Page 8 of The Manticore's Human Queen
The name, on her lips, sounds different. Not the harsh, guttural name of a warrior, but something else entirely. Something… real. In that moment, we are no longer just a beast and a girl. We are Tarek and Annelise. And the knowledge of it, the simple, profound reality of it, changes everything.
It is this new, fragile connection that forces the words from me. The strategist in me, the part that is my brother Silas’s echo, can no longer remain silent. This game she is playing is too dangerous. She sees the elves as masters, as captors. I see themas the enemy. And I know, with a warrior’s certainty, that they will show her no mercy if her rebellion is discovered.
"Annelise," I begin, my voice low and urgent, holding her gaze. "You must be more careful. The risk you are taking… it is greater than you know. I have watched them. I have listened. The cruelty you see in your fiancé is not an aberration. It is their nature. They are predators who enjoy the fear of their prey. They will not just punish you if they find you here. They will make a sport of it. They will break you, piece by piece, and they will enjoy every moment of it."
I expect my words to frighten her, to drive her back to the relative safety of her silent obedience. I expect to see the flicker of her courage waver in the face of my grim, brutal honesty.
But I do not. She simply holds my gaze, her own eyes hardening, the fear I had seen just moments before being burned away by a cold, righteous fury.
"They are already killing me," she replies, her voice no longer a whisper, but a fierce, unyielding thing. "It is a different kind of death, a slower one, but it is a death nonetheless. My life here is not a life. It is an endurance. With you," she presses a hand to my chest, her touch a searing brand against my skin, "in this cage, I feel more alive than I have ever felt outside of it."
Her confession, her simple, devastating truth, is a blow that shatters the last of my carefully constructed defenses. I have seen her as a comrade, as an ally, as a fellow warrior to be respected and protected. But in that moment, as she declares that her only taste of life is here, with me, in the filth and the darkness of my prison, something shifts within me.
It is a deep, primal, and utterly possessive feeling, a feeling that has nothing to do with strategy or respect. It is the ancient, instinctual roar of a manticore male recognizing his own. She is not just an ally. She is mine. Mine to protect, mine to defend, mine to fight for.
The thought is a revelation, a truth so absolute it feels as if it has been forged in the very core of my being. My mission, my brothers, my own carefully constructed walls of grief and of silence—they are all a distant, meaningless echo in the face of this one, simple, undeniable truth.
She is the first light I have seen in a world of darkness. And I will let no one, and nothing, extinguish her.
10
ANNELISE
The feast is an exercise in elegant, soul-crushing misery. I sit beside Lord Zarren, a perfect, silent ornament in a gown of sapphire silk that has been chosen for me, its tight bodice a constant reminder of the constraints on my life.
My guardian, Lord Renlir, surveys me before we enter the grand hall, his appraisal as cold and proprietary as if he were discussing a new hunting hound.
“Exquisite,” he murmurs, the word devoid of warmth. “A fitting tribute to our new alliance.”
Now, surrounded by the glittering, cruel beauty of the dark elf nobility, I feel like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. Zarren is holding court, a silken thread of arrogance weaving through the polite chatter. His favorite subject, as always, is his new human pet.
“She has a surprisingly sharp mind for a human,” he announces to a visiting lord from a neighboring estate, his voice loud enough for the entire table to hear.
He drapes an arm over the back of my chair, his fingers brushing the nape of my neck in a gesture meant to look like affection but that feels like a brand. “But we shall have to trainthat out of her, of course. A bride’s mind should be on her duties, not on… thoughts.”
A ripple of condescending laughter follows the remark. I simply smile, a placid, empty expression I have perfected over years of practice. The muscles in my jaw ache from the effort. Inside, my gilded cage is tightening, the silken bars constricting around me until I can barely breathe.
Every moment in Zarren’s presence is a slow, quiet death of the spirit, a gradual erosion of the person I might have been.
He is not just cruel; he is a connoisseur of cruelty, delighting in the subtle, public humiliations that leave no visible marks but carve deep wounds into my soul.
I take a delicate sip of wine, the liquid tasteless in my mouth, and endure. The feast drones on, a symphony of tinkling crystal, silver cutlery, and the meaningless, self-important chatter of my captors.
As soon as the feast concludes, I feign a headache, a common and believable ailment for a creature they consider so fragile.
Zarren dismisses me with a wave of his hand, his attention already turning to a brutal-looking war game being set up on a side table. “See that you are well-rested for tomorrow, little pet,” he sneers. “I have a new gown for you to display. Try not to look so pale in it.”
I curtsy, murmur my assent, and flee. My movements are a practiced, silent glide through the deserted corridors, the sound of my silk slippers a faint whisper against the polished marble. I do not go to my chambers, to the opulent prison of my rooms in the east wing. I go to the one place in this vast, cold estate where I feel a glimmer of something other than despair.
The path to the menagerie is a journey between worlds. The main halls of the estate are masterpieces of cold, sterile beauty, the air thick with the cloying scent of elven incense and the weight of unspoken threats.
Every polished surface seems to reflect my own trapped existence, every shadow seems to hold a lurking accusation. But as I descend the servants’ stairs and slip out into the frozen courtyard, the air changes. It is sharp, clean, and honest.
The menagerie, a place of misery and confinement for the creatures within, has become my sanctuary. I run across the snow-dusted flagstones. I am not running from Zarren anymore.
I am running toward something. Toward the only real thing in this entire, suffocating lie of a life. The heavy oak door of the menagerie groans as I push it open, the familiar scents of hay, beast, and damp earth a welcome comfort. I am home.
The menagerie is silent, the beasts within either sleeping or watching me with the dull, resigned eyes of the long-term captive.
