Chapter 4 Corrina
CORRINA
Ipace my chambers like a caged leopard, silk slippers silent against marble floors. The afternoon sun streams through stained glass windows, casting rainbow patterns across Persian rugs that cost more than most people earn in a lifetime. It should be beautiful. It should be enough. It's not.
"Mistress?" Lysa appears in the doorway, concern creasing her brow. "You've been pacing for an hour. The other girls are worried."
"Are they?" I don't stop moving, my feet tracing the same path over and over. "How thoughtful."
"The manticore's fight is today."
I freeze mid-step. "I'm aware."
"Against the minotaurs."
"Yes."
"Three of them."
"So I've heard." I resume pacing, but the rhythm is broken now, jagged with an emotion I refuse to name.
"No one survives three minotaurs, Corrina."
The words wound like physical blows, but I keep my voice steady. "Then it will be a short entertainment."
"You don't sound convinced."
I whirl to face her, letting a fraction of my real feelings show. "What would you have me do, Lysa? Storm the arena? Demand Valdris spare his precious investment?"
She steps back, startled by my vehemence. "I just thought... you seemed interested in him."
"Interested?" I laugh, the sound brittle as broken glass. "He's a curiosity. Nothing more."
"Of course." But her eyes are knowing. "Still, it seems wasteful. All that strength and fire, snuffed out for the crowd's amusement."
"Such is the way of things here." I turn back to the window, watching servants scurry across the courtyard below. "We all serve our purpose."
"And what's yours, Corrina?"
The question hangs in the perfumed air between us. I've asked myself the same thing countless times, usually in the dark hours before dawn when sleep eludes me and the silk sheets feel like burial shrouds.
"To survive," I answer finally. "Nothing more, nothing less."
"There has to be more than survival."
"Does there?" I press my palm against the cool glass, remembering steel-blue eyes that burned with uncompromising defiance. "Sometimes I think survival is the cruelest joke of all."
A horn sounds in the distance—the call to the arena. My heart lurches against my ribs like a bird desperate to escape its cage.
"Come," I tell Lysa, forcing steel into my voice. "Valdris expects us in the viewing box."
But as we leave my chambers, I catch my reflection in a polished mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back. Her eyes are too bright, her smile too sharp. She looks desperate.
The viewing box buzzes with excited chatter as spectators settle into their cushioned seats. Valdris holds court from his ornate throne, regaling nearby nobles with tales of his latest acquisition's prowess.
"Three shadowcats in two days," he boasts. "And barely a scratch on him."
"Minotaurs are different beasts entirely," Lord Caelum observes, his scarred face skeptical. "Bigger. Stronger. Harder to kill."
"Which is precisely why I'm testing him." Valdris's pale eyes gleam with anticipation. "If he survives, his value increases tenfold. If not..." He shrugs elegantly. "I'll find another toy."
The casual dismissal of a life—even a gladiator's life—sends cold fury through my veins. I arrange my features into polite interest and take my place among the other harem women.
"You look pale," Zara whispers, settling beside me. "Are you feeling well?"
"The heat," I murmur, fanning myself with painted silk. "It's stifling today."
My hands tremble not from heat, but from the impending, impossible odds Ronan faces. The arena gates open, revealing Ronan, shackled but graceful, his bruised body testament to Valdris's constant tests.
"Magnificent specimen," Lord Caelum admits grudgingly. "Look at those shoulders."
"And those scars," Lady Miriel adds with breathless appreciation. "Each one tells a story of violence."
I dig my nails into my palms, wanting to scream as three massive, ten-foot-tall minotaurs with crude clubs and hungry yellow eyes lumber into the arena, fixing their gaze on Ronan. He doesn't flinch.
"Kill!" Valdris shouts, his voice magically amplified across the arena. "Let the games begin!"
The minotaurs charge with surprising speed for creatures so large. Ronan dives aside, using his chains to whip across the lead troll's eyes. The beast roars in pain and fury, swiping blindly with massive claws.
"Clever," Valdris purrs. "But cleverness only delays the inevitable."
The second troll's club crashes into the sand where Ronan stood a heartbeat before. He rolls between its legs, somehow managing to wrap his chains around its ankle. When it tries to step forward, it crashes face-first into the arena wall.
The crowd erupts in appreciative roars, but I barely hear them. My entire focus is on the warrior below, watching him turn his bonds into weapons, his desperation into strength.
"He might actually survive this," Zara breathes.
"Don't be ridiculous," Valdris snaps, though his knuckles are white where they grip his throne's armrests. "Three minotaurs have never been defeated by one man."
Watching Ronan dominate the fight, a forbidden hope awakens in me. For nearly an hour, he single-handedly defeats the minotaurs, leaving the crowd in a frenzy. He stands unbroken amidst the carnage, his steel-blue eyes still defiant as he looks at our box.
"Impossible," Lord Caelum whispers.
"Unprecedented," Lady Miriel agrees.
