A Flower Cannot Love the Hand
ShortStory 2,685 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"The first thing I asked, when the mage-king gave me a mouth, was whether he had given me a soul. His people’s beloved king, who held back the lords of the undead when they came roving; by whose conquering hand the strongholds were fed in the long fallow winter. ... It was not of stone or fine thread that he made me, in his turn, but of flowers."
Content warnings 3
abusedeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
Quasar links out; the story lives on BCS, where the author gets the click.