Chapter 6: Claiming the Prize
The air in the carriage shifted on the third day. The scent of pine and wet earth slowly thinned, replaced by the increasingly dense aroma of woodsmoke, sewage, and humanity. The crunch of gravel gave way to the rhythmic clatter of cobblestones. Through his small window, Valen saw the world narrow from sprawling fields to tight-knit timber-framed houses, then to tall, soot-stained stone buildings that leaned over the streets like gossips. The noise grew—carters shouting, hawkers calling, the metallic din of a thousand trades.
The capital.
His stomach clenched. He hadn’t seen it since the surrender, when he’d been marched through the streets in chains, pelted with rotten fruit and hatred. He’d been a spectacle then. Now, he was a secret, rattling toward the lion’s den in a plain coach.
The carriage slowed, turning from the main thoroughfares into progressively narrower, quieter lanes. Finally, it halted. The door opened, not by a guard, but by Evan himself. He looked different here—taller, harder, his face a mask of impenetrable authority. Behind him stood a high, white-plastered wall topped with green glazed tiles.
“Out,” Evan said, his voice carrying a new edge, a public edge.
Valen obeyed, stepping into a small, enclosed courtyard. It was startlingly quiet. A fountain tinkled in the center, surrounded by lush, orderly shrubs. The air smelled of jasmine and damp stone. The building before them was elegant but modest, two stories of whitewashed walls and dark wood, its roofs curved and tiled in the same jade green as the wall accents.
The Jade Pavilion. It was not a cage of iron, but one of porcelain.
A man and a woman stood waiting by a studded door. Both were older, dressed in simple but impeccable grey linen. Their faces were carefully neutral.
“Soren. Lira,” Evan greeted them with a slight nod. “This is Valen. He will be residing here. See that he is made… presentable.” He turned to Valen, his eyes cool and distant. “Go with them. Do as they say.”
Then he turned and strode toward another, smaller gate in the courtyard wall without a backward glance. It clicked shut behind him, leaving Valen alone with the two silent strangers.
The man, Soren, stepped forward. He had the build of a retired soldier, his gaze assessing and utterly devoid of warmth. “Inside.”
The interior was cool, shadowy, and spotlessly clean. The floors were polished dark wood, the walls hung with delicate watercolor landscapes of mountains and birds. It was beautiful, serene, and utterly sterile.
Lira, the woman, spoke for the first time. Her voice was soft but firm. “This way.” She led him down a corridor to a room that was clearly a bath chamber. A deep, sunken tub of pale blue ceramic was already filled with steaming, herb-scented water. Towels and various pots and brushes were laid out on a stone bench.
“Disrobe,” Soren said, standing by the door like a sentinel.
Valen felt a familiar, cold detachment settle over him. This was a routine he knew. Inspection. Preparation. He removed the travel-stained clothes, letting them fall to the floor. He stood naked, the air cool on his skin, and waited.
Lira approached. Her hands were efficient, impersonal. She examined his hair, his nails. She tilted his chin, her eyes checking his teeth. She might have been assessing a horse at auction. “The hair will need trimming. The skin is acceptably clean, but requires exfoliation and oil.” She noted something on a small slate she carried.
Soren’s eyes traveled over him with a different kind of scrutiny—searching for concealed weapons, signs of defiance, anything out of place. He grunted, apparently satisfied.
“Into the bath,” Lira instructed.
Valen stepped into the hot water. It was scalding, fragrant with lavender and something astringent. He sank down, trying to hide the flinch. Lira rolled up her sleeves. She didn’t ask; she simply began. She scrubbed every inch of him with a rough linen mitt and harsh soap that smelled of lemons. She washed his hair, her fingers digging into his scalp with relentless thoroughness. She cleaned under his nails, between his toes. It was clinical, degrading, and entirely focused on the surface. She saw the marks on his skin—the old scars, the fresher bruises from Evan—and said nothing. They were just another part of the canvas to be maintained.