"Profitable," Valdris corrects, though his voice carries a note of unease. "Very, very profitable."
As guards move to collect the victor, I find myself studying the faces around me.
Excitement, yes, but also something else.
A hunger that has little to do with entertainment yet everything to do with witnessing something they'll never possess themselves.
True strength. Real defiance. The kind of courage that doesn't bend or break or compromise.
It is the kind of courage I lack, having traded it away years ago for silk sheets and golden chains.
"You're crying," Zara observes quietly.
I touch my cheek, surprised to find it damp. "The sun," I lie. "It's making my eyes water."
"That's not true. As the crowd leaves, excited, I stay, watching healers tend to Ronan. He defeated three minotaurs with skill and will. When did I last fight for something important? I can't recall."
"Magnificent, wasn't he?" Valdris appears beside my chair, his pale hand settling possessively on my shoulder. "My investment has already doubled."
"Yes," I agree, not trusting my voice to remain steady. "Magnificent."
"I think I'll give him a few days to recover. Let anticipation build for his next match." His fingers tighten slightly. "Perhaps you'd like to visit him? Offer congratulations on my behalf?"
The suggestion sounds casual, but I know Valdris too well to believe that. He wants something—information, perhaps, or simply the amusement of watching his pet interact with his prize fighter.
"If you wish," I say carefully.
"I do." His smile is cold as winter. "See what makes him tick, my dear. I find that understanding one's investments leads to better... utilization."
Ronan accepts praise as I realize Valdris views us all as tools. Some refuse to break, a refusal I envy from my gilded cage. I navigate the arena's bloody dungeons, a favored but shackled figure. I find Ronan in the preparation chambers, his scarred body tended by a healer.
"That was quite a show," I say, settling onto a wooden stool across from him.
He doesn't look up from the healer's work. "Glad you were entertained."
"Three minotaurs. I didn't think it was possible."
"Neither did they." His voice is rough with exhaustion, but that core of steel remains unbroken. "Hence their current state."
The healer—a nervous young man named Willem—finishes his stitching and hurries away, clearly uncomfortable in my presence. We're alone now, the silence heavy with unspoken truths.
"You're going to get yourself killed," I say finally.
"Eventually." He meets my eyes, and I see no fear there, only grim acceptance. "Everything dies."
"But you don't have to die here. Like this."
"Like what? Fighting?"
"Like a beast for their amusement." The words come out sharper than intended, edged with frustration I can't quite hide. "You could submit. Play the game. Survive."
He laughs, the sound bitter as ashes. "Survive as what? A performing dog? A broken thing that jumps when its master snaps?"
"You'd be alive."
"Would I?" He leans forward, those steel-blue eyes boring into mine. "Tell me, Corrina, when did you last remember feeling truly alive?"
His question stuns me. I try to lie, to lash out and regain distance, but I can't. He's right. I haven't felt anything real—joy, sorrow, passion, or pain—in so long. Everything is muted, filtered by suffocating control.
"That's what I thought," he says softly.
"It's not the same thing," I protest. "I'm not—"
"Chained? Caged? Owned?" His smile is sharp as broken glass. "Aren't you?"
"I have choices."
"Do you? When did you last choose something that wasn't dictated by your master's whims?"
The same question Lysa asked, but from his lips it cuts deeper. Because he sees through my defenses like they're made of glass.
"You don't understand," I whisper.
"Don't I?" He rises despite his wounds, moving to the small barred window that offers a view of the courtyard. "I understand perfectly. The difference between us is that you've accepted your cage."
"And you haven't?"
"Never." The word carries absolute conviction. "I'd rather die fighting than live kneeling."
"That's easy to say when death is abstract."
"Is it?" He turns back to me, and there's something devastating in his expression. "I've been dead since the night I lost my brothers. Everything since then has been borrowed time."
The raw honesty in his voice steals my breath. I see him clearly for the first time—not the defiant gladiator or the dangerous manticore, but a man carrying wounds that go deeper than any blade could reach.
"I'm sorry," I say, and mean it.
"Don't be. Pity is just another chain."
"Then what is it you want from me?"
He studies my face dark intensity. "Nothing you're willing to give."
"Try me."
"Truth."
The word hangs between us like a challenge. I could lie, deflect, retreat behind my usual masks. But something in his eyes—a desperate kind of hope—stops me.
"I envy you," I admit in a whisper.
"Envy me?" He sounds genuinely surprised. "I'm a slave."
"You're free." The words taste like tears. "Chained, beaten, forced to fight for sport, but still free. In here." I touch my chest over my heart. "Where it matters."
"And you're not."
"No." The admission feels like bleeding out. "I haven't been for a very long time."
We look at each other across the small chamber, and I see recognition in his eyes. He understands now—understands that there are worse things than death, worse things than chains.
"Better to die a man than live a pet," he says quietly.
The words hit like hammer blows, shattering something inside me that I thought was already broken beyond repair. Because he's right. And I hate him for it.