“I am no one’s property.” I force the words past clenched teeth.
The old woman pauses. Her blind eyes seem to focus on me for a heartbeat, actually seeing me despite the milky cataracts.
Then she pulls her hand away and steps back without a word.
The cold sensation starts to fade immediately, but I still sense the rune. A weight on my forehead. Something foreign pressed into my skin.
“Get her inside,” Hadrun says, releasing my neck.
They haul me to my feet, and I sag forward for a moment before locking my knees. I won’t let them carry me. Won’t give them that either.
Two soldiers grab my arms and shove me toward the gate.
TWO
VLORN
The Wolf Throne Hall swallows sound.
I built it that way deliberately—high vaulted ceilings that catch voices and scatter them, stone walls thick enough to muffle screams. The braziers mounted along the columns burn hot enough to cast the space in shades of amber and blood, wolf heads carved into the iron snarling at anyone who enters.
It’s meant to intimidate.
It works.
I stand before my throne—black iron fused with the bones of the first wolves my bloodline ever hunted—and wait. My warriors line the walls three deep, silent as the grave. They know better than to speak before I do. Know better than to move.
The outer doors grind open with a sound of breaking teeth.
Hadrun enters first, scanning the hall with a soldier’s caution before stepping aside. Then the escort shoves her through.
The human girl.
Zoraya.
Her chains scrape across the stone floor, the sound echoing up into the rafters. She stumbles on the threshold—the step upcatches her off guard—but she catches herself before she falls. Doesn’t go down to her knees.
Interesting.
She straightens, and even from across the hall, I see her jaw set. The way she lifts her chin despite everything.
Most humans come through those doors weeping. Begging. Broken already by the journey and the reality of what they face.
This one glares.
The escort pushes her forward, and she walks. One foot in front of the other, steady despite the chains. Despite the ash mark on her forehead proclaiming her mine before I’ve even spoken. Despite the hundred armed orcs watching her.
She walks the length of the hall, and I study her with a warrior’s eye.
Small. Painfully small by orc standards—barely reaches my chest, probably. Curves hidden under a dirt-stained dress that’s seen better days. Honey-blonde hair tangled and wild, falling past her shoulders. But it’s her hands I notice first.
Calloused. Scarred by a hundred tiny cuts. The fingers of someone who works, who creates. Not soft, noble hands that have never seen labor.
Working hands.
Seamstress, Hadrun said. The village seamstress with a mouth that nearly got her killed on the road.
She stops ten feet from the throne because the escort stops her. The chains rattle as she shifts her weight, testing the runechains’ give.
