The Duke In His Castle by Vera Nazarian

warm glow, beginning to smoke slightly when a tiny flying insect enters the top of its neck, flitters, and eventually capsizes in hot lipid death.
    “Will you please leave now?” he says softly, turning away from her, from everything. “Now that you have what you came for. I’ve told you the truth. I’ve sworn to it, haven’t I? Despite the fact that I won the imbecile round of an imbecile game of ours, and you lost, I’ve told you. Because—for a few moments, I must admit—you’ve given me a reason to breathe, and entertained me with a children’s game. I’ve never really— played with anyone in such a way. Thank you.”
    And then he lets himself sink, submerging into a kind of separate private consciousness, locking the world away, not caring for anything, unaware of his own body, except for the dark waves of depression; it is entering him at each psychic opening, coming up from the nether places in the earth that run deep beneath the castle. . . .
    Except that when next he becomes aware of the surroundings, coming to himself who knows how long afterwards, she is still there, standing small and grotesque a few feet away.
    The candlelight seeps in an even glow from behind her silhouette, a halo of a saint who’s stepped out from one of the tapestries—except the bright corona encompasses all of her.
    And in that glow, she approaches.
    She draws near; is leaning to watch him, serious and different (something new is indeed there; he has never yet seen this beatific aspect of her), and her eyes are liquid with compassion.
    And in that, she is terrifying.
    “Rossian . . .” she whispers.
    “What? Still here?” he says harshly, straightening in his chair. “My Lady Izelle, has anyone taught you common courtesy, ever? I told you, I told you the truth! Now, begone, little demon! I’ve even thanked you—hah!—thanked you for sickening and annoying me in a novel way, unlike those other Ducal dullards, to the extent of actually bringing me enjoyment, an odd moment or two—”
    “Coming from you, it is complimentary, I suppose.” She speaks matter-of-factly, still leaning over him, her unearthly gaze never leaving his face. And then she says something else, a thing so deep and serious that breath catches in his throat.
    “What would you say to me if I showed you a way of escaping your ageless prison?”
    “You what ?” he whispers. He is completely stricken, and rendered inarticulate.
    “You don’t believe me, do you? That it can be done? That a Ducal Heir can simply get up, completely resolved to accomplish it, and walk out of his or her castle? Well, Sir, it has been done, already. A certain Duchess of White decided she’s had enough, plainly disgusted with her lot. And so she just walked through the gates, and out of her land.
    “That Duchess is I, my Lord, as you might’ve already guessed in a moment of clarity. I am Janerizel of White. And I’ve come here to help you.”
    He stares at her coldly, unblinking, and then mutters. “I knew there was something fishy about you, something not quite right, that stank of deception and tomfoolery. Why didn’t you simply tell me all of this in the first place, why all the lies? What am I supposed to believe?”
    Her rosebud mouth curves into a little sad smile. “Ah, my Lord, a Duchess alone has to be careful. But then so are you—careful and alone. Indeed, it’s always this way, isn’t it? Never trust a soul. This way, even now, you’ll not be a bit surprised.”
    “Of course not,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised until I believed you. And how can I? You claim impossible nonsense.”
    “It is not nonsense! I am the Duchess of White, you fool, idiot and imbecile! Mistrusting, dry-souled wretch! A frog in your own swampy filth is what you are, decaying and rotting in this blue blood hole! I am here , in your castle, and how do you think I got here?”
    The saint has gone and in her place is a harridan who is screaming in his face, bits of