Chapter 1
[Ocshenja]
By the time the Sanctuary bound my wrists, I had already broken Wiljon’s nose and left deep scratches across Jenrik’s arm. Wiljon had grabbed my shoulder from behind. I spun without thinking and drove my elbow upwards with all my weight. His nose crunched, and blood sprayed across my knuckles. Jenrik tried to hold me. I twisted in his grip and sank my teeth into his forearm until he howled.
Perran had tried to force my mouth open during the last feeding. I had caught his jaw and twisted until it dislocated. He had screamed, and the others kept their distance for days afterwards. Remembering it steadied me.
“Restrain her! Now!” The captain’s voice cracked like a whip. He was holding up his bleeding comrade. “You idiots can’t even handle one human woman?”
A snarl ripped from my throat as the other guards closed in. I kicked out blindly and caught one in the shin. Then there were too many of them. They forced me to my knees, and the leather straps bit into my skin while I thrashed.
“Feral bitch,” Jenrik muttered, wiping blood from his arm where my nails had scored his flesh.
They dragged me out of what had been a beautiful room. It was wreckage now. Heavy mahogany furniture lay splintered, and porcelain crunched under their boots as they hauled me across the floor. My fingers left trails in the dust on an overturned table. The silk curtains had been cream once. What was left of them hung torn and stained from a broken rod.
“Get up! Move!” Wiljon shoved me forward, his breath hot against my ear. I stumbled but refused to fall. This room was supposed to have been my life, and I walked out through the pieces of it. A growl sat in my chest as I fought their grip.
Through the doorway I caught a last look at the room. Shattered mirrors threw my face back at me a dozen times, cracked across like spiderwebs. My long dark hair had come out of its bun and stuck to my damp neck. Then they yanked me into the corridor.
The captain stepped in front of me, his face inches from mine. “You’ll learn obedience, human. One way or another.” He smelled of stale sweat.
I met his gaze without flinching. My turquoise eyes had marked me as unnatural from birth, and I put all the hatred I had into them. Not a word came out of me. None had for weeks.
When I tried to bite again, Perran forced a rough gag into my mouth, and my snarls came out muffled. They shoved me on. My bound wrists scraped along the stone walls. Every step was a fight, and I made them work for each one.
“Bind her to the griffin,” the captain ordered. “We can’t have her falling off and breaking her neck before we deliver her, even though it is a tempting thought.”
They hauled me across the courtyard, my bare feet scraping over rough stone. My legs dragged behind me like dead weight, because I would not walk for them any more. No walking, no eating, no speaking. My silence was the one thing they had not managed to take.
The griffin shifted beneath me. Strong muscles moved under golden feathers, and it knew I was fighting. Its warm breath puffed against my cheek and smelled of feathers, leather and raw meat.
The captain leaned close and dropped his voice to a whisper against my ear. “You’ve had your last chance, human. Now we leave you at the border to fend for yourself.”
I did not react. Let them threaten. Let them bind me to this creature. They would never break what mattered.
[Dyrfon]
The afternoon’s familiar rhythm shattered at the estate’s entrance. Two griffins circled once before landing with heavy thuds that vibrated through the training yard fence posts. From my study window, I watched, fingers tightening around the breeding ledger I had been reviewing. Something about the appearance of our guests was wrong. A jarring combination of crimson and gold that made my eyes ache, though I could not quite place why it seemed so out of place here.
Heon burst through my study door moments later, breathless from hurrying on his prosthetic leg. His rounded fossa ears were pinned tight against his hair, and his face—usually grim but composed—was flushed with anger. The last time I had seen him this enraged was during the war, after we had found those villagers in the mountains.
“Lord Dyrfon,” he panted, bracing against the doorframe. His prosthetic leg creaked with the strain, a sound I had grown accustomed to over the years. “The Sanctuary brought someone. It’s… complicated.” His eyes flicked towards the courtyard where the crimson-cloaked figures were securing their griffins. “They’ve brought a problem.”
