Page 10 of Bought by the Broken Beast
Speaking of it is reliving it. To tear open a wound that has never truly healed. I look away from her, my gaze fixing on the grimy window, on the sliver of dirty sky beyond.
“There was a trade delegation from the Yacarres Isles,” I begin, my voice a low, gravelly thing. “I was tasked with overseeing the security arrangements. It was a routine assignment.” The memory is a vivid, painful thing. The grand halls of the Senate, the scent of sea salt and expensive wine, the feeling of my ceremonial armor, heavy and reassuring on my shoulders. The feeling of being Votoi Saru, a Minotaur of purpose and honor.
“Malacc was the lead negotiator. He praised my diligence. He called me a credit to my house, a true son of the Vakkak.” The memory of his charismatic smile, the false sincerity in his eyes, is a fresh betrayal. “He used my trust, my honor, as a weapon against me.”
I pace the small room, the floorboards groaning under my weight. “The evidence was… perfect. Shipping manifests, signed with a flawless forgery of my own seal, detailing a secret agreement to trade Minotaur steel for forbidden Dark Elf artifacts. A crime so heinous, so unthinkable, that no one would dare question it.” I stop, my fist clenching at my side. “There were letters, written in my own hand—or a perfect imitation of it—implicating my father, my entire house. He threatened to release them if I did not confess. To spare them the shame, I chose the arena.”
My voice drops, becoming a raw, ragged thing. “But it was not enough for him. My father, a proud man who sat on the Zu Kus for fifty years, refused to be silent. He began his own investigation, using his influence to ask questions Malacc did not want answered. A month later, he was dead. A hunting ‘accident.’ A convenient tragedy that no one dared to question.”
I turn to face her, letting her see the raw agony in my eyes. “Now, my mother is a prisoner in her own home, our name is dust, and Malacc’s watchdogs circle our estate like vultures. He has not moved to extinguish my line completely, not yet. Toeliminate an entire Vakkak house, especially one as old as Saru, would be an act of open rebellion. The Zusvak, even weakened, would be forced to act. So Malacc waits. He waits for the King to die, for the last of my family’s protection to vanish. I did not just lose my honor, human. I lost everything.”
The silence is heavy with the weight of my confession. I have never spoken of this to anyone. Not to Lyra. Not to the few arena fighters who have shown me a measure of respect. To speak of it is to give it a reality I cannot bear.
“The manifests,” Bella says, her voice a gentle, prodding thing, pulling me back from the edge of the abyss. “What did they detail? What were the shipping routes?”
I close my eyes, forcing the images to the forefront of my mind. The trial. The prosecutor, one of Malacc’s cronies, holding up the forged documents for the entire Zu Kus to see. My father’s face, a mask of stone, betraying nothing of the agony I know is tearing him apart inside.
“They were complex,” I recount, the words a bitter litany. “A series of small, untracked vessels. They were to leave from the western docks, bypass the main shipping lanes, and rendezvous with a Dark Elf corsair near the Serpent’s Sea. The routes were… specific. They mentioned a series of coastal landmarks. The Widow’s Peak. The Sunken Temple of Zukiev. The Eastern Watchtower.”
I open my eyes. Bella is staring at the ledger page in her hand, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Read it,” I command, my voice rough. “Read the routes listed on that page. Aloud.”
She begins to read, her voice a clear, steady counterpoint to the storm of memory raging within me. “‘Cargo to be transferred from the vesselSea Serpentat the western docks, to be moved overland via the Old Coast Road…’”
The words are different, yet… familiar.
“‘…past the aqueduct checkpoint at dusk,’” she continues, her finger tracing the script. “‘…then through the northern merchant gate, to be held at the warehouse district until the first bell of the festival.’”
I stand frozen, the world narrowing to the sound of her voice. I am no longer in the dusty room. I am back in the war room of the Vakkak Citadel, studying the massive, detailed map of the capital that covers an entire wall. I am a young warrior, my father’s hand on my shoulder, his deep voice explaining the intricacies of the city’s defenses.
“The honor guard is the King’s lifeblood, Votoi,”he had said, his finger tracing a path on the map.“Their patrol routes are the arteries that protect the heart of the kingdom. To know them is to know how to defend them.”
The aqueduct checkpoint at dusk. The northern merchant gate. The warehouse district.
They are not just locations. They are waypoints. Checkpoints on a patrol route.
My breath hitches. The pieces of the puzzle, separated by years of shame and a web of intricate lies, slam together with the painful force of a physical blow. The room tilts, the floor seeming to fall away beneath me.
Malacc did not just frame me. He used my disgrace as a cover for something far more sinister. He tested his plan, running a drill, using the forged documents of my downfall as a dry run for his true purpose.
The human, Bella, stops reading, her head tilted, her sharp eyes sensing the sudden, violent shift in my demeanor. “Votoi? What is it?”
I look at her, but I do not truly see her. I see a map of betrayal, drawn in my own blood. I see the horrifying, brilliant, and utterly dishonorable perfection of Malacc’s plan.
“Those aren’t just random routes,” I realize, the words a low, horrified rumble that seems to come from the very depths of my soul. “That’s the patrol path for the King’s honor guard. He wasn’t framing me for a trade deal. He was mapping the assassination.”
9
VOTOI
Three days. For three days, I haunt the rooftops and shadowed alleys of the merchant district, a mere ghost in my own city, watching Kairen’s estate. And for three days, I find nothing. The house is a fortress, crawling with Malacc’s men. They move with the quiet efficiency of a well-oiled war machine, their presence a declaration that this is no longer a merchant’s home, but a traitor’s garrison. My frustration is a physical thing, a hot, coiling serpent in my gut. Patience is a warrior’s virtue, but this is not patience. It is impotence.
The feeling festers in the confines of the small room above Lyra’s tavern. The space, already a cage, shrinks with every passing hour, the air growing thick with our shared desperation and mutual resentment. The human, Bella, has a fire in her that I initially mistook for mere defiance. I now understand it is something far more dangerous: hope. It makes her reckless.
“We are wasting time,” she says, her voice becoming a sharp, cutting thing that slices through the gloom. She paces, a frantic, caged energy in her small frame that grates on my already frayed nerves. “Every moment we wait, the poison does its work. Your King is dying while you lurk in the shadows!”
I remain seated on the stool, sharpening the hunting knife Lyra gave me, the rhythmic scrape of steel on whetstone the only answer I offer.
