Page 25 of Bought by the Broken Beast
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VOTOI
She is a ghost. In the two days since Lyra’s last visit, Bella, has retreated into a fortress of silence so absolute that even the cold stones of this crypt feel warm by comparison. The fire that once blazed in her eyes, the defiant spark that challenged me, that intrigued me, is gone. In its place is a cool, professional distance, the detached focus of the scribe she once was.
I tell myself it is grief. The weight of our failure, the loss of the men who died for our cause—it is a heavy shroud, and she is so small, so fragile. It is only natural that she would break under its weight. I give her space. I do not press. To force a warrior to confront their grief before they are ready is a dishonor.
But the truth, a cold, sharp thing that twists in my gut, is that her avoidance is a wound more painful than any blade.
I try to bridge the chasm between us. I take the last of the bread Lyra brought and hold a piece out to her. "You must eat," I say, my voice rumbling in the oppressive quiet.
She doesn't look at me. Her gaze remains fixed on the manifests spread out on the dusty sarcophagus lid. "I am not hungry."
"Your body needs fuel, Bella. We do not know when we will eat again." I take a step closer, holding the bread out further. My fingers brush against hers.
She flinches back as if burned, pulling her hand away. "I said I am not hungry." Her voice is flat, devoid of all emotion, a sheet of ice. She still won't meet my eyes.
The memory of the forge, of her body shattering in my arms, of the raw, desperate connection we shared, feels like a dream from another life. A life where we were not fugitives, where our hands were not stained with the blood of our friends. I want to reach for her, to shatter this wall of ice she has built around herself, to find the woman who promised to help me reclaim my home. But I do not. I have no right.
The inaction is a poison. We are trapped in this tomb, waiting for an enemy that grows stronger with every passing hour. Malacc’s net is tightening around the city. Lyra’s last visit was hurried, her face etched with fear. Vorlag’s men are everywhere. We are running out of time. We are running out of hope.
On the third night, I can bear it no longer. The silence, the waiting, the cold distance from the woman who has become the center of my world—it is a torment worse than any arena battle. Bella is asleep, her breathing a soft, shallow rhythm in the darkness. She looks impossibly small, curled on a bed of old cloaks, her face pale and strained even in sleep.
I must do something. I must find a way forward.
I slip from the crypt like a shadow, my sword a cold, heavy weight in my hand. The city of the dead is silent, the ancient monuments like slumbering giants under the pale light of the moon. I move through the city, a ghost in my own land, my face hidden in the deep shadows of a borrowed cloak.
The city is a different place now. There is a tension in the air, a palpable fear. Patrols of Malacc’s personal guard are on every corner, their black armor a stark, menacing presence. Thepeople of Milthar hurry through the streets, their heads down, their eyes avoiding the gaze of the soldiers. This is not the proud, boisterous city I remember. This is a city under occupation.
And then I see it. Nailed to the central pillar of the main market square, a place where merchants usually hawk their wares, is a massive, freshly printed notice. My heart turns to a block of ice.
It is a public declaration, signed by Lord Malacc himself, in the name of the “security and stability of the kingdom.” It speaks of the “treacherous rebellion” at the docks, a vile attempt on the life of a loyal servant of the crown, Captain Vorlag. It names the leader of this rebellion: Votoi Saru, the disgraced one.
And there it comes, the final, brilliant, arrogant move.
To prove his own unwavering loyalty to the Zusvak, and to bring the “traitor” to justice in the most honorable and public way, Lord Malacc challenges me, the fugitive, to a trial by combat. In the arena. In three days’ time. If I do not appear, it will be taken as an admission of guilt, and my entire house, my mother included, will be formally attainted for high treason, their lands forfeit, their lives at the mercy of the state.
It is a perfect trap. He knows I cannot refuse. To do so would be to condemn my family to certain death. He forces me back to the scene of my greatest shame, to die on the bloody sand for a crime I did not commit, all while he plays the role of the loyal hero, the champion of the kingdom. He will not just kill me. He will destroy the last, lingering shred of my honor.
I stand in the shadows, the proclamation a death sentence burning in my vision. My rage is a cold, quiet thing now, a shard of ice piercing my soul. He has left me no choice. He has left me no way out.
I return to the crypt as the first, grey light of dawn begins to touch the sky. The world feels unreal, dreamlike. I am a dead man walking.
Bella is awake. She sits on the edge of her makeshift bed, her back ramrod straight. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her face pale and tear-streaked. She has been crying. The sight of her tears, of her quiet, solitary grief, is a fresh wound in my already bleeding soul.
“Where were you?” she asks, her voice a low, trembling thing.
“Scouting,” I say, the word a poor excuse for my own restless desperation. I cannot bring myself to tell her the truth, to place this final, crushing weight on her shoulders.
But she knows. She has always been too clever for her own good. “What did you find?”
I take a deep breath, the cold, damp air of the crypt filling my lungs. “Malacc has made his move.” I tell her everything. The proclamation. The rebellion. The trial by combat. The threat against my family.
I expect her to shatter. I expect more tears, more despair. I expect her to finally break under the weight of this final, hopeless reality.
But she does not.
The tears stop. The trembling ceases. The grief in her eyes is extinguished, replaced by a cold, hard, terrifying fire. She rises to her feet, her small frame radiating a power that has very little to do with physical strength. It is the power of a mind that has been pushed to the very brink and has found a terrible, unyielding clarity on the other side.
