Chapter 37
THE COLLECTOR'S PRICE
The clamor of the fight died into an unnerving silence. Polan’s voice, calm and reasonable, cut through the quiet like a blade wrapped in silk. Ky’s mind locked away the shock, forcing him to view the situation with a Spurs’ cold eye.
Twelve men, including Polan. Open killing ground between their ridge and the cage. It was a long bowshot away—too far to rush before the leveled crossbows cut them down. Night was the bait. Gessa was the prize.
He searched for an opening, a weakness. A charge was suicide.
Gessa’s magic? She was already swaying on her feet, the power spent.
Her hands trembled. Her eyes were glassy.
She couldn’t tear the world open again, not with the precision needed to save them.
There was no strategy left. No maneuver to execute.
Polan had set a perfect snare, and they were already caught in its teeth.
Gessa shifted beside him. He glanced at her. He saw the resolve hardening in her eyes, saw her gather herself, and he knew what she was about to do before she even moved.
“No,” he hissed, his voice a low, desperate command. “Don’t.”
But she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was locked on the caged form of Night, on the magnificent beast held captive because of them. Because of him. Then she looked at Polan, and Ky saw the terror in her expression contained by a will of tempered steel. She was making a choice.
“Gessa, don’t,” he tried again, but it was useless.
She stepped out from behind the cover of the rocks, her hands raised in a clear gesture of surrender. “Alright,” she called out, her voice clear and steady, betraying none of the trembling he had seen moments before. “Let him go. I’ll come with you.”
Polan’s lips curved into a thin, patient smile. “Excellent. I knew you would see reason eventually.”
“No!” A roar of fury ripped from Ky’s throat. He started to move, to charge, to do something, but Gessa’s voice stopped him cold.
“Stay there, Ky,” she said, not looking at him. Her tone brooked no argument. “Don’t make this worse. Please.”
He froze, trapped. A cold, distant part of his mind, the part that was still a pure Iron Spur, ran the brutal logic: sacrifice the hostage to save the charge. Let Night die to create a diversion for Gessa’s escape.
He rejected the thought. He had made that choice once before—the mission over the soul—and the cost had been Dawn. He would not become that man again. Not for any mission. Not for any price.
He lowered his sword, the metal feeling impossibly heavy. He stepped out from the rocks, his own hands raised in surrender.
“No!” Gessa cried out, turning to him, her mask of defiance crumbling into disbelief and horror. “Ky, don’t! That wasn’t the deal! Run!”
He met her desperate gaze, giving a single shake of his head. I’m not leaving you. The silent message passed between them, a grim acceptance of their shared fate.
Polan sighed, a sound of staged resignation that couldn’t quite mask the smug quirk of his lips.
“How... wonderfully predictable,” he murmured.
“The loyal protector, unable to leave the side of his charge. It’s almost touching, really.
” He gestured vaguely to his men. “Bring them all. But gently. We aren’t barbarians. ”
“No!” Gessa’s voice cracked, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten in her outrage. She took a staggering step toward him, her hands balling into fists. “That wasn’t the deal! You said if I came back, you’d let them go!”
Polan looked at her with mild confusion, as if she were speaking a foreign language.
“My dear, I said you made an excellent choice. I never agreed to your terms.” He gestured reasonably to the cage.
“I cannot let a dangerous, magical predator loose in my mountains to hurt my men. Nor would I leave a crippled Spur to die in the wilderness.”
He smiled, that horrible, benevolent expression returning. “I am saving them, Gessa. Just as I am saving you. One day, you will thank me for it.”
She didn’t get within five feet. A bandit stepped into her path, shoving her roughly back. The impact knocked the wind out of her; she stumbled, fighting to keep her feet on the uneven ground.
Polan didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.
He simply watched her with the patient, slightly bored expression of a parent waiting for a child’s tantrum to run its course.
He shook his head slowly, offering her a look of tragic forgiveness, as if the insult were merely a symptom of her illness that he was generous enough to overlook.
The descent was a new kind of torture for him, not just from his leg, but from watching her.
Each step seemed to cost her more than the last. She swayed, color draining from her face as the backlash from her own power took its full toll.
By the time they reached the bottom of the ravine, her legs gave out.
He caught her just before she collapsed, her body a dead weight in his arms.
Polan watched with a frown of concern that didn’t reach his eyes. “Pathetic,” he murmured. “Look what they’ve done to you, Gessa. Running you into the ground like a common mule.” He then gestured to a bandit. “Put her on her horse.”
A rough-looking bandit approached, making to take her from him.
Ky instinctively tightened his grip, turning his body to shield her, a low growl rumbling in his chest. The bandit just laughed, a harsh, ugly sound, and shoved Ky hard.
Off-balance, Ky stumbled back, and the man easily wrested Gessa’s limp form from his grasp.
The bandit tried to heave her onto the horse, but Gessa couldn’t help, couldn’t even find the stirrup. She was completely spent.
Polan clicked his tongue. “She’s useless like this,” he said, his tone flat and practical.
He glanced at the wagon carrying Night’s cage, then back at Gessa, weighing her like a sack of grain.
