Chapter four
The swaying of the cart rumbling over stones and dirt woke me.
My eyes squinted against the bright new light as they tried to open.
I struggled to swallow, but my mouth felt as if twenty cotton balls had been stuffed down my throat.
I coughed up a cloud of dust. I wondered how long I had been out for.
Sitting up, I found I was surrounded by several women and children, somehow all packed into this tiny cart.
The same woman who called me a witch the day before was now huddled in the corner of our makeshift cage, her arms surrounding her terrified child.
With every bump and jolt of the cart, our dirty, bloodied bodies swayed and knocked against each other, sending fresh pain exploding through my skull.
I reached up to find blood leaking down my face and soaking my hair.
Instinctively, I searched for the knife, my last futile hope, only to find it gone.
Of course, they took it from me, I thought grimly.
Dust circled the cart as the women and children searched…searching for something I knew was not going to come.
We were captives, prisoners of war—I was sure of it.
Destined to be sold off in some foreign land like cattle.
Mindlessly, I twisted my hands against each other. I felt like my ribs were too close together. I couldn’t expand them right—I couldn’t breathe right.
A group of mounted soldiers guarded us on either side.
Growing up, we were educated on our enemies in Wendlen—the same ones who killed my brother in battle.
These men did not resemble our enemies.
Rather, they had dark, tan skin and were far stronger than any I’d seen before.
My pulse raced, and my stomach twisted in a sickening way as I remembered the stories told to us as children. Stories of vicious warriors across the Eastern Sea.
My eyes caught a symbol on one of their massive swords, a red snake wrapped around its grip.
The warriors we were told about slaughtered, pillaged, and conquered countless towns and territories, but they never once ventured across the sea.
Even so, their strength was renowned—and feared.
The prisoners of war would die in brutal living conditions, in cages, or they would die from extensive, long hours of labor. The symbol on their swords shook me far more than the unsteady cart could. If these truly were Strokan warriors, then that would mean they would have had to rampage and defeat countless lands to get to the Western Sea—to Prustan.
It couldn’t be.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
At least I wasn’t shackled.
The cart swayed and jolted aggressively for what seemed like hours.
I dared a glance at the warrior riding next to my corner of the cart.
It was the man who attacked me.
He wore light armor, revealing his massive muscular arms and chest.
Swirling tattoos ran from his fingers to his wrists, to his shoulders, chest—and perhaps elsewhere.
Scars of various sizes and severity covered his body and face.
Dark, unwashed hair stopped above his shoulders. I’d never seen a warrior so beastly.
The soldiers from our lands were much paler from being close to the mountains.
Their builds were also slenderer; no doubt their training was much less rigorous than the Strokans’.
Maybe that was why we were defeated—obliterated was more like it.
We had weak men. I was weak too. Pathetic.
Except for my brother.
He was the best soldier and quickly went up in rank.
And I wasn’t saying that because he died.
He truly was. Maybe that was why we lost to these savages, because my brother wasn’t here.
The man must have felt eyes on him because he glanced over, and we locked eyes for a moment.
He was beautiful and massive…and terrifying.
I looked away and scolded myself for being so curious.
It could cost me my life, whatever was left of it anyway.
Despite my better judgment, I discreetly observed the other warriors.
They all seemed to look the same—scary, mysterious, and beastly.
Their vicious grunts gave way to their savagery, and their angular, sharp features hid any gentle bone they might have.
Hours went by hearing only the rumbling wheels on dirt and stone, and the sun started setting.
I wondered how long we had been in this cage when the steel cart finally slowed to a stop.
Straightening my spine, I glanced around the new landscape.
There were war tents—hundreds of war tents…and hundreds of warriors.
Holy shit.
They were invading our lands.
Home, despite what I thought of it in the recent few years, wouldn’t be home anymore.
It would all be part of the Strokan Empire.
A place of death and darkness. Evil and immoral. From the looks of it, the stories we were told as children held true.
For a moment, I was glad my family wasn’t here to experience this atrocity.
I was glad it was me experiencing the end of our home and not them.
That same sickening deep-rooted feeling rose again in my chest—the feeling that I was cursed.
The steel door to the cart creaked open.
Without warning, I was yanked out as my captor grabbed my arm.
I stumbled to the ground, my hands plunging into the mud.
