Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
The plains flowed past in silence, silvered by the bright sweep of moonlight. From her place slung over his shoulder, Eliza could see them stretching endlessly, ridges of grass and stone gleaming pale under the stars, fires of distant encampments glowing like scattered embers across the dark.
She was wrapped in his shirt.
The thought lingered, gnawed at her more than the ropes biting her wrists or the gag that had been pulled from her mouth. She couldn't forget the moment—when he had stripped it off, impervious to the night's bite, and bound it around her shoulders with rough efficiency.
As if he had concern for her well-being.
Eliza shut her eyes, forcing the warmth to feel like nothing more than another chain.
It isn't that, she told herself firmly. It can't be. He only wants me alive. He doesn't want to see me harmed because I'm valuable. That's all.
Still, the fabric held his heat, radiating into her shivering body, seeping through the thin nightgown she still wore. She hated how her body welcomed it, hated how her trembling eased even as her mind rejected the thought.
She remembered.
That moment when he had pulled the shirt over his head, bare to the night. She hadn't been able to tear her eyes away, no matter how she told herself to look elsewhere.
The moonlight had revealed him in full—broad and powerful, yes, but not like the hulking brutes she had seen on the battlefield.
His was a body honed not only for strength but for speed, every line cut with efficiency, with purpose.
Lean muscle, coiled and ready, built for silence as much as slaughter.
And etched across him—runes. Dark, curling sigils inked deep into his skin, glowing faintly where the moonlight struck them. Marks of power, of shadow, of whatever bond tethered him to the darkness that obeyed his will.
The runes wove across scars. Countless scars. Some thin and pale, some thick and jagged, each one a testament to battles survived, to violence endured. His body was a map of blood and war, carved with memories she couldn't begin to fathom.
She swallowed hard, her chest tightening as the image burned into her thoughts. She hated that she remembered. Hated that she noticed.
And yet she couldn't forget.
She remembered the way he had drawn the darkness back. The shadows had writhed, reluctant, before curling inward, retreating into him until the night was bare once more. The air had seemed thinner without them, less suffocating, less alive.
And then his eyes—
The blue glow had dimmed, fading away until only black remained. Dark, fathomless, and somehow all the more menacing without the otherworldly light. Not power made visible, but power restrained, hidden in depths she could not measure.
But then—he had given her his shirt.
The gesture replayed itself in her mind, unbidden. The rough fabric wrapped tightly around her shoulders, his warmth still clinging to it, shielding her from the biting cold.
She wished—against reason, against sense—that it had been done for some other reason. Out of something other than sheer pragmatism.
But she knew better.
He sees me as a strategic asset, nothing more, she reminded herself. A piece to be played in this war, not a person to be considered or respected. And that was precisely how she needed to approach her own survival—as a game of strategy where she must use every advantage.
Time blurred as they crossed the plains.
From her awkward position over his shoulder, Eliza could catch only glimpses of their surroundings—the ground rushing beneath them, occasional flashes of firelight in the distance, the shadowed outlines of structures rising against the night sky.
Each jolt of his stride made observation difficult, yet she forced herself to memorize every detail she could.
He avoided the clusters of firelight in the distance, keeping to the shadows, following what looked like a well-worn path cut through the tall grass. His strides never faltered, each step carrying her farther from Istrial, deeper into orcish territory.
And everywhere, the scars of war.
From her vantage, she caught fleeting glimpses—the bleached curve of a skull picked clean by carrion, the twisted remains of a body half-buried in the earth, limbs blackened by rot. The stench carried on the wind, sharp enough to sting her eyes even as the cold numbed her skin.
Some of it was her doing. Her orders. Her war.
The thought knifed into her chest.
Why hadn't he killed her on the spot? It would have been so easy—one strike of the blade, one breath and her life would have ended. Instead he carried her, bound and helpless, into the heart of her enemy's lands.
And the orcs were not known for mercy. They did not forget. They did not forgive.
The only thing standing between her and the fury of the Varak clan was him.
And he seemed to think he alone could protect her.
Her pulse quickened. Who was he, really? An assassin? A shaman? Some unholy mix of shadow-mage and warrior? In all the battles she had fought, in all the carnage she had witnessed, she had never seen anyone like him.