When he was pink and raw, she motioned for him to stand. She poured buckets of clean, cooler water over him to rinse. Then she handed him a drying cloth. “Dry. Then come.”
In an adjacent room, he was sat on a stool. Lira produced sharp shears and began to trim his hair, shaping the overgrown blond locks into something tidier, more fashionable in the Elantran style. Soren stood watch, arms crossed.
Next came the oils. Lira worked a perfumed almond oil into his skin, her hands moving in firm, unfeeling strokes. The scent was heavy, floral, unlike anything he had ever worn. It was a scent meant to please another.
Finally, she presented him with clothes. Not the rough travel-wear, not the silks of the brothel. These were fine, soft trousers of dove-grey wool, a linen shirt of cream, a sleeveless tunic of deep green that matched the pavilion’s roofs. The fabrics were luxurious but subdued. The clothes of a favored attendant, or a very expensive pet.
“Put these on.”
He dressed under their watchful eyes. The clothes fit perfectly. Of course they did.
Lira gave a final, approving nod. Soren gestured back toward the main corridor. “He awaits you in the west chamber.”
They led him to a pair of double doors carved with cranes in flight. Soren opened one, and Valen was ushered inside.
The room took his breath away, not with grandeur, but with a suffocating opulence. The walls were draped in pale gold silk. The floor was covered by a thick, intricate rug in blues and greens. A large bed dominated the space, piled high with pillows and covered in sheets of silver-threaded lace. The air was thick with the scent of incense and the vase of white orchids on a low table. The windows were tall, arched, and fitted with intricate screens that cast dancing shadows from the courtyard lanterns outside. It was a seraglio.
Evan stood by the fireplace, having changed into dark, elegant robes befitting his station. He held a glass of amber liquid. He looked at Valen, his gaze traveling from the newly trimmed hair to the fine clothes, a slow, thorough appraisal.
“Leave us,” Evan said, without looking at Soren and Lira.
The doors clicked shut, sealing Valen in.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the pop of the fire.
“Well?” Evan finally asked, taking a sip from his glass. “Does your new accommodation meet with your approval?”
Valen didn’t look at the bed. He kept his eyes on Evan. “It’s very beautiful. Quite the upgrade from a brothel’s room. Or a carriage.”
“It’s secure. Private. No one enters or leaves without my express permission.” Evan swirled the liquid in his glass. “The walls are thick. You could scream, and no one would hear you.”
A shiver traced Valen’s spine. He forced himself to stand still. “Is that a reassurance or a warning?”
“An observation.” Evan set his glass down on the mantel. He walked toward Valen, his steps silent on the deep rug. He stopped a few feet away. “The journey is over. The performances for Lord Taren and the others are done. We are here now. In my world. Under my roof.”
“I am aware of the purchase agreement,” Valen said, his voice flat.
“Are you?” Evan closed the distance between them with one swift step. His hand came up, not to strike, but to cup Valen’s jaw, his thumb pressing against the hollow of his cheek. His touch was firm, proprietary. “This isn’t Theron’s house. There is no schedule, no other clients, no hourly rate. There is only me.”
Valen’s heart hammered against his ribs. He refused to pull away. “And what does ‘only you’ entail?”
Evan’s thumb stroked over his cheekbone, a gesture that could be mistaken for tenderness. “Everything. Your meals. Your clothes. The air you breathe in this place. And your time. All of it. Belongs to me.”
His other hand came up, fingers brushing the lobe of Valen’s ear, where the small, gold tag had once hung. The skin there felt naked, sensitive. “No more tags,” Evan murmured, his eyes locked on the spot. “But the principle remains. You’re mine. In every way I choose.”
He released Valen’s face, his hand dropping to clasp the back of his neck, pulling him forward until their foreheads nearly touched. Evan’s breath was warm, scented with strong liquor. “You will dine with me. You will talk with me. You will sleep in that bed. And when I wish it, you will pleasure me. Not because a clock is running, but because I desire it. Because it is my right.”
