The Prize

They throw me at his feet like meat.

My knees hit stone. My palms scrape. The chains around my wrists drag against the ground, leaving rust-colored marks.

Around me, his warriors laugh.

I don't look up. Not yet. First I assess. The sounds tell me we're in a command tent, fabric walls, muffled voices beyond, the creak of leather and metal. The smell is smoke and horse and blood. Fresh blood.

My people's blood.

"The princess of Valdoria." A voice above me. Deep. Unhurried. "Brought low at last."

His boots enter my vision. Good leather. Well-made. The boots of a man who can afford the best because he takes it.

Warlord Varek of the Iron Horde.

The man who burned my kingdom to ash.

"Look at me."

I don't.

A hand grips my chin. Forces my face up.

He's not what I expected. Younger than I imagined, early thirties, maybe. Dark hair cropped short. Gray eyes, the color of unpolished iron, cataloguing me like territory to be claimed. A scar bisects his left eyebrow. He's built like a siege weapon: broad, scarred, powerful.

"There she is." His thumb traces my jaw. "King Aldric's third daughter. The one who fights like a man."

I spit in his face.

The tent goes silent.

His warriors tense. Hands move to swords. Someone sucks in a breath, waiting for my execution.

Varek doesn't flinch.

He wipes the spit from his cheek with the back of his hand. Studies it like I've given him something interesting instead of an insult.

Then he smiles.

"I was told you had spirit." He releases my chin. Stands. "I was told you killed three of my men before they took you down."

"Four." My voice comes out raw. Smoke-damaged. "The fourth just hadn't died yet."

"Four, then." He circles me. Measuring me the way a general measures a fortification. "Do you know what happens to prizes who attack their captors?"

"I imagine you'll show me."

"Usually, yes." He stops behind me. His shadow falls across my back. The weight of him, even without contact, presses against my spine. "But you're not usual, are you? The princess who picked up a sword when her sisters hid. The princess who was trying to fight her way to her father's body when my men found her."

My tongue goes thick. Father.

I watched him die. Watched him refuse to flee, even as the flames climbed higher. Watched him sit on his throne and wait for the end because a king doesn't run.

The gates were already open when the fire started. Someone had betrayed us.

"I have a proposition for you, princess."

His hand settles on my shoulder. I lock every muscle still.

"You're valuable alive. A symbol. The last of the Valdorian royal line. I could use you to ensure your people's cooperation." His grip tightens. "Or I could give you to my men. Let them teach you what it means to be a prize."

My hands curl into fists beneath the chains.

"But I'm curious." He comes around to face me again. Crouches so we're eye to eye. "I've conquered seventeen kingdoms. I've taken hundreds of prizes. None of them have ever spit in my face."

"Perhaps none of them had cause."

"Perhaps." Those iron-colored eyes cut through me. "You hate me."

"I will hate you until I die."

"That's honest." He stands. "I like honest. It's rare in my position."

He turns to his men. "Unchain her. Give her quarters, the ones next to mine. Good food, clean water, her own guards."

Murmuring. Confusion.

One of his commanders steps forward. Massive, silent, covered in scars. "My lord..."

"She's not a common prize, Iron. She's a princess. We'll treat her like one." Varek looks back at me. "Until she gives me reason not to."

The chains come off. My wrists ache.

"I need nothing from you." I rub the raw skin. "No quarters. No food. No mercy."

"I'm not offering mercy." He moves toward the tent's entrance. "I'm offering you a chance. Three months. If you still hate me at the end, if you've given me no reason to keep you, I'll let you go."

I stare at him. "You're lying."

"I'm a warlord, princess. I take what I want. I've never lied about what I am." He pauses. "Three months. That's the bargain. Your hatred for your freedom."

"And if I try to kill you in those three months?"

That smile again. Cold and sharp.

"I'd like to see you try."

He's gone before I can respond.

The warriors watch me. Wait.

I straighten. Lift my chin. I am still Princess Octavia of Valdoria. I may be chains and blood and ash, but I am not broken.

Not yet.

One of his men, younger, nervous, gestures toward the tent flap. "This way, princess."

I follow.

But as I walk, my hand slides into the fold of my dress. Touches the blade I've kept hidden since the siege.

They searched me. They found two knives.

They didn't find the third.

Three months.

He'll be dead before morning.