Eumhun PoV
After the feast, I was led to my room. It was more spacious than the last one, with a balcony overlooking a garden of night-blooming flowers. The air was thick with their sweet, heavy perfume, a scent that usually calmed me, but tonight only added to the suffocating feeling of being trapped.
I locked the door and leaned against it, my heart hammering in my chest. The sultan's words replayed in my head. 'A life of comfort and power as my wife?' The thought made my stomach turn. He saw me not as a person, not as a warrior, not as a woman with my own hopes and dreams, but as a rare prize to be added to his collection. A jewel to be displayed in his gilded cage.
I walked to the balcony and looked up at the sky. Zionia's moon was a sliver of silver, its light pale and distant. Its waning light made me think of my own dwindling clan.
