The terror of the return journey was not the bitter cold seeping through my thin clothes, nor even the throbbing pain that became a constant rhythm matching the horse's steps. The terror was the humiliation.
My hands were tied to the rope that bound me to Kieran's saddle, forcing me to walk beside his massive steed like a scrawny pet dog.
Every step my feet took on the rocky ground echoed the triumph of my defeat. Every breath I took carried the smell of his horse's sweaty hide and the scent of flying ash in the mountain air.
He was taking me far from my homeland, towards my enemy's lair, leaving me powerless, just as I was at my birth.
I lifted my gaze to his back. He sat on the saddle with complete grace, back straight, swaying with the rhythm of the horse.
Even from this angle, his stature radiated total control. His long black hair, a few strands of which had escaped its ponytail, touched his prominent temples.
He didn't even need to turn around to check on me. He knew that. He knew I wouldn't escape, not with my exhausted, wounded body, and not at the mercy of this invincible army.
"You're tiring yourself needlessly," said Malachi, who was riding his steed beside us, aware of my desperate attempts to map the route back to our fortress. "You won't be able to escape. We're deep in lands where even our own dragon wouldn't dare flee."
I didn't grant him a reply. Instead, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on enduring the pain, on staying standing.
This was the real challenge now. Not escape, but survival. Staying sane.
Then, at a bend in the mountain path, the fortress suddenly loomed. It wasn't a building; it was a carved mountain. Carved from the same black rock we were walking on, its towering spire piercing the clouds like a demonic fang. There were no bright colors or splendid banners, only the cold stone and the strategic location commanding the entire valley.
The place pulsed with cruelty, just like its inhabitant.
Kieran stopped his horse abruptly and finally turned his head to look at me. His hazy eyes captured my image from the top of my tangled white hair to my tired feet. There was triumph in his gaze, but a bitter, dark triumph.
"Welcome to your new prison, Princess," he said in a low, sarcastic voice. "I hope you're comfortable, because you will never leave it."
His words aimed to break my will, but inside me, where pride and anger boiled, a small spark of defiance ignited. I looked directly into his terrifying gray eyes and whispered words I knew he wouldn't hear, but they gave me strength:
"Every prison has a key, and I will find mine."
The cell wasn't what I had imagined. It wasn't a damp dungeon reeking of rotting straw, but a small, simple room carved into the fortress's solid black rock.
The air was cold and dry, and a small slit in the wall let in a thin beam of pale daylight and freezing air. There was a stone bed covered with a coarse wool blanket, a bucket of water, and nothing else.
This was both better and worse. Better because it wasn't dirty, and worse because it didn't even grant me the solace of disgust with my surroundings. This utter barrenness, devoid even of obvious neglect, was the true insult.
I was thrown inside, and the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind me with a resounding boom, followed by the slide of the bolt. The sound of absolute isolation.
I collapsed onto the stone bed, unable to bear anything anymore. The arduous journey, the pain, the shock, all conspired to crush me. I pressed my forehead into the coarse blanket, inhaling the smell of wool and dust.
I tried to remember my mother's face, my sister Serena's smile, my father's stern voice teaching me. But all I saw were Kieran's gray eyes, and all I heard in my head was his low voice saturated with undeniable threat.
"She is mine."
I shuddered to my core. Those weren't just the words of a knight talking about a captive; there was a different kind of possession in his tone, something primal and dangerous. He acted as if he hadn't just defeated a rival warrior, but had hunted precious prey.
The sound of my thoughts was interrupted by heavy footsteps outside my cell door, grabbing my attention. They weren't like the steps of his guards; they were lighter.
The footsteps stopped in front of my cell door.
No one spoke, but I felt a gaze penetrating the wood. I could almost smell curiosity mixed with fear.
"Who's there?" I called out, trying to sound stronger than I was.
There was no reply, only that cautious silence. Then, a whisper so faint it barely reached my ear: "The white dragon... is he really as beautiful as they say?" An unexpected question, a child's question.
I pressed my lips together. This was my chance, not to escape, but to understand.
"More beautiful than words can describe," I whispered back, regaining some composure. "When he flies, he looks like a star fallen from the sky."
Silence returned, then I heard the sound of feet retreating quickly. Everyone left.
I lay on my back, staring at the blackened stone ceiling. There were others here, people from the Amber tribe, and they weren't all cruel warriors. Among them were the curious, and perhaps the fearful. Maybe even the sympathetic.
That small whisper, that question about Glacier, ignited a tiny glimmer of hope in the darkness surrounding me.
But that glimmer was too weak against the cold of the cell, the weight of despair, and the image of Kieran's face that haunted my imagination. I closed my eyes, trying to escape into sleep.
But I knew, even in my dreams, that those gray eyes would be waiting for me.