The cart groaned on, its wheels complaining over the soaked, uneven road. Each jolt sent a fresh throb through Arin's aching body. The world outside was a blur of muddy greens and grays.
She sat curled in the corner, a huddled heap like a stray dog caught in a storm. The iron shackles had long since eaten through the skin, leaving her wrists numb. That numbness was a familiar friend now, just another pain to carry, like the gnawing hunger in her gut or the dull ache of loss in her heart.
She flexed her fingers, testing the limits of the cold iron. One fingernail, the one on her left index finger, had split clean down the middle back in the haystack, a jagged, useless thing to most. But to her, it was a tool. A chance.
'Keep still,' she told herself, her internal voice a sharp whisper. 'Keep quiet. They stop watching when you do.' It was an old adage from her mother, a survival lesson ingrained deep.
Her tunic was torn, half-unraveled, leaving a ragged edge. Her fingers, trembling slightly from cold and fatigue, felt along the hem for what used to be a decorative loop. It was threadbare, almost invisible against the damp fabric.
She found it—just enough linen string to catch a pin, if she was lucky. Her mother had taught her this trick, a quiet work. The kind of skill that bought you precious seconds when seconds were the only thing between a beating and the bite of a blade.
Arin bent forward, slow and careful, hunching over her bound wrists. She began picking at the shackle's pin, her movements precise. She could barely hear the soft, metallic clicks over the groaning cart, but she felt each vibration through her fingertips. One wrong move, and the thread would snap. One slip, and they'd see her.
No one noticed. Or perhaps, no one cared enough to watch.
The guards were tired, she observed, their slumped postures speaking volumes. The incessant rain had finally stopped, but the stink of woodsmoke still clung to everything: their clothes, their boots, their very breath. The ruined village they'd passed hours ago, a charred scar on the landscape, haunted even them.
Arin had seen the way their faces had shifted when the distant fires came into view. It wasn't pity that crossed their features, nor was it guilt. It was fear, raw and unmistakable. They understood what that fire meant.
She worked in silence, her fingers growing numb from the cold iron. Her back cramped, a dull ache spreading through her spine. She counted breaths, a slow rhythm. She counted heartbeats, each one a precious second ticking by.
Then, a tiny, almost imperceptible click. Her left wrist loosened. The shackle fell slack, not quite off, but dangerously close.
Her breath hitched in her throat, a tiny gasp she quickly stifled. She didn't move. She didn't dare to smile, though a thrill shot through her. She just waited, listening, calculating.
Rainwater dripped steadily off the roof of the cart, a monotonous rhythm. The world smelled of wet ash, damp earth, and the faint, unsettling scent of rusting steel. She could feel the tension humming in the air, a silent anticipation.
Then came the call, a rough bark that made her muscles tense.
"Break!" one guard grunted, dismounting with a tired sigh. His boots squelched in the mud. The others followed, stumbling into the boggy ditch. They dispersed, some to piss, some to pull out waterskins, some to argue quietly about who would draw first watch.
"Damned cold," one muttered, shivering. "And these woods… they say there are ghosts here."
Arin watched the burly one, the younger soldier with the surprisingly soft heart and the slow hand, turn his back. He raised his waterskin to his mouth, oblivious. His sword hung low on his hip, the hilt within easy reach.
The world narrowed to a single, sharp point. A slow, deliberate breath filled her lungs, cold air burning.
'Now,' her mind screamed. 'This is it, Arin. Now or never.'
She moved. Her shoulder slammed into the cage's bars with a dull clang, a jarring sound in the sudden quiet. Her left hand, now free enough, shot through the narrow gap between the bars. It closed over the hilt of his sword.
It was colder than she expected, a surprising weight in her palm. The steel cleared the sheath with a smooth whisper, a sound like silk tearing.
She lunged, twisting her body within the confines of the cage. The sword felt awkward, unbalanced in her small hand, but she knew where to aim—low, fast, gut or thigh. He turned, too late, his eyes widening. Surprise, then a flash of something else—maybe fear, maybe recognition.
She slashed.
The blade kissed his ribs, a shallow graze that sliced through fabric and skin. A thin line of red welled up, but it wasn't enough. It was a warning, she realized, not a kill. She'd hesitated.
Then—
A crack. A jarring, sickening sound.
The weight hit her like a falling wall, a crushing force that drove the air from her lungs. She went down hard, slammed against the muddy floor of the cart. Her skull bounced off the rough wood. For a second, everything spun, the world swimming in a dizzying haze.
The captain's knee pressed into her chest, pinning her. She gasped, fighting for air, trying to buck him off with what little strength she had left. Her right, still-shackled wrist flailed uselessly. The sword was gone, knocked from her grasp, somewhere in the wet grass, already forgotten.
She spat in his face, a defiant spray of blood and spittle.
He laughed, a deep, gravelly sound that seemed to rumble from his very core. His breath, hot and foul, smelled like rot, woodsmoke, and something bitter, like crushed herbs. "You almost had me, rat," he said, grinning like a man who'd stepped on a snake and, instead of recoiling, admired its fangs.
