of her story — a story that I truly hope will have a happy ending when the Grisha Trilogy concludes.

This chapter is about pain. But Genya's story, I think, is about dignity, and resistance, and loneliness, and brokenness, and courage. Always courage. But to be brave, she had to be afraid first. And here, I think, is the first time Genya was really afraid. To rise above, she had to fall. This chapter is about falling.

But her story, I believe, will always be about rising above.