Forged by Magic (Falling for Fables, #1)(2)

“What is it you’d like me to do, Isveig?”

He nodded to the tall human guard who stood beside me. I followed his gaze, stiffening when he pulled a dagger from his belt. My breath hissed through my clenched teeth, despite myself. I would never fail to recognize that curved blade, hilt engraved with the ancient orcish words Ris upp ur oskunni, meaning Rise from the Ashes—no matter if five thousand years passed before I set eyes on it again.

It had been my mother’s.

I turned back to the emperor, my hands clenching. “I told you I don’t want to kill for you anymore.”

“Not even purveyors of dragon magic?” he asked, arching a brow.

I held my breath. Dragon magic was lethal and toxic, but… “All the dragons are dead. You made certain of that.”

Isveig leaned back in his throne and drummed his fingers on the granite armrest. “There’s a rumor that some survived. In the Isles of Fable, somewhere near the Glass Peaks.”

“You still believe those islands exist? No one has ever been able to prove they’re real.”

Years ago, Emperor Isveig had sailed the Boundless Sea, hunting for these legendary isles. Several dwarves had appeared on the mainland not long after his conquest, bringing tales of magical islands hidden deep in the waters west of the empire. Isveig, as always, had decided he wanted to conquer those lands. He’d hunted for them ever since.

“Those dwarves didn’t come from nowhere.” He leaned forward and draped an arm across his knee. “Take the dagger. Sail with a score of my best warriors to find these islands, then root out the dragons and their bonded masters, the Draugr. Can you do that for me?”

He expected a smile, so I gave him one. But I still had to ask, “Root them out? Or kill them?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy handling a sword. I’ve seen the look on your face when you train.”

“There is a very big difference between dancing with a sword and taking a life with one.”

“You may hate me, Daella, but I know you hate the Draugr just as much—if not more. They’re dangerous. Their blood is poisoned by madness. I did conquer your kingdom, but only because someone had to do it before the Draugr burned it all down instead.”

I ground my teeth and glanced away, hating that he’d torn away my mask so easily this time. “Please. Anything but this.”

“I’ll free you.”

I whipped my head back around so fast, I felt dizzy. “What?”

“You heard me. Do this, and I’ll free you.”

The pounding of my heart echoed in my ears. I had been his prized prisoner for seventeen years. He’d told me time and time again he would never let me go. As one of the few remaining half-orcs in the world, I was too valuable. There were still so many ways he could use me.

To dangle this carrot in front of me, he must be desperate.

“Explain,” I said, blinking back the tears that threatened to fill my eyes. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing exactly how much hope ballooned in my heart.

I could be free, I could be free, I could be free.

“I just need you to do this one last thing for me, and I know you need more motivation than the ice shard in your hip. So here it is: I will free you if you do this. Rid the world of the Draugr once and for all.”

Rid the world of anything and anyone who could ever stand against him.

Because everyone else had given up.

For a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I’d abandoned hope a long time ago, accepting the reality of my future—the fact I would never have one. Eventually, Isveig would use the shard he’d embedded in my hip to transform me into an ice sculpture he would proudly display to the rest of his empire.

The last of the orcs, he would say. Look at how I conquered them.

But that hope—it was a seed budding in my hollowed-out heart that I could not ignore. I wanted to say no to him, but I couldn’t. I would do anything to gain freedom, and he knew it.

“Fine. I will search for the Draugr, but I won’t raise a weapon against them if I do locate where they’re hiding,” I said. He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off before he could. “You have dungeons. Lock them up, but don’t kill them. This is your chance to prove the rumors wrong and show that you aren’t scared of the flames.”

“Me, scared? What a ridiculous notion.”

I shrugged. “That’s what people are saying. And if I heard these rumors while being locked away in the tower, I can only imagine the words that pass through the streets.”

“You have no negotiating power here, Daella.”

“All right, then.” I turned to go. “No deal.”

He let me walk halfway across the Great Hall before he cleared his throat. “Wait.”

Got you. Smiling, I faced him once more.

He stood from his throne and ran his fingers through his thick head of pale blue hair, and for a moment he looked like the youthful boy of sixteen who had passed me sweets from the dinner table when his royal family had come to visit. I’d been a serving girl then, barely six years old. But he’d been kind to me.

And then three years later, he’d invaded with his army after his entire family, save his sister, was killed in a Draugr attack.

“All right, then.” He nodded. “I’ll lock the Draugr in my dungeons if you agree to find them. And then you’ll go free. But I’m only giving you two months. If you don’t return before then, I’ll assume you ran off, and I’ll be forced to use the shard.”