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. Shehated 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.
