The Claimed: A Clash of Copper and Gold

Chapter 12: The Claiming Ceremony

For a moment, everyone around me just stared at Niako. Then an appalled reaction rippled across the guards in grunts and jerking of heads. An older guard with severe eyes and a sharp nose braved a step toward Niako.

"Your Highness, surely you know who this man is?"

"I know who he was. He was Toom. He was a prince. But now he is only a Claimed."

I heard the words but was unable to fully register them. I felt disconnected from my own body, as though watching a scene in a puppet show.

Another guard raised supplicating hands. "He may be pretty, Your Highness, but we can find you a prettier and much less dangerous prize."

Niako smirked. "And where's the fun in that?"

The first guard tried again. "He is your enemy, sir. Wouldn't you like to watch him die?"

"Perhaps. But I'd rather watch him suffer."

Feet scuffed the ground, and a few men tugged at their uniforms as though they had become too tight. The first soldier took another step toward Niako.

"Your Highness, if I may suggest —"

"You may not. I have given my order. Bring the gold collar."

For some reason, those last words sliced through my trance, and panic and despair clawed at my chest. I jerked wildly against the ropes binding me.

"No." I barely recognized my own hoarse voice. "No. Don't do it. I would rather die."

Niako leveled me with a strange look, eyebrows raised. "I'm afraid that choice is not yours to make, my friend."

I bit out my next words through clenched teeth. "You are not my friend."

"True," he said. "I am your Master."

"I will never call you Master."

He tilted his head slightly and quirked a small smile. "We'll see."

Niako nodded at the guard nearest to me, and I saw the guard's arm blur in the corner of my vision. Then darkness blanketed the world.

* * *

My forehead pounded, my eyes burned, and my throat felt raw. I lifted a hand to rub my eyes, but an immobile resistance cut the motion short. I blinked at the metal cuffs on my wrists, anchored by a heavy chain to a rung on the floor a few feet from me. My chest was bare, and simple tan trousers covered me from the waist down.

Craggy black and gray stones checkered the four walls, and starved sunlight trickled through a slit near the ceiling on one side. On the opposite wall, a stone door slotted open at the bottom.

I pushed myself up to sitting, head swimming. When I scooted closer to the metal rung connected to my cuffs, I was able to lift my hands to my face. After rubbing my eyes, I let my hands drift down toward my neck. I knew what I would find there, but the smooth cold of the gold collar still sent shivers of disgust through me.

The memories washed over me and drowned me like icy waves, each more chilling and painful than the last. Astoria's brilliant smile. The Rakim soldiers crowding each exit. The finality in my father's gaze as he commanded me to leave. My frantic search for Finny, calling her name, over and over, until my throat shredded. Screams of anguish as my father's body burned. The acrid stench of his burnt flesh mingling with the sharp alcohol dousing my own clothing.

And finally, Niako, appearing from nowhere, ordering them to stop in that nauseatingly detached voice — only so he could do worse.

I Claim him.