I closed the breeding ledger and set it down on the polished oak of my desk. “Let me guess,” I said, turning to face my steward, “they have come to demand another one of my finest breeding females for some noble who wants a pretty pet? Or perhaps they expect me to train some handlers for free again?” The muscles in my jaw clenched as I gestured towards the window where the riders were dismounting.
“This is my estate, not some cheap pet shop.” My cougar ears flattened against my scalp, a clear sign of my irritation that Heon would recognise instantly. My tail lashed behind me, thumping softly against the back of my chair.
I moved past him, my boots striking hard against the stone floors. The courtyard was already gathering curious onlookers—grooms, trainers, several of my other veterans—all drawn by the unusual arrival. The two riders had dismounted. The ermine, a thin man with perpetually nervous eyes, fussed with the harnesses while the rabbit beastman scanned the crowd, his long ears twitching.
“Lord Dyrfon, I am Beihon, and this is Leoro,” the ermine called out, his voice too high and thin for my taste. “We apologise for the intrusion, but…”
Before he could finish, both riders moved towards the griffins, working to unstrap what I now realised was a human figure bound to one of the creatures. The sight sent a horrified ripple through the gathered crowd.
The moment they began to loosen the straps, the woman exploded into motion despite her restraints. Her bound legs kicked out wildly, catching the ermine in the thigh with enough force to make him stumble backwards. The rabbit beastman grabbed her arms, but she twisted violently, her muffled screams vibrating through the gag as she fought with all her strength. Her body arched away from their touch.
“Careful!” the rabbit shouted, dodging a kick aimed at his face. “She’s stronger than she looks!”
It took both of them several minutes to finally free her from the harness, their movements growing increasingly frustrated as she continued to struggle. When the last strap came loose, they shoved her rather than helping her down. She landed hard on the stone courtyard, her knees cracking against the unforgiving surface. Even then, she fought, trying to crawl away until the rabbit beastman planted a foot firmly on her back, pinning her to the ground.
She went still then. Pinned there on the cold stones, bound and blindfolded—she looked like a sacrifice being offered to some ancient god. The air grew heavy with unspoken questions.
“What is the meaning of this?” My voice carried across the courtyard, cutting through the murmurs of my staff. “You bring a prisoner to my estate?”
The rabbit beastman straightened. “My lord, this woman is not a prisoner. She’s just… difficult.” His foot remained pressed against her back as he spoke. “The human Sanctuary of Onglu has exhausted all options to integrate her. Our orders are to return her to her human kingdom. In practice…”
“In practice we abandon her at the border,” the ermine finished, his voice trembling as he adjusted his crimson cloak. “We don’t want to, of course, but the orders were clear.”
*Return her to her human kingdom.* It sounded almost kind. Every beastman in that courtyard knew better. In Eldun a woman was property, to be sold and used as her owner saw fit, and sending one back across the border was like throwing a treasure into the deep sea.
I circled the bound figure slowly, my gaze sweeping over her form. Her dark brown hair had come loose from its bun, strands clinging to her neck despite the blindfold that covered half her face. Even with her features obscured, I could see the tension in her jaw, the slight tremor in her bound hands as she fought to keep still. My ears caught the faint sound of her breathing—shallow, controlled, like someone trying to conserve strength for another escape attempt.
Standing, she would not have reached my shoulder. There was very little of her, and someone had still been thorough. A scrape ran along one cheekbone below the blindfold, and her lower lip had split and crusted over. Where her sleeve had torn, four dark bruises sat in a row on her upper arm, each the size of a man’s fingertip, over older ones gone yellow. The straps had rubbed her wrists raw. A temper did not earn that. I had trained griffins with far worse tempers and never once needed to mark one. My face showed none of it.
The bruises had more to say. They lay in layers, which meant she had been held down, and had fought, and had been held down again. Most women would have wept long before this, and begged, and somewhere along the way learned to lie quiet. By the look of her, she never had.
“Difficult?” I halted before the bound figure. “You bring a human woman to my estate bound like a criminal, and your explanation is difficult? I breed griffins. I do not manage broken humans.”