His knee pressed harder into her chest. She choked, unable to draw a proper breath. "His Highness might keep you longer than a week, little cheat."
Then, with a grunt of effort, he shoved her back into the cage like she was nothing more than a sack of unwanted goods. The loose shackle on her left wrist clattered loudly as it slapped against the bars, a mocking sound.
Her head throbbed, a dull hammer behind her eyes. Her ribs ached, each breath a fresh stab of pain. Blood dripped from her hairline, warm and sticky, tracing a path down her temple. She wiped it with her sleeve, tasting copper again.
The cart creaked back into motion, the lumbering rhythm of their journey resuming.
The guards were quiet now. The one she'd cut, the young one, didn't come near again. He just glared at her from under his hood, pressing a crumpled cloth to his side. His eyes weren't angry anymore.
They were cautious. And a prickle of satisfaction, cold and sharp, ran through her.
'Good,' she thought, allowing herself a small, internal smirk. 'Let them look and see trouble. Let them wonder what else I can do.'
But beneath the triumph, a bitter truth twisted in her gut: she'd failed. She could still feel the phantom weight of the steel in her hand. She could still feel how close it had been, how easily she could have plunged it deeper.
She should've cut deeper. Should've finished it. But she'd hesitated. Maybe it was because he'd shown a flicker of kindness, however brief. Maybe it was because, deep down, she hadn't meant to kill him.
'Soft,' she spat at herself, the word a poison in her mind. 'Stupid, soft village girl. Still pretending the world leaves you choices.'
She pressed her bruised face against the cold, unforgiving metal bars, trying to block out the self-recrimination.
They were past the outer roads now. The wild, untamed trees had given way to something orderly, unnatural. Sculpted, pruned to unnatural sharpness, their branches seemed to salute the approaching stronghold. Even the grass looked rehearsed, too neat, too… royal.
The road beneath them changed, too, its rough dirt replaced by something else. It was black stone now, polished to a chilling sheen, echoing eerily under the cart's heavy wheels. A strange scent began to prickle at her nose.
Sulfur. Myrrh. Burnt iron. A primal, ancient smell that spoke of something deep within the earth.
Drakoryth.
The capital rose into view like a black crown, carved from the very bones of giants. Arin stared, her breath caught in her throat. She'd heard the whispered stories, of course, but this—this was something else entirely.
The city didn't sit on the land; it grew from it. Built into the gaping maw of the Heartspire, a colossal crater, the fortress was a nightmare made real: obsidian walls and ashstone towers, jagged and twisted like the clawed fingers of a monstrous hand reaching for a sun that dared not shine.
Even from this distance, the city seemed to glow. Not with the warm, welcoming light of hearth fires, but with something deeper, something breathing under the very earth. A faint, reddish pulse shimmered from within its depths.
Her mother's voice, a ghost of memory, whispered in her ear: "The bloodline sleeps in fire. Their justice wears wings. And their mercy has teeth."
That memory, that chilling warning, turned her gut to solid ice. She thought she'd known fear, lived with it like a constant companion. But Drakoryth… Drakoryth was fear wearing a crown, demanding obeisance.
The cart turned, bypassing the grand gates she'd always imagined. No royal fanfare. No triumphant procession. They went to the shadows instead.
A narrow entrance. A servants' path. A prisoner's gate.
The colossal portcullis groaned as it rose, metal shrieking like something in unimaginable pain. Inside, guards stood like grim statues, their polished armor drinking the faint, filtered light. They didn't move as the cart passed, didn't even blink.
Arin stared back, her defiance a shield. She refused to be the first to look away, to break the silent challenge.
Through tall, narrow windows above, she saw nobles watching. Their faces were pale, their eyes cold and dissecting. Their robes shimmered with intricate dragon-scale embroidery, catching the faint red light filtering up from below. Their jewelry, too, seemed to pulse with that same malevolent glow.
None of them smiled. She might as well have been livestock. Caged. Dirty. Not even worth naming.
The courtyard swallowed her, a vast expanse of black stone. Ash, fine and gritty, drifted silently in the air. Statues watched from every corner—ancient warriors and monstrous dragons, fused together in twisted stone, their mouths open in silent screams or triumphant roars. She couldn't tell which.
Then—footsteps. Deliberate. Measured.
A man approached. Slim, clad in a silver robe that seemed to absorb the light. Not a soldier. Not quite a noble, either. Something in between, a courtier perhaps, or an advisor.
His face was smooth as polished glass, devoid of expression. His eyes, like mirrors, reflected nothing back. They seemed empty, ancient.
He unrolled a scroll, its parchment crackling faintly in the oppressive silence, and began to read, his voice unnervingly calm.
"You are to serve His Highness directly," he intoned, his words like a cold wind through marble halls. "Speak only when asked. Touch nothing without explicit permission."
He looked up then, his empty gaze locking onto hers. His eyes, like icewater poured directly into her veins, held no warmth, no flicker of humanity.
"If you attempt escape again," he stated, his voice flat, emotionless, "you will be blinded."