Hannah stares at her sword—at the bronze blood coating its edge—with an expression of shocked disbelief. “I… I actually…”
“You drew the Guardian’s blood.” I let my voice carry across the arena, loud enough for every spectator to hear. “The trial is ended. The terms are satisfied.”
Relief floods her face—pure, desperate, overwhelming relief. Her shoulders sag. Her blade dips toward the floor. She thinks she’s won. Thinks her village is free, thinks she can walk away, thinks the sacrifice she made is over.
She has no idea what comes next.
“Per the ancient law of Stone Court,” I continue, watching her expression shift as she registers the formal tone, “any challenger who draws the Guardian’s blood in honorable combat assumes the blood debt. They become the Guardian’s responsibility. His claim.”
The color drains from her face. “What?”
“Hisproperty.” The word lands like a blade between her ribs. “Congratulations, Hannah Mitchell. You’ve won your village’s freedom. But you’ve lost your own.”
“No.” She backs away, the bloody sword trembling in her grip. “I knew about the blood debt. The old woman told me. First blood makes me yours—Iknewthat when I walked in here.”
Interesting. So she did understand the stakes. That makes this even better.
“Then you knew you were sacrificing yourself,” I say, moving toward her with slow, deliberate steps. “How noble. Howpredictable.”
“What do you mean, predictable?”
“I mean I’ve been watching you for months, Hannah.” I let the words fall like stones into still water, watching the ripples spread across her face. “Scrying crystals. Informants. Careful observation of every moment of your life since my scouts first reported a human woman who actually fought back against chaos-beasts instead of running.”
She goes still. Completely, utterly still, the way prey goes still when it realizes the predator has been closer than it knew.
“I know your fighting style,” I continue. “I know your habits, your weaknesses, your bone-deep exhaustion. I know you’re the one who always steps forward when your village needs protecting. I know you’d sacrifice yourself a hundred times over rather than watch someone else pay the price.”
“You—” Her voice cracks. “Youwatchedme?”
“I studied you. Catalogued you. Learned everything about the woman I was going to claim.” I stop in front of her, close enough to see the tears forming in her gray eyes. “The tribute demands—the impossible ore quotas, the request for three girls—I designed them specifically. To leave you no choice. To force you into exactly this confrontation.”
“No.” The word comes out broken. “No, Ichosethis. I decided—”
“You decided exactly what I wanted you to decide. Every step of the path that led you here, I laid out for you.” I cup her face in my massive hand, tilting her chin up so she has to meet my eyes. “You thought you were making an informed sacrifice. You thought you understood the trap you were walking into. But you didn’t understand any of it, little warrior. You were mine from the moment I first saw you through the scrying crystal. Everything since then has just been… formality.”
The tears spill over, tracking down her cheeks. I feel them hot against my palm.
“And the fight,” she whispers. “The wound. You let me—”
“I let you.” I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, catching a tear. “Seven hundred years undefeated, and you think a self-taught human woman could actually land a blow on me? Igaveyou that wound, Hannah. Opened my guard and let your blade through. Because the blood debt requires first blood, and first blood requires you to actually cut me.”
“I’ll kill myself.” Her voice shakes with rage and despair. “I’ll die before I become your—yourproperty.”
“No, you won’t.” I keep my voice gentle, almost tender, even as I close the final door on her freedom. “Because your village’s safety is conditional on your survival. If you die—by your own hand or anyone else’s—the blood debt transfers to Ironhold itself. Three girls, just like the original tribute demanded. Plus interest.”
The fight goes out of her like water from a broken vessel.
I watch it happen—watch her shoulders slump, watch her warrior’s pride crumble, watch her understand exactly how thoroughly I’ve trapped her. She came here thinking she was making a sacrifice. Thinking she had agency, choice, some measure of control over her own fate.
Now she knows the truth. She never had any of those things.
She was always going to end up exactly here, in exactly this moment, belonging to me.
“I hate you.” The words come out flat, empty, stripped of everything except exhaustion.
“I know.” I release her face and step back, gesturing to the guards who’ve approached at my signal. “That will change.”
“It won’t.”
