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And then I feel eyes upon me, heavy and intent, a prickling awareness that drags me back to reality. I turn, my blade still raised, and find Grok watching me from the edge of the circle.
His eyes are molten, his expression a mix of hunger and something like awe as he takes in my blood-spattered form, my heaving chest, the fallen ogres groaning at my feet. Slowly, deliberately, he nods, a king acknowledging a worthy opponent.
"Well fought, little blade," he rumbles, his voice carrying across the sudden stillness of the yard. "You are full of surprises."
I bare my teeth at him in a feral smile, still riding the battle high. "You have no idea."
He laughs, a rich, rolling sound that does strange things to my insides. "Oh, I rather think I do." He steps forward, the warriors parting before him like water. "You have a rare gift, Lily Thornwood. A rare fire. I knew it the moment I first saw you."
He reaches me, his huge form towering over me, and I have to crane my neck to hold his gaze. "Is that why you brought me here?" I challenge, refusing to back down an inch. "To admire my skill at arms?"
"In part," he allows, his eyes never leaving mine. "But there's so much more to you than your blade, isn't there? So much knowledge, so much potential."
He raises his voice, addressing the watching ogres without breaking our locked gaze. "The Red Blade will be joining my war council," he declares, ignoring the rumble of shock and outrage his words provoke. "She has much to teach us about our enemy, and how best to defeat them."
I stare at him, my mind reeling. Join his war council? Advise the ogres on how to destroy my own people? Is he mad?
"I won't do it," I spit, finding my voice. "I'll die before I betray Thornhall, before I help you wage war against the human realms."
His lips curve in a smile that is pure, confident challenge. "We shall see," is all he says. He turns to the guards, jerking his head towards me. "Clean her up and bring her to the council chamber. We have much to discuss."
And with that he strides away, leaving me standing alone in the center of the training yard, my sword still gripped in white-knuckled hands, a strange, ominous feeling coiling in my gut.
What game is he playing? I wonder despairingly. What could he possibly hope to gain by involving me in his war plans, by flaunting me in front of his warriors like some sort of trophy?
But even as the questions chase themselves round and round in my mind, a tiny, treacherous part of me feels a flicker of something perilously close to excitement. To be in the very heart of the enemy's stronghold, privy to their plans and strategies, with the chance to turn them to my own ends...
It's a chance I never dreamed I'd have. A chance to strike a blow against the ogres that they'd never see coming, to turn Grok's arrogance against him and bring his empire crashing down from within.
All I need to do is play along. To smile and nod and pretend to be his willing tool, all the while gathering every scrap of information I can to use against him. It's a dangerous game, balanced on a sword's edge...but it's the only game I have.
And I'll be damned if I'm not going to play it to win.
The guards seize me again, marching me back into the stronghold to be prepared for Grok's war council. But as I go, my mind is already racing ahead, plotting and planning, a cold, deadly determination crystallizing inside me.
I am the Red Blade. I am the shield of Thornhall, the scourge of ogres. And one way or another, I will see Grok and his foul kind brought to their knees...or I will die in the attempt.
Because if there's one thing I've learned in all my years of bitter warfare, it's this: sometimes, to win the battle...
You have to be willing to lose everything.
4
Grok
I sit in my private chambers, staring into the flickering depths of the brazier, my thoughts as turbulent as the dancing flames. It's been three days since I brought Lily Thornwood to the stronghold, three days of watching her, testing her, trying to unravel the enigma that is the Red Blade.
Three days of questioning everything I thought I knew about humans...and about myself.
I shouldn't have kept her alive. That's the cold, hard truth of it. She's an enemy, a threat, a blade aimed at the heart of my people. By all rights, I should have slit her throat on the battlefield, or left her to rot in the dungeons until she could be of use.
But I didn't. I couldn't. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, first crossed swords with her, something in me rebelled at the thought of snuffing out that brilliant, defiant flame. There's a strength in her, a fierce, unyielding spirit that calls to something deep within me, something I've long kept buried and denied.
I tell myself it's purely strategic, that her knowledge and skills make her a valuable asset to be cultivated and exploited. And there's truth in that. Already, her insights into human tactics and defenses have proved invaluable in our war planning.
But if I'm honest with myself, it's more than that. There's a part of me, small but growing, that simply craves her presence, her challenge, the way she looks at me with those blazing green eyes that seem to strip away all my armor and pretense.
It's unsettling, this feeling. Dangerous. I am Grok Bloodclaw, Warlord of the Red Mountains, Scourge of the Borderlands. I have built my life, my identity, on strength, on the ruthless exercise of power and dominance. To feel anything for a human, let alone a prisoner, is a weakness I can ill afford.
