Page 7 of The Prince's Captive

But she needed to be smart about it, so she stilled and let him approach. He unclasped the himation and started to pull it off, and she sprang into action again. She threw her arms over his head and then lunged forward, sliding out of the right man’s grip now that the himation was loose and threw herself to the ground, wrapping the chains around the heretic’s neck, crossing them and ripping in opposite directions as tightly as she could.

The Inimicus heretic jerked back as she got her good foot under her despite the other Inimicus trying to pull her back to the cot. The heretic reached up and started trying to tug at the chains, but she just pulled her wrists apart farther, tightening the chain she’d wound around his neck.

At least when they killed her for this, she could die knowing she’d taken a heretic with her.

Hands grabbed her wrists and forced them back together, loosening the chains, and the heretic slipped out, dropping to the ground and crawling forward. He hacked and coughed as he scrambled away from her. One of her guards hauled her back and into the air while the other Inimicus helped the heretic up.

The heretic was red in the face and started screaming and gesturing wildly toward the exit of the tent. The guard hauled her out of the tent and back into the open air of the camp.

Marcella tried not to be too pleased with her results, but considering she was being dragged across the dirt—her bad ankle tearing up worse with each step—away from the heretic and what he’d been about to do to her, she was pleased.

She had put off the vision and secured her life for at least a little longer.

The guard threw her into a spot of mud as the other left the tent and hurried to catch up. She started to pull her knees under her when one of them grabbed her again. Another set of chains were wound around her arms, pinning them to her sides, as her head was pressed deeper into the mud. She huffed, feeling it clump into her hair as the chains were locked.

Some strange girlish part of her hoped the lily pins in her hair wouldn’t be too damaged by the mud. It was a foolish thought for a solder. The pins had only been given to her to make her a decoy. She wasn’t really engaged so they held no meaning for her. Still, she’d always had the soft, quiet hope that one day she would be presented with gold lily pins and clasps and one day have the same man remove them after they were married, but that had been before Hypatia’s vision.

Before Marcella was sent to die.

However, her reverence for the lily pins and clasps hadn’t gone anywhere. If she was never going to be blessed enough to have them properly presented, at least she would die with them.

She heard a brief conversation between the two of them, but whatever the result was, they didn’t touch her. She couldn’t get her arms under her now that they were both chained at the wrists and at her sides, so she just lay in the mud. Her ankle and side throbbed, but she’d take the mud over that heretic’s cot any day.

No tent. No exposed scar. No vision.

For now.

It had been seen. She couldn’t run from it forever, but she could try.

Marcella would never forget the day her fate had been foretold.

Chapter3

MARCELLA

Asoldier with Marcella’s status in her clan didn’t go into the main house of the estate unless she was summoned. However, a soldier who was the spitting image of the next head of the clan was summoned often by said heiress.

The note that summoned her this day, however, was from Chief Eustathios, not Hypatia.

The note had been delivered by one of the Solitus boys who served as messengers. As low as Marcella’s standing was, she did thank Asentai every morning for blessing her enough to be Runai like her father. Her vitae reservoir might be small, but it was better than not having magic at all like the Solitus.

While the note had made no mention of what this was about, Marcella had a pretty good idea. There was only one subject of note across the whole estate and even in the villages her clan ruled over. The alliance with Clan Montis against the Inimicus. Specifically, the marriage that was going to seal it in just over two months. Hypatia’s marriage.

Of course, Marcella wasn’t privileged to know the details of the arrangement other than that it involved Montis’ heir Konstantin, but she knew Hypatia.

As much as anyone could really know a seer and future chiefess.

This was at least something to break up the monotony of life as a soldier, and it wasn’t Hypatia summoning her, so that was relieving and intriguing in and of itself.

Marcella didn’t waste time, hurrying out of the barracks and across the grounds. She could run through the estate with her eyes closed and never hit a thing, including the cats on the grounds. She’d perfected avoiding the cats after they started bringing her the mice and birds they caught in the months following her parents’ deaths.

The doors to the main house were opened for her by the guards attending them, and Marcella exchanged a polite nod and smile with them. Her left arm was still sore from the day before when one of them had thoroughly trounced her during training, but she didn’t hold it against him. It wasn’t his fault she’d failed to put up a good fight. She made her way to the main hall where she’d been instructed to report.

The doors were opened for her again by the guards and she could see Chief Eustathios on his seat as she walked through the doors. Hypatia was already moving across the room, stalking toward Marcella with a wicked grin on her face. “Little one, there you are!”

Marcella forced herself to smile back.

Marcella wished she loved anything as much as Hypatia loved that Marcella was her spitting image.

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