Henry's hand was a vice around Gisela's wrist. He did not lead, but dragged her, his stride so furious she nearly tripped over her own skirts. The moment the door of the royal bedchamber slammed shut behind them, he released her with a violent flick of his arm, sending her stumbling back against the wall.
He turned on her, his composure from the hall utterly shattered. The calm, icy king was gone, replaced by a man whose rage seemed to vibrate in the air between them.
"You arrogant, meddling girl," he seethed, the words gritted out from between clenched teeth. He advanced, crowding her against the stone. "Who do you think you are?"
"I am your queen," Gisela breathed, defiance sparking even as fear tightened her throat.
A harsh, disbelieving laugh escaped him. "You are a political placeholder! A signature on a treaty! And you dare to lay your hand on my throne and school my nobles on the security of my lineage?" His voice rose, raw and booming in the confined space. "You, who have been here less than a week? You, who flinches from my shadow?"
"I did not flinch today," she shot back, her own temper rising to meet his. "When your lords looked to you for strength, you gave them only silence. I gave them a symbol."
"A symbol?" He slammed his palm against the wall by her head, making her jolt. "You gave them a spectacle! You made me look like a man who needs his child bride to fight his battles!"
"No!" The word was a crack of sound. "I showed them a man whose bride is not afraid to stand beside him, even when he himself pushes her away! Your problem, Henry, is not that I acted. Your problem is that every man in that hall saw you did not expect me to. They saw your surprise. They saw you had not bothered to know the woman who shares your crown."
He stared at her, his chest heaving, his hazel eyes blazing with a fury so potent it felt like heat. For a long, terrible moment, she was certain he would strike her.
Then, the fire in his eyes banked, not into warmth, but into something colder and more dangerous. The outright rage receded, leaving behind a glacial, calculating contempt.
"You think you understand the game being played," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You understand nothing. That 'symbol' you offered? In their eyes, it is a provocation. It tells every ambitious lord that the new queen is restless, that she seeks influence. It paints a target on your back and calls into question my command of my own household." He leaned closer, his voice a low, harsh current. "You have not helped me. You have made everything more difficult. You have given my enemies within this court a weapon—a divided crown."
The truth of his words, spoken not in blind anger but in cold political logic, hit her with more force than a slap. The boldness drained from her, leaving a hollow chill. She had been thinking of defiance, of dignity. He was thinking of survival, of power.
But the injustice of it—the blame placed squarely on her shoulders for his own failure to secure their union—ignited a final, white-hot spark.
"A divided crown?" she echoed, her voice trembling now not with fear, but with a scalding anger. "You speak of my actions as division? You, who could not even bear to truly consummate this 'cursed marriage'? You gave them a stained sheet, not an heir. You gave them a ritual, not a reality. The greatest weapon you have handed your enemies is your own disgust, my lord. The division is not in my loyalty, but in your willingness to even pretend this is a real union!"
The silence that followed was absolute and deafening. All the color drained from his face, replaced by a pallor of pure, stunned fury. He had been exposed, not just to her, but to himself. The foundational lie of their marriage, the one he had orchestrated, had been thrown back at him as the ultimate evidence of his own failure.
He took a step back, as if her words were a physical force. The cold calculation in his eyes shattered, replaced by something volatile and dangerous.
"You will remain in these chambers," he said, the command hollow, stripped of its former certainty. "You will be silent. You will learn your place, not as a queen who speaks, but as a wife who obeys."
He turned and left, the door closing not with a slam, but with a quiet, definitive click that felt more final than any explosion of rage. He was gone, leaving her alone with the echo of her own dangerous truth. She had not just challenged him. She had exposed the raw, bleeding nerve at the center of his power, and they both knew it.
Gisela sat on the cold marble floor, the impact of his words still vibrating in her bones like a struck bell. The silence of the chamber was a weight, pressing down on her, thick with the memory of his contempt.
"I cannot stay in this room."
The words were a clear, quiet declaration in the emptiness. She pushed herself up, her body stiff, and turned the heavy iron handle. The door swung open onto the deserted corridor. With no destination in mind, only a desperate need to move, she walked. Her slippers whispered over stone as she followed a downward-sloping passage, drawn by a faint, fresh scent on the air.
It led to a small, forgotten archway, and she stepped from the castle's chill into a sudden blaze of life.
The walled garden was a stolen piece of summer. Late afternoon sunlight, honey-gold and soft, drenched beds overflowing with color: velvety crimson roses, spires of purple lupine, and clusters of white daisies. The air hummed, not with silence, but with life. Dozens of butterflies—painted ladies with orange-and-black wings, delicate cabbage whites, a magnificent peacock eye—danced from blossom to blossom in a silent, swirling ballet. It was a world of fragile, breathing beauty, a stark contrast to the sterile grandeur of her prison.
Her breath caught. Drawn forward, she moved to a bed of pure white lilies, their petals flawless and open to the sun. They were her favorite. Her mother had cultivated them. With a tenderness she had shown nothing else in this kingdom, she reached out and let her fingertips brush a cool, satin petal. A true smile, weak but real, touched her lips.
Just then, a gentle wind swept through the sanctuary. It carried the scent of lilies and damp earth, and it caught the skirts of her heavy gown, making the silk ripple and flow around her legs like waves on a shore. For one crystalline moment, she felt unbound. She felt free.
"Your Majesty."
The voice, soft and melodious, shattered the moment. Gisela turned, her heart leaping to her throat.
A young woman stood a few paces away, clad in the simple, grey wool of a servant. Yet, the dress could not disguise her. She was in her early twenties, with a beauty that was both gentle and arresting. Her skin was the warm hue of honey, her eyes a deep, liquid brown, and her brown hair was braided in a thick, neat crown around her head. Her features were finely made, her posture naturally graceful. She was, Gisela thought with a strange pang, startlingly lovely.
The woman dipped into a curtsy so profound and held so long it seemed less an act of respect and more a performance of deep, almost painful, submission. Gisela wondered, distantly, if her back ached from the effort.
"Rise," Gisela said, her own voice scratchy from disuse and unshed tears. She gestured vaguely to the blooming world around them, an attempt to reclaim the peace that had been broken. "The garden is for all."