The rest of the women and children followed, being pulled onto the cold, wet ground as we huddled together for security. The smoke in the air caught in my throat, and I coughed violently.
It smelled like death.
I knew the acrid scent well.
The twisted symphony of rot, embers, and blood was the song of death.
The other women and children were herded into a group, but a shout pulled our attention as a man on a white horse barked orders nearby.
It was the same man I saw outside Fenrah’s apothecary window.
A shiver ran down my spine, remembering his ruthlessness.
He wore the same light armor as the rest of the warriors, but slightly different, more subtle.
He reeked of beauty and power.
Even though I was a distance away with the rest of the women and children, I could see—I could feel the rage in his wild and dark eyes.
The veins of his neck bulged as he commanded the warriors.
“Where is he?”
he roared.
One of the warriors nearby grabbed onto his white horse’s reins as another shouted.
“Over there, Emperor Aris!”
My heart stopped.
He was an emperor.
But I didn’t recognize his name.
I clawed the inside of my mind for a memory, but nothing came.
The emperor flung himself from his white horse and charged off.
I felt the attention from the women around me turn towards this man who disappeared into one of the tents bordering us.
Not a minute later, the emperor dragged a warrior by the nape of his neck.
“My Lord—please, please!”
the warrior screamed, and his hands grappled, clawing onto the emperor’s arm for release.
The emperor walked to the clearing, dragging the warrior away from the tent.
I could see the panic in the warrior’s eyes, and he looked for ways to get out of this.
He seemed to be one of them—not a prisoner.
“I beg of you—don’t do this, My Lord!”
the warrior pleaded.
“I didn’t ask you to speak, traitor,”
the emperor spat and twisted the warrior onto the ground in front of him, releasing his hold on his neck.
The man tumbled onto his knees, tears slipping past his dirt-filled cheeks as he stayed put.
“You’ve already spoken your last words to the man you murdered in his sleep.
You’re a coward.
You’re nothing.
Your words have gone to waste.”
The man shook his head, sobbing into his hands.
He looked up with glistening eyes, eyes that begged for another chance.
Emperor Aris’ rage rippled amongst us.
“You die a dishonorable death.”
A warrior near us whistled low.
Two women behind me discussed the events taking place.
“I heard a dishonorable death is when they rip their hearts out of their chests, so their souls no longer travel to the next life.”
The younger woman whispered.
“But that’s cruel. How—”
“It’s for the worst of sins.
It’s not a death taken lightly in the East,”
the older woman warned.
The man gripped the dirt that turned into paste with his tears.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood.
“I wonder what happened,”
another whispered behind me.
The emperor’s voice was cold and merciless.
“You thought you were the law itself.
You killed your own kin.
You’re a traitor to your family, to your brothers, to your country and to me.”
The man sobbed, sniveled in the dirt, and begged for his life.
The emperor unsheathed the sword attached to his hip and took a deep, controlled breath.
“No man is law itself except for me and my sword.
This brings me no pleasure.
You die knowing the choices you made brought you here.”
The world seemed to stand still for a moment.
He was going to die in front of us.
I wanted to grab the children near me and show them a way out, but there wasn’t one.
We were all forced to stare while we held our breaths, fearful of what was to come.
My eyes were glued to this pleading man who had now soiled his trousers.
Without a moment of hesitation, the emperor lifted his sword with pure, lethal rage and slashed the man’s neck without completely decapitating him.
I flinched as I saw the accused murderer’s eyes grow wider and wider.
The blood from his neck spilled like water, and the emperor was at his side, kicking him to the ground.
The emperor grabbed the man’s jaw and kept it above ground, so the man’s gurgling noises echoed as he choked on his own blood.
The man’s eyes never left the emperor’s as he sputtered the blood out of his mouth and choked to his last dying breath.
My mouth grew warm with bile pressing to be released.
I pressed my trembling hand over my mouth.
I could smell vomit from some of the women who had already freed the entirety of their stomach contents.
The emperor rose from the ground, his upper lip raised.
One moment he kept his eyes on the dead man’s and the next he dropped his sword and grabbed a knife from the leather strapped around his chest.
He raised the knife, glittering in the afternoon light, and penetrated the man’s chest.
With almost no effort, he dragged the knife down, ripping the man’s chest wide open.
The bones in my body rattled.
