Aspen

What had they done to that girl? He had seen the wound, and as bad as it was it wasn't what had shocked him. "He has other assurances where I'm concerned," she had said. Iron, iron melted into her back, branded, welded into her, into a mess of scared and broken skin, like they whipped her daily with deep burns running along her back not even half healed. And when he had looked at the maid, the only thing she was looking at was the arrow wound. She wasn't surprised by the horrors on the girl's back, being the girl's nurse, she had likely sealed the lashes and bandaged the burns herself. But who? No he knew who, the King, or Alonzo, probably both, and she bowed to him, forced to kneel. He would kill the king, damn the consequences. But no, he couldn't kill the king, all he could do was try to get Anatia out, out of this festering shit hole. He would get her out tonight, take her to Aine and get her out of this place, this place where no one blinked at the sight of her back, where people were tattooed with iron. He would get her out tonight, he and Saron, they could do it, they would do it. Because this instinct, to protect and defend, he knew what it meant.

"I think she, I think she might be my mate, and I can't leave her here for one moment longer." He and Saron sit in their rooms, Ana lying unconscious on the couch in his room. After the nurse had stitched her up he had brought her to his rooms, he didn't want to leave her unguarded but he needed to speak with Saron. Saron just looks at him for a moment. "I don't think I can stay here, I don't think I can keep from gutting the king the next time I see him."

"I would do the same for Lyra." his mate, he had known the female for decades now and he understood that Saron would likely feel that way even if they weren't mates.

"Thank you Saron." Because this was a stupid idea but he couldn't bare letting her stay here.

"How do we do it then?"

"We just take her and leave, order the legion home and carry her in our other forms."

"We couldn't carry our own bags in our animal forms, let alone a person."

"Fine, we take one of the King's wyverns."

"So now we're not just kidnapping his assassin but one of his animals too, Aine will kill us for this, if we don't die trying to go through with it."

"Aine never said we had to be diplomatic."

"Still I don't think she would like this route."

"It's our only option for getting her out tonight." He wasn't waiting, if he saw the king or Alonzo again he might kill them, and that would be so much worse. His ears pricked up and he heard movement, shifting from his room. The princess was waking up. He walked into his room and knelt next to the couch. She shifted wincing and opening her eyes, blinking taking in the unfamiliar surroundings before noticing him.

"You know, in Galcinar staring at people is considered rude." but there was no real effort behind her words, just an exhausted sort of brevoto that made her seem oddly old. He ignored her weak jab and asked a question that he wanted to know the answer to.

"Why do you let him do that to you?"

"Because if I don't it happens to someone else, if I don't it will be far far worse."

"Then why don't you run away."

"Because he will kill my people, and he will not be as swift and merciful as I." He didn't care, he was getting her out, his Queen commanded him to bring the girl to her anyway. "I cannot disappear, If only for my people's sake."

"And what about your own?"

"I have made too many decisions for my own sake, and they never turned out to be the right one."

"So you would let him rip you apart?"

"I am already shredded and shattered to my core. Why would it matter now?"

"Because that core might hold something that nobody could live with broken."

"Then it's a good thing I stopped living a long time ago." and then the princess was asleep again and for a moment he worried that only surviving for this long might not have left enough of her.