Valen’s vision blurred with a hot wave of fury and humiliation. He stared into Evan’s piercing blue eyes, so close he could see the darker ring around the iris. “You want a slave who thinks he’s a companion.”
“I want what I paid for,” Evan corrected, his voice low and deadly serious. “I want the second prince of Kerra, in my bed, in my debt, in my power. I want the satisfaction of knowing your brother sold you to me for a pile of coin. I want to look at you in this silk and lace and know that I own the silence in your heart.”
He pulled Valen the final inch and kissed him.
It was nothing like the fevered clash in the brothel’s bath. This was a claiming, slow and deep and devastatingly possessive. It was a seal on a contract. Evan tasted of spice and whiskey and absolute authority. Valen stood rigid, his hands at his sides, refusing to participate, refusing to yield.
After a long, suffocating minute, Evan broke the kiss. He didn’t step back. He kept his forehead resting against Valen’s, his hand still a vice on his neck.
“Tonight,” Evan breathed, “you will come to that bed. You will not lie rigid on the edge. You will get in, and you will turn to me.”
He finally let go, stepping back. His face was flushed, his eyes dark. He retrieved his glass from the mantel and drained it.
“Lira will bring your dinner. Eat it. I have matters to attend to in the main palace.” He walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the latch. He didn’t look back. “Do not test the walls, Valen. There is nowhere for you to go.”
Then he was gone, the door shutting softly behind him.
Valen didn’t move. He stood in the center of the opulent, silent room, the scent of Evan and expensive liquor clinging to him, the ghost of the kiss burning on his lips. The fire crackled cheerfully. The silk curtains stirred in a draft he couldn’t feel.
He looked at the bed, a mountain of lace and pillows. He looked at the orchids, pristine and fragile in their vase.
He was a trophy, polished and presented in a case of jade and silk. The door was not locked, he realized. It didn’t need to be. The walls Evan had spoken of weren’t made of stone or plaster. They were made of debt, and shame, and a history that had led him here, to this exquisitely furnished room where his only duty was to wait.
He walked to the window, pushing aside the silk screen to look out. The courtyard below was empty, lit by a single lantern. The high wall with its green tiles seemed to stretch forever into the night sky.
Nowhere to go.
He let the curtain fall. He turned and looked at the dinner tray that had appeared silently on the low table. Steam rose from a silver-domed plate.
He sat. He lifted the dome. Roasted fowl, glazed vegetables, soft bread. A feast compared to the road. He picked up the fork, the silver cool and heavy in his hand.
He ate. He tasted nothing. The food was just fuel, a necessity to sustain him for whatever came next.
When he was done, he sat by the dying fire, watching the embers fade. He listened to the distant sounds of the palace beyond the walls—a faint bell, the call of a guard changing watch. A world from which he was utterly excluded.
Eventually, when the room grew cold and the last ember winked out, he stood. He walked to the enormous bed. He pulled back the lace coverlet. He slid between the sheets. They were impossibly soft, cold at first, then warming to his skin.
He lay on his back, staring at the canopy. He waited. The hours bled together in the dark.
Just before dawn, he heard the door open and close. He heard the soft sound of robes being shed. He felt the dip of the mattress as Evan got in.
Valen didn’t move. He held his breath.
Evan’s hand found his shoulder in the dark, turning him. Valen resisted for a heartbeat, then yielded, rolling onto his side, facing away. Evan’s arm came over him again, pulling him back against the solid, unyielding heat of his body.
“Sleep,” Evan whispered into his hair, the word both a command and a weary concession.
In the perfumed dark of the Jade Pavilion, Valen closed his eyes. He did not sleep. He simply existed, a possession in a sea of silk, waiting for the sun to rise on the first day of the rest of his captivity.