She vowed it as fiercely as she had ever sworn anything. She would keep him close, learn him, wait for the cracks to show. She would make him drop his guard, and when he did… she would find his weaknesses.
For all his menace, for all his threats, one fact burned bright in her mind: he needed her. He wanted her alive. Perhaps even… desired her. And that gave her something to hold. Something to use.
Outside, Rakhal kept pace with the bearers, his massive form running silent beside them. Shadows licked at his heels, curling and snapping like leashed beasts, his presence a living warning.
Around him moved the rest—an entire warband of orc warriors, their discipline as fearsome as their strength. They marched in unison, armor dark, tusks gleaming, their very silence a promise of violence. And every one of them bowed to Rakhal, subtly or openly, their gazes shifting away in deference as he passed. His command was effortless, unquestioned. They respected him, yes—but beneath that respect lay something sharper. Fear.
Eliza’s breath hitched as she watched them. How unusual, how powerful was the magic he wielded, if even orc warriors of this caliber bent beneath it?
He had brought not a rabble, but an elite host. A force fit to storm a city.
And he was bringing them straight to hers.
Through the narrow window of the palanquin, Eliza gazed out across the plains to the mountain ridge beyond, its jagged peaks turned dark and foreboding by the sinking sun. Fire still burned on the horizon, but already the shadows gathered, swallowing the high ridges whole.
Her gaze shifted to Rakhal.
He was dressed all in black. No armor gleamed on his body, no sigils or banners marked his rank. The only adornments were the piercings in his ears, catching the last traces of light. His hair was part loose, part braided at the front—done by his own hand, she guessed. Unlike the orc guards, who clanked in full armor, he stood apart in his simplicity.
And not just in appearance.
There was a fluidity to the way he moved, a predator’s ease. The shadows clung to him differently, folding around him, marking him. It struck her then, with sudden clarity—maybe hewasapart from his tribe. The shadows made him different. Set him outside even as he commanded their obedience.
Her mind slipped back to their departure. He had led her out of the castle through a side tunnel, into the quiet of a courtyard where the palanquin waited. No ceremony, no jeering orcs, no king waiting to gloat, no Kardoc the Berserker looming over her with his savage grin. Strange. She had expected as much—that as a captured queen, they would revel in her humiliation.
But Rakhal had orchestrated everything.
He had moved with quiet, precise determination. And he had kept her from the others, shielded her from their eyes. Protecting her, perhaps?
Now the castle was behind her. The orc stronghold gone.
Ahead lay her people. Her city. Her court. And every ounce of wit she possessed would be needed to contain them—her mages, her knights, her lords. Her loyal subjects who would gladly die for her.
Some would see this as the greatest betrayal of all.
She would have to convince them otherwise. Convince them she could master this alliance. Convince them she could containhim. The shadow orc prince who was already, in ways she dared not admit aloud, beginning to contain her.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The palanquin slowed. Then stopped.
They had arrived. Outside the gates of Istrial.
After days of travel across the plains, they had crossed the mountain ridge before nightfall, and now the walls of Istrial loomed before them, torches flickering along the battlements.
"Halt!" a voice thundered from high above, echoing off the stone. "Halt, or you shall be fired upon!"
The words cracked through the night air, sharp as a whip.
Eliza shifted, leaning toward the narrow window. Beyond the veil of wood and velvet, she saw him. Rakhal. He stood at the fore, his gaze fixed on the tower above the gates. Firelight from the braziers licked over his frame, gilding the sharp lines of his jaw, glancing off the dark piercings in his ears. His eyes—gods—his eyes glowed faintly blue, like embers smoldering in the dark.
The shadows were gone to her sight; it was night now, and only the torchlight gave form to the world. But she felt them. She felt him. The oppressive weight of his presence began to seep into the air, rolling outward like a tide she could not see but could not mistake.
And the orcs felt it too. She knew it. For some of them, fierce warriors with tusks and armor, flinched at the sudden heaviness, their shoulders twitching, jaws tightening.
Power. Bare and unrestrained. And he was only beginning to let it spill forth.