Not once.
What was more confusing than anything was the way he carried himself.
He didn't just think he could call the shots—he did. Calmly, coldly, with the quiet certainty of someone who expected no challenge. She would marry an orc prince, he had declared. It hadn't been posed as a suggestion, nor even as an order from his king.
It had been decided.
By him.
As if he alone had the authority to choose her fate.
Eliza's jaw tightened. He wasn't an ordinary soldier, that much was certain. No common warrior could have scaled her tower, could have smothered the wards and slipped through her castle unseen, could have carried her this far across the plains like a shadow of death.
No ordinary orc would have stayed his hand, deciding to spare her life for calculated reasons.
Whoever—whatever—he was, he stood outside the rank and file.
The landscape changed as they moved deeper into orc territory.
The rolling plains gave way to rockier terrain, the ground rising gradually until massive stone formations loomed against the night sky.
Unlike Istrial's elegant towers, these structures seemed to grow from the earth itself—imposing, ancient, unmovable.
They had been built not to impress, but to endure.
The scenery shifted quickly around her as they reached the outskirts of the orc settlement.
Low, round thatched huts squatted against the earth, their shapes dim and indistinct beneath the moonlight.
The air was heavy with the smell of woodsmoke and cooked meat, but the night was quiet—eerily so.
Like the humans of Istrial, the orcs, too, slept.
The night air was crisp, sharper here in the open plains.
Eliza tilted her head back as far as her bonds allowed and glimpsed the sky.
The stars shone brilliantly, scattered in thick swathes across the black dome above.
Brighter, sharper than she had ever seen from the castle, where mage-lanterns flooded the streets and smothered the heavens.
He wove the shadows around them once more, the veil settling heavy, muffling sight and sound. Strange, she thought, that he would cloak them here, among his own kin—as though he didn't want even his allies to see.
They passed beyond the settlement and into a massive stone structure that rose like a jagged tooth from the earth. Hewn sandstone, angular, pyramid-shaped. The orc stronghold proper. Its walls loomed twice as thick as the castle walls of Istrial, built to endure centuries of siege and fire.
Inside, the corridors stretched vast and empty, the air colder. His footsteps whispered soundless across swept stone floors, the shadows clinging close.
The place was spartan, stripped bare of comfort. Brutalist, efficient, built for war.
They passed guards—hulking figures posted at intervals, their axes propped at their sides. None turned their heads. And yet some shivered faintly, as if a chill had brushed them, as though they sensed a presence but could not place it.
Eliza stared, her mind racing. They were shadow orcs themselves, weren't they? Shouldn't they see him?
Apparently not.
That confirmed her suspicions.
Amongst the orcs, he was unusual. Different. He stood apart.
None of the guards stirred, none challenged him, none even glanced his way, though he passed so close she could see the rise and fall of their breath. Wrapped in his veil of shadows, he moved her through the heart of their stronghold unseen.
It was a frightening truth—he could have done the same in Istrial.
He could hide her in the shadows even amidst her own people. He could carry her through crowded streets, past soldiers sworn to protect her, and none would know. He could steal her away from her very throne and no one would be the wiser until it was far too late.
A sudden chill coursed through her, sharp enough to steal her breath and cut through even the heat pressed against her.
The one constant through all of this—the fall from her tower, the run across the plains, the endless shadows—had been his warmth.
His body was like a furnace, radiating heat that seeped into her despite her thin nightgown.
It must be freezing for him too, exposed to the night air, but he didn't seem to care. Didn't seem to feel it at all.
Maybe orcs are immune to the cold.
The thought flickered through her mind, absurd in its simplicity, yet it clung there as she shivered again, helpless against the ropes.
They came to a stop before a door. Massive. Wooden. The grain was dark and rough, banded with iron. Her heart leapt in her chest, tightening painfully as he shifted her weight.
Before he even touched it, the door swung open with a low groan.
Eliza's pulse spiked. Was that magic, too?
He carried her through without pause.
The door swung open without a touch. Magic, she thought, or perhaps something more sinister.
Whatever power moved in this place, it responded to him as though they were one and the same.
As he carried her across the threshold, one thought crystallized with terrible clarity: this was his domain, and here, she was entirely at his mercy.
Inside, they went.