This is surreal

Perry had been listening with his ear pressed against the door for what felt like hours. 

After carving up his chest, the Clan Leader had kept his promise and healed him right up. Then he'd waved his fingers in the air and magicked the blood stain on the carpet away. All the while, the Queen watched on, silent and immobile. Like a damn statue. 

"It will serve your best interest to stay inside until dawn has broken and you are summoned to breakfast with your King and Queen." The Clan Leader had stared Perry down, standing way too close and still holding the bloody glass needle in his hand. "And when you do make it do breakfast, it would further serve your interest to remain silent and answer only the direct questions asked by your King and Queen. The door has a magical lock and only your hand unlocks it."

And then, as if things weren't bad enough, the Clan Leader lifted the needle to his lips and licked Perry's blood from it. He'd even made a satisfied smacking sound as he pulled it out of his mouth. 

Perry had to hold back his own vomit or risk choking on it and following in the former prince's footsteps. 

When they left, Perry stood there, frozen in place. Only when the door shut with a click that echoed like a gunshot, was he released from the control spell. Perry ran his hands over his chest, looking for any traces of the carving, but found only smooth skin. 

Then he ran to the door and flung it open. The Clan Leader was standing outside, smiling at him. Perry could still make out traces of his own blood on the other man's lips. 

"As I said, Your Highness, you should await a royal summoning after dawn break." Then he bowed - actually bowed - and left. The Queen was nowhere to be seen.

Perry stood there, at a loss for what to do next. He was impersonating a prince. He'd just made what was essentially a deal with the devil so he could be sent back to his ordinary life and forget any of this had ever happened. In a few days, if he understood correctly, he would meet his future bride. 

He was impersonating a prince. 

That fact kept circling his brain like a vulture picking at a carcass. The other guy, the real prince, his… his brother, was dead. 

Perry pulled up the image of the last time he'd seen the man who had the same face as him. 

He'd stood at the door of his cell, telling Perry that he'd done what he'd done for the good of his people and his kingdom. 

Look where that got him. Killed by his own lover. 

Which was a detail that made absolutely no sense to Perry. If the Captain was inclined to kill anyone, it was Perry, not the real prince. The poor guy seemed helplessly devoted and in love with his prince.

Perry's face itched and only then did he remember that he still had dry blood painted across it. 

So, reluctantly, he closed the door and went in search of something to clean his face. And his hands. And his chest. And possibly all of him.

A quick exploration showed that there was a second room adjacent to the bedroom, one that held a large round porcelain basin behind a fancy-looking wooden privacy screen, and a long table with paper and what he thought were pens but just looked like decorated metal rods. 

Perry ignored those for now. He had more pressing matters. 

After he located a basin with water and a clean rag next to it, he went about cleaning himself of all the blood. Then, still feeling the fantom ache of the glass needle tearing his skin open, decided to clean his chest. And his hands. And when he looked down at himself, discovered the clothes Myran's aunt had lent him were ruined. 

First, because it had been torn by Long Beard, and second because he'd had his chest actually carved. He rubbed at his chest, trying to get rid of the phantom ache. 

Even though he mentally resisted, Perry had to admit he needed a change of clothes. 

"This is surreal," Perry mumbled to himself as he searched through the prince's clothes. 

Most looked way too fancy and expensive to wear. Like the midnight blue robe with minuscule stars that twinkled every time he shifted the fabric. Or the green suit-looking one that looked like it was made out of the scales of some kind of reptile - not that someone had skinned a lizard and stitched something that looked like a suit out of it, but as if each individual scale had been carefully picked and then stitched together over a deep green silky looking fabric. 

And then there were some he would only wear if held at gunpoint - or sword-point in this place. Like the sheer tunic or the see-through pants covered in thin chains that tinkled musically when he moved them this way and that. 

Perry wasn't particularly fond of thinking ill of the dead, but he couldn't help but judge the prince for his wardrobe choices. Just a bit. 

He regretted the feeling immediately. Brother, he reminded himself. The prince had been his brother. 

Perry finished cleaning up and changed into the simplest-looking robes he could find. It was cream-colored with silver and blue embroidery along the sleeves and hems. 

After he was done getting dressed, Perry resisted the very real urge to lie down in a fetal position and cry until he fell asleep. 

"You can do this," he told himself. "You can survive one year in this place and then go back home. So what if you have to marry a woman you've never seen before? Marriages of convenience happen all the time." Never mind that the thought made him feel physically ill. He shook his head, pushing that thought away when his empty stomach threatened to revolt. One problem at a time. "You can do this."

As the sky gradually shifted to a soft orange color, Perry made his way to the door of what he decided to call the main room and waited. And when just standing there and staring at the door did absolutely nothing, he pressed one ear against it. And waited. 

And then waited some more. The corridor on the other side of the door was dead silent. Unease prickled the back of his neck and Perry glanced around the room, feeling like he was being watched. 

He wouldn't put it past Long Beard to have some kind of magical surveillance on him. 

Movement on the outside caught his attention. Footsteps and muted voices. Perry's hands itched to pull the door open and see for himself what was going on outside. Was this his 'breakfast summoning'? It didn't sound like it, even with Perry's limited understanding of royal etiquette. 

It sounded more like a disagreement, maybe even a fight. He pushed back from the door and raked one hand through his hair. Then he spun in place because he had no clue what to do or how to act. 

What would the real prince have done? Shooed the people arguing outside his room? Send them off to the dungeons? Invited everyone in for tea and then had one big, anger-fueled orgy?

As far as he knew, all of those options were possible. He had no way of knowing or anyone to ask. So what did he, Perry, do in this situation?

"Screw it." Perry cracked the door open and peeked out. 

There were two men outside, one of them standing calmly in front of the door, and the other with a displeased expression and brandishing a sword. The calm one noticed Perry first. 

Cool, dark green eyes turned to look at him. Perry tried, and failed, to sound as if he had things under control.

"What-What's happening here? Who are you?" His voice sounded like it'd been through a meat shredder. Maybe it was all the muffled screaming he'd done while Long Beard lovingly signed his initials onto his bones. Who could know, really?

The two men paused, the one holding the sword lowered his weapon and bowed deeply. "Your Highness, do you know this man?"

There was something about him that tugged on Perry's brain. Some vague sense of familiarity, like when you look at a picture of a classmate you haven't seen for over ten years. Perry couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was. 

But despite the vague familiarity, he didn't know who he was. But could he admit that? What would happen to the other man if he did? Would they throw him in the dungeons alongside Captain Handsy?

"I, um…" Perry had no intelligent way of finishing that sentence because his brain chose that moment to go offline. 

The green-eyed one turned to face Perry fully and ran his gaze over Perry's face. Then he said the last thing Perry expected to hear before breakfast.

"Your Highness. Your new bodyguard is reporting for duty."

Perry's response hadn't been rational. Given everything, could anyone really say they would've done things differently?

"The fuck you are," Perry spat out and opened the door to face the man. He was smiling at Perry. Smiling!

Anger made his body vibrate and he tried to bite back his words and keep a level head. But this was clearly another ploy by the Queen and Long Beard to keep him under their control. 

"I assure you, Your Highness," the man said, still smiling. Perry's blood boiled and he felt the very uncommon urge to punch something. "I very much am reporting for duty."