The captivity....
Isolda's POV
"Tell me why I shouldn't slit your throat right now," the voice growled, low and velvet-dark, as the blade pressed cold against my windpipe.
His grip was iron, fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs where he'd pinned me against the ancient ignis tree, its bark scorching even through my thin tunic. Moonlight carved angles across his face, a face that shouldn't have existed outside of fever dreams. High cheekbones shadowed beneath smoldering amber eyes, lips parted just enough to reveal the lethal points of elongated canines. The crown nestled in his raven-black hair gleamed dull gold, twisted into thorned vines.
I couldn't breathe. Not from fear alone, but from the way his scent wrapped around me, smoke and wintergreen and something metallic, like a storm-charged blade. His magic pulsed against my skin, hot as the roots beneath us that throbbed with slow, subterranean fire. Every instinct screamed that he was death incarnate. Every treacherous pulse of my blood said otherwise.
"You reek of desperation," the king murmured, tilting my chin up with the knife's edge. "And witchroot. Stupid little thief." His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply near my neck, then stilled. Beneath the herbal stench clinging to my clothes, he must've caught the salt-sweat terror, the wildflower oil I'd dabbed at my wrists that morning, back when I still believed in mundane things like luck. His grip tightened.
Somewhere beyond the clearing, the forest sighed. The Ignis trees always did this at midnight, their glowing leaves shivering loose to spiral downward like embers. One caught in his hair, gilding the dark strands with transient fire. I watched it burn out against his shoulder. Watched his gaze drop to my mouth.
"Please," I managed, though whether I was begging for mercy or for him to close the last inch between us, even I didn't know.
His laugh was a rasp against my jaw. "Oh, you'll say that prettier before dawn." The knife traced downward, splitting my laces with surgical precision. Cold air hit my collarbones. His breath followed, scorching. "Now. Let's discuss what you owe me for trespassing in my woods..."
I gasped as his free hand slid beneath my tunic, callouses scraping over ribs too sharp from weeks of hunger. He stilled at the feel of them, the mockery in his eyes dimming. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw something flicker there, not pity, never pity, but something darker. Recognition.
The ignis root in my satchel pulsed against my hip, its glow seeping through the leather. His gaze snapped to it. "Ah." The blade vanished as suddenly as it appeared, replaced by his palm splayed possessively over my stomach. "You didn't come for silver or spellbooks. You came to die." His thumb brushed the hollow beneath my ribs, igniting trails of fire in its wake. "Tell me, little healer, does your village still teach children what happens to mortals who swallow emberroot?"
My pulse stuttered. The warnings rushed back, how the roots could stop a dying heart, yes, but only if the one who harvested them paid the toll in kind. How the borderlands always took payment in flesh.
His teeth gleamed in the dim light. "I could show you."
The offer slithered between us, thick as the smoke curling from the tree's roots. I should've recoiled. Should've spat in that arrogant face. Instead, my traitorous body arched into his, drawn like moth to lantern flame.
Somewhere beyond the thicket, a twig snapped. The king's head whipped toward the sound, his grip convulsing around my waist. The forest held its breath.
When he looked back, his eyes burned brighter. "Run now," he murmured against my temple, lips barely touching skin, "and I'll chase you." His fingers tangled in my hair, wrenching my head back. "Stay..." His mouth hovered over mine, close enough to taste. "And we'll negotiate your debt."
The ignis root pulsed again, searing through layers of wool and leather to brand my hip. Some debts, my mother once warned, are written in blood long before the knife falls.