My eyes—they wouldn’t look away.
My heart was going to burst with the way it was pounding against my ribs.
The emperor shoved his hand into the man’s chest and wrenched something—
His heart.
The emperor held the man’s heart, blood spilling all over his hand.
He raised the heart, tilted his head back towards the sky—towards the dead man’s heart—and squeezed it until blood poured onto his face, down his neck, and onto his body.
Without another moment to spare, the emperor hurled the dead man’s beating heart into the woods, far, far away from his body.
A dishonorable death for a murderer, a traitor.
I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like sandpaper, and my knees locked.
I hadn’t realized how tense my body felt until now.
The emperor looked at the surrounding warriors near him, breathing heavily.
“I have zero tolerance for murderers,”
he rasped and spat on the warrior’s empty chest.
He snapped at some nearby warriors.
“Take it somewhere the animals will feed off it.”
It.
My heart pounded as he barked orders to the others.
His eyes darted around, and I watched as a sea of heads bowed in submission, perhaps afraid he’d lunge with lethal rage and kill us too.
I could sense the warriors near me stiffen.
They were all on edge after this.
The emperor swung himself onto his white horse and galloped back towards what I imagined was the front of this camp.
Even though I had been brought to the most lethal camp, I couldn’t seem to draw my mind away from the thought of that man’s beating heart in the emperor’s cold, unforgiving hands.
Savages.
That was what the Eastern warriors were.
Brutal, ruthless, merciless savages.
Tilting my head, I noticed for a moment the warriors who were once surrounding the emperor wore small yellow sashes around their waists that ran along the leather armor, their demeanor slightly more sophisticated.
The warriors guarding us wore crimson sashes.
Death seemed more real than before.
It seemed closer.
Like any moment, a beast-like warrior could snap on me and rip my heart out too.
My captor and the other warriors glanced around at all the women shifting nervously.
It seemed as if they were looking for something…or someone.
They paced aggressively back and forth around us.
I observed the other women and children, their eyes wide and faces pale, unsure of what lay ahead.
A shriek split the air as one of the young women was pulled out into the open.
I inhaled sharply.
I knew her. Klawdia.
She was one of the prettier maidens in our village besides my sister.
Klawdia had full red lips, luscious black locks, and eyes that sparkled wildly.
When we were younger, she occasionally bullied me, tugged on my red hair, spat in my face, and told me how disgusting I was.
Nour would often follow close behind me, full of rage. They’d fight and claw at each other’s throats like wild cats. But there was always something about Klawdia that made my bones creak.
Nour never had a problem with getting in people’s faces and showing her true wild colors.
It always took me by surprise, but I admired it.
She had the most ridiculous amount of confidence and didn’t care what people thought or said about her.
She was one of the happiest, most free-spirited people I had ever known. While she looked everyone straight in the eye, I kept my eyes glued to the floor. I hated the attention. I was afraid of it. Even more now after what happened to Nour and Mother.
Now, these women were dragged through this gods-awful, reeking mud.
They heaved another woman out.
She was also young and beautiful, though smaller than Klawdia.
Another woman, Maeri, was pushed next to the other two, knees deep in the muck, tears rolling down her sweet face. She knew my family as well. She begged the warriors to let her go, but they slapped her into submission on the wet ground.
Why were they singled out? Then I realized that all of these women had something in common.
I lowered my head behind the others.
These men preyed upon women who looked young and healthy, with full curves and strong bones.
In fact, I’d never heard of a place where pretty girls weren’t targeted.
It was dangerous for women to be attractive, and that was why I had always done what I had to do to avoid attention.
I tightly wrapped a ripped-up cloth from my dress around my hair, hiding my face behind shadows.
I heard the women nearest to me wailing and pleading for the warriors to bring back their women, when suddenly my body was aggressively hauled out in front of everyone.
My captor’s hand tightened on my arm to the point of pain as he jerked me close to him.
Stupid piece of cloth.
It did nothing to hide my hair or my face.
Before releasing me beside Klawdia and the other girls, my captor ripped the cloth from my head, leaving my bright red curls exposed.
He cursed and gave me a smirk that made my body rigid.
“I won’t ask you again,”
he hissed.
“How old are you?”
I didn’t hear him the first time amidst the commotion.