“Fine. We haven’t the time for this. Put her in the wagon with the beast. At least she’ll be out of the way. ”
As the bandits hauled Gessa toward the wagon, Polan turned his horse, bringing him uncomfortably close to Ky. He looked down, his expression laced with a kind of disappointed pity.
“I expected better, Instructor,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only Ky could hear.
“You were supposed to be a guardian. Instead, look at her. Exhausted. Filthy. Broken.” He shook his head, adjusting his gloves.
“I suppose it was too much to ask a cripple to carry such a heavy burden. Don’t worry.
I’ll see that she’s properly mended. It will take time to undo your negligence, but I am a patient man. ”
Ky watched, his jaw tight with rage, as they lifted her unceremoniously onto the hard, rattling floor of the wagon.
A rough hand shoved Ky forward toward his own horse, but the scar-faced lieutenant grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. The man’s eyes dropped to Ky’s boots, catching the glint of serrated iron.
“None of that,” the lieutenant grunted. “I know what you people do with those.”
He kicked Ky’s bad leg out from under him, sending him crashing to one knee in the dirt.
Before Ky could recover, the man knelt and roughly unbuckled the leather straps, jerking the iron spurs free from his heels.
He weighed them in his hand with a sneer—claiming the symbol of the Order as a common trophy—before shoving them into his own belt.
The journey to the stronghold began. For Ky, forced to mount his own horse with his hands bound and stripped of his namesake, the ride was a silent, humiliating agony, Polan’s words festering in his mind like a poison.
Ahead, the wagon rumbled on. He focused on the terrain, his mind cold and full of a rage that was beginning to feel like a weapon.
The stronghold was a fortress built into a box canyon. As they entered the gates, Ky on his horse and Gessa a captive in the wagon, the camp fell silent. Men stopped to stare, their gazes a mixture of curiosity and deference toward Polan, who was clearly the authority here.
They were led to a large, central tent. The container taken from the courier was dropped unceremoniously by the entrance. A scar-faced lieutenant met them there, watching with cold indifference. Two of his men went to the wagon and roughly pulled Gessa out, her legs still unsteady.
As they dragged her past the iron cage, Night let out a low, rumbling growl at the guards, his body tense. His blue eyes, however, were fixed on Gessa. “Night...” she whispered, her hand reaching feebly toward the bars in a small gesture of comfort.
“Don’t concern yourself with the beast,” Polan said smoothly. “He is comfortable enough. More than he deserves.” Stepping forward to intercept her, his body blocking her view of the cage, he lifted a hand and gently ran a knuckle down her cheek.
Gessa flinched violently away from the touch, a small, choked sound escaping her lips, her eyes wide with a more intimate terror.
Polan’s expression shifted to hurt patience. “Hush now,” he murmured. “There’s no need for fear. I even brought one of your favorite stones from home to help you... find your center. A lovely, smooth grey one, if I recall.”
The word ‘stone’ hit Ky. He remembered her terror in the valley, her fragmented words about a ‘single, smooth stone’. A roar tore from his throat. “Polan, you bastard!”
He surged forward, with murderous intent. Two guards instantly slammed their spear-hafts into his chest, driving him back. Ky fought them, snarling, but the blows had winded him, and the chains on his wrists held fast.
Polan didn’t flinch. He didn’t even step back. He watched Ky struggle against the guards with a look of serene, accounting satisfaction, as if tallying numbers in a ledger.
“There it is,” Polan said softly, his voice cutting through Ky’s ragged breathing.
“You stole from me, Instructor. You damaged a delicate instrument and cost me valuable time.” He stepped closer, just out of range, his eyes gleaming with cold delight.
“Your suffering isn’t just noise to me. It’s currency.
Consider this the first installment of the debt you owe.
And I intend to collect every single coin. ”
He turned his back on Ky, dismissing him entirely.
Ky filled his lungs to lunge again, to force the guards to kill him just to get one hand on Polan’s throat, but her voice, a low, desperate hiss, cut through his red haze. “Ky, no! Don’t. Not now.”
He froze, his gaze locking with hers across the small space. He saw the terror in her eyes, but beneath it, a desperate, commanding plea. “Survive,” she mouthed, the word a silent order.
It was that word, that command, that finally broke through his rage. The tension left his frame, though the hate remained, burning cold and bright in his chest. He stopped fighting the guards and stood tall, meeting Polan’s gaze with a look of icy promise.
Polan watched the exchange with a faint smile, as if he had just watched a dog successfully obey a command. “Good,” he murmured. “There is hope for you yet, Instructor. Obedience can be learned.”
He turned to the scar-faced lieutenant. “Bring them inside. Both of them. The air out here is dusty, and I want to inspect my property thoroughly before we lock them away.”
Without another glance, he disappeared into the massive pavilion of silk and canvas that stood apart from the soldiers’ tents—a palace in the dirt, fit only for the man who owned them all.
Rough hands shoved Ky forward. He stumbled but caught his balance, falling into step beside Gessa.
She was trembling, her face pale, but she kept her head high.
As they were marched toward the dark maw of the tent entrance, Ky glanced back one last time at the iron cage on the wagon.
Night lay still, a dark shadow against the bars.
I’m coming for you, Ky vowed into the silence of his own mind. Hold on.
Then the canvas flap swept aside, and they were shoved into the monster’s lair.