Isabella Hawthorne
The scratchy pen felt cold against my skin as I signed the dotted line, finalizing the "gentleman's agreement" Caldwell had so gleefully orchestrated. Despite the fancy wording, I knew it was anything but gentlemanly. This document merely caged the three kings - and me - in a different kind of gilded cage, one built on forced acceptance and unspoken threats.
Time itself seemed to slow down after that. Each tick of the wall clock echoed like a hammer blow in the oppressive silence. Ten minutes, Caldwell had said. Ten excruciating minutes before the Capitol Medical Unit would arrive, their needles and sterile uniforms heralding the inevitable truth lurking within my blood.
The kings, those paragons of power now reduced to brooding statues, sat stiffly in their plush cha