I desperately wanted my lips to let the words out that I was twenty-three to save myself further pain.
They remained glued together.
He shook me violently, and all it did was further push those words back down my throat.
“What, are you mute?”
he demanded.
The sheer confusion and haze over my eyes answered for me.
“Fuck’s sake.”
He shoved me toward Klawdia and the rest of the young women.
I kept my head low and stood with the others.
There were several of us.
Maybe seven or eight, but I refused to look too much with my wandering eyes.
My eyes were too green for a place like this.
A place that was colorless. Only darkness and smoke lingered here.
I didn’t see what happened to the rest of the women and children from the village.
As I walked with the small group of women, including Klawdia and Maeri, the warriors would push us back in line when we lingered too far behind.
Even in the darkest hour, women distanced themselves from me, which was nothing new.
I wrapped my arms around myself from the cold.
It had been this way too long to get emotional about it anymore.
I had to find a way out of this shithole or else I would die in more ways than I could count.
My taunting thoughts were cut short when we came to a stop in front of the largest war tent we’d yet passed.
My captor left our group and entered through the thin flaps.
I saw red and yellow banners with a curling snake flying above the tent.
Before I had time to figure out what was happening, my captor motioned the warriors to bring forward the women.
“Are you sure it’s a good time, Tobias? The emperor seems to be dealing with his advisors,”
the warrior behind me said.
“A good time as any—he’s always planning something,”
Tobias, my captor, muttered to the warrior.
A pair of rough hands shoved me forward.
I glanced over to find the man giving me a conniving smirk that made the hairs of my neck rise.
I swore silently.
Shadows of evil spread through this camp, and no amount of shuddering would shake it from my shoulders.
As we entered the large tent, I noticed the beautiful white and tan sheep skins that were draped on the floor, the chairs, and the bed.
Oh, Erus.
The emperor stood by a wooden desk in the center of the tent and spoke in quick, hushed words to others who sat in the sheep-skinned chairs.
He was the definition of darkness.
My dread grew more prominently now that I was in closer proximity.
The emperor, whom everyone had their eyes on, stopped pacing for a moment to listen to Tobias, who spoke in a low voice.
Tobias motioned towards us with a smug little smile on his face that made me want to slap it off him.
The emperor seemed frustrated, glanced at us, and went on speaking in hushed tones with the men who were seated.
Just as clearly as the emperor was disinterested in Tobias’ words, he was equally indifferent about who we were—the women from the village they just destroyed.
Tobias’ jaw tightened.
It didn’t go as he expected…or did it?
He reached the other warriors surrounding us.
“Take the women with us.
Leave the witch here,”
he ordered.
“I’m sure the emperor can handle her—he might enjoy the challenge.”
He chuckled sarcastically.
I dared to look up at him, and I narrowed my eyes in a threatening manner.
He raised his hand and swung his palm across my cheek.
I held my stinging cheek as my eyes pricked with tears.
“Give me that look one more time, and I don’t care how pretty you are, it’ll be the end for you, she-devil.”
He frowned in bitter disgust, but I saw it—the fear in his eyes and in his voice.
This wasn’t the first time someone was afraid of me, afraid that I had cursed them silently.
The rest of the warriors followed his orders, giving me strange, nervous looks.
They most likely had never met a redhead with eyes the color of jade before and didn’t know what to think or do about it.
Frustration begins when knowledge ends, my mother had cautioned me.
The women walked out with the warriors escorting them.
I was left in the middle of the tent, still holding my cheek from the burning sting knowing that it would likely bruise the next day.
The rest of my family had tan skin and could easily hide any blemish.
My pale skin hated me and wanted everyone to know what happened—insufferable.
I looked around my new surroundings.
The emperor was still in deep conversation.
The other men began to rise from their chairs as their conversation faded.
I cautiously walked to the side of the tent where chests were laid out. I curled up on the floor near a chest, trying to hide most of my body and existence. My eyes darted for any sort of weapon that could protect me at this time.
They didn’t seem to care that I was here.
Maybe I wasn’t cursed.
Maybe the gods favored me.
I might just be able to escape.
I’d find an abandoned cottage somewhere, rebuild it, and live the rest of my life in total peace.
Just me and the land.
I scanned the tent for any way out.
There were no openings in the back or side.
It appeared the only way out was through the entrance.
