Page 12 of Her Manticore Master
"Would I?" He leans forward, those steel-blue eyes boring into mine. "Tell me, Corrina, when did you last remember feeling truly alive?"
His question stuns me. I try to lie, to lash out and regain distance, but I can't. He's right. I haven't felt anything real—joy, sorrow, passion, or pain—in so long. Everything is muted, filtered by suffocating control.
"That's what I thought," he says softly.
"It's not the same thing," I protest. "I'm not?—"
"Chained? Caged? Owned?" His smile is sharp as broken glass. "Aren't you?"
"I have choices."
"Do you? When did you last choose something that wasn't dictated by your master's whims?"
The same question Lysa asked, but from his lips it cuts deeper. Because he sees through my defenses like they're made of glass.
"You don't understand," I whisper.
"Don't I?" He rises despite his wounds, moving to the small barred window that offers a view of the courtyard. "I understand perfectly. The difference between us is that you've accepted your cage."
"And you haven't?"
"Never." The word carries absolute conviction. "I'd rather die fighting than live kneeling."
"That's easy to say when death is abstract."
"Is it?" He turns back to me, and there's something devastating in his expression. "I've been dead since the night I lost my brothers. Everything since then has been borrowed time."
The raw honesty in his voice steals my breath. I see him clearly for the first time—not the defiant gladiator or the dangerous manticore, but a man carrying wounds that go deeper than any blade could reach.
"I'm sorry," I say, and mean it.
"Don't be. Pity is just another chain."
"Then what is it you want from me?"
He studies my face dark intensity. "Nothing you're willing to give."
"Try me."
"Truth."
The word hangs between us like a challenge. I could lie, deflect, retreat behind my usual masks. But something in his eyes—a desperate kind of hope—stops me.
"I envy you," I admit in a whisper.
"Envy me?" He sounds genuinely surprised. "I'm a slave."
"You're free." The words taste like tears. "Chained, beaten, forced to fight for sport, but still free. In here." I touch my chest over my heart. "Where it matters."
"And you're not."
"No." The admission feels like bleeding out. "I haven't been for a very long time."
We look at each other across the small chamber, and I see recognition in his eyes. He understands now—understands that there are worse things than death, worse things than chains.
"Better to die a man than live a pet," he says quietly.
The words hit like hammer blows, shattering something inside me that I thought was already broken beyond repair. Because he's right. And I hate him for it.