The men got closer to the entrance of the tent, now in visible sight of me hiding near the chest that was double my size.
One must have noticed because they made their way over, their boots scuffing up the floor as they stopped before me.
A weight settled in my chest with the bitter taste of defeat replacing the sweetness of hope I’d been forced to swallow.
“What do you have here, Emperor?”
one of the men questioned in amusement.
“What are you talking about, Ryle?”
The emperor walked over, noticing me for the first time.
Sensing his compelling gaze, I couldn’t resist looking up to meet his eyes.
My eyes widened in fear.
They were dark and wild, like pools of black ink that threatened to swallow you under.
I dropped my stare to hide behind my lashes.
“Ah, Tobias.
Of course, he can’t think of anything else but women,”
the emperor scoffed.
“I’m sure he wanted you to have warmth in your bed tonight, My Lord.
How thoughtful,”
Ryle suggested with a smirk.
“Or he wanted you cursed.
I remember seeing a few of these up north,”
said another man who was by far the oldest in the group.
The emperor rolled his eyes and snickered.
“Don’t believe those silly superstitions, old man.
They don’t do anything but cause pointless distractions.”
The emperor left the men and went further into the tent.
I hid a smile.
It was rare to meet someone who didn’t believe in superstitions.
Most people didn’t question tradition.
The old man stomped over, and I pressed my body into the corner, paralyzed with fear.
He grabbed a handful of my hair and forced my face to look up at him.
“I’d be careful about what you do to my emperor, you hear?”
the old man warned while I looked into his wrinkled, threatening eyes.
“Ralius, don’t you have more important things to do than to bother yourself with a captive?”
the emperor drawled from across the tent.
Ralius released me with repugnance.
“Take her to Camilla,”
the emperor said to no one in particular.
Ryle stepped forward and grabbed my arm, pulling me from the ground.
He had dark stubble across his face with streaks of white flared through his hair.
The clouds of smoke didn’t help our vision in the darkness, and the corners of his brown eyes crinkled as he squinted through the dim pathways.
Though he was not particularly rough, we walked at a fast pace through the camp.
I needed to get out of here.
My legs trembled uncontrollably in my gray dress, secretly thankful I hadn’t relieved myself yet.
I could hardly survive in this world—how could I survive this? These foreign warriors walked on this ground with such darkness, as if their bodies were indeed empty and soulless.
They could devour me in a moment’s time, and I’d be left with nothing.
Perhaps I’d even forget who I was in a place like this, surrounded by people like them.
A few minutes later, we appeared in front of a much smaller tent with pale lilac veils draped over the entrance.
“Camilla, it’s your father.
May I come in?”
Ryle waited by my side.
“What is it?”
A moment later, a tall woman came through the veils.
My breath caught in my throat.
She was beautiful.
She had long dark hair to her hips and dark almond-shaped brown eyes. Her crimson dress brushed against the mud as she stepped out of the tent. What was she doing in a place like this?
The moment her eyes landed on me, her face crinkled as if I smelled like soured milk.
“Emperor Aris wanted me to bring her.
He thought she could be of use to you here,”
Ryle stated.
“Didn’t the emperor wish to see me himself?”
Her brows furrowed slightly.
“He didn’t mention it, Camilla.
I tried telling you before,”
Ryle grunted impatiently.
“but this is no place for a woman.
I don’t care what you are to him, but he’s got greater issues to handle in a place like this than tending to you.”
“I didn’t ask what you thought, Father, or else I would have asked that before I traveled here!”
she snapped.
Tension filled the heavy air.
“Take the girl.”
Ryle shoved me towards the entrance.
As soon as Ryle disappeared down the dark path, Camilla and I entered her tent.
It was simple but clean.
Her bed was at the back of the tent and had a few large chests to each side.
A beautiful swirling red rug was spread on the floor protecting her long dress from unwanted mud.
“You are to stay there.”
She pointed to a corner, dropping a sheep skin near it.
“If you so much as move without me asking, I’ll have your back flayed, do you hear me?”
My jaw dropped slightly.
I was about to say something, but Camilla spoke again before I could.
“Don’t you think of doing anything stupid.
I know your kind,”
she muttered.
I snapped my jaw shut.
Camilla regarded me warily, like she didn’t know what to think of me.
But I knew she was more afraid of me than I was of her.