Don’t Teach an Eagle to Fly – 8. chapter

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“It won’t be as simple with this captive as we thought,” Kaelan said without greeting. His voice was low, but sharp as a sword honed for a duel.

Captain Gavran sat by the hearth, cleaning a dark leather glove. He did not even lift his head.

“You were never one to hesitate when it came to questioning,” he replied evenly. “Should I send in the executioner myself?”

Kaelan looked as though the thought had just crossed his mind. Then he leaned back against the stone wall and ran a hand over his brow. There was something unusually tense in him. Not anger. Something more complicated.

“No. Not the executioner. Not yet.”

Gavran set the glove aside, rose slowly, and went to the table. He poured dark wine into a goblet and handed it to the king.

“Then explain what’s holding you back. You have a captive. You need answers. Where is the problem?”

Kaelan took the goblet but did not drink. He rested his forehead against his hand, elbows braced on the edge of the table. He stayed silent longer than was his habit.

Gavran tilted his head.

“What is it? Has the captive earned your respect?”

“More than respect,” Kaelan said. “That would be easier.”

“Fear?” Gavran prodded carefully.

Kaelan smirked, but there was no trace of amusement in his eyes. “No. Um… The eagle is a woman.”

Gavran froze.

“What?”

Kaelan nodded.

“A rider bearing the royal crest. Not Tharan’s son, but his daughter.”

“The captive is… a woman?”

There was no mockery in his voice. Only surprise. And something like a hope that it was not true.

“Nirella,” Kaelan replied quietly, “the heir to the throne.”

Gavran walked slowly across the room, as if trying to absorb the information. He ran both hands through his hair and stopped by the window.

“That still means we hold a political weapon. Influence like we’ve never had.”

“But also a problem I did not expect,” Kaelan muttered. “She is insanely stubborn. She controls herself down to the last detail.”

“What do you mean?”

“We may need to consider the possibility that we won’t get the information out of her soon enough. Or at all.”

Gavran stared at him intently.

“And you’ve already come to terms with that?”

Kaelan shook his head.

“No. I’ll definitely try again.”

The room was cold. The stone in the walls gave off dampness and the scent of stale solitude. Only one candle burned on the table – long, burned halfway down, wax running down its body like slow drops of time.

Nirella sat on the cot, knees drawn to her chest. She wrapped herself in the blanket like armor that no longer guaranteed her anything anyway. Her hair was matted, falling partly into her face, but her eyes remained open. Sharp. Silent.

She knew he would come. As always. Like every man who believes all he has to do is wait her out. That a woman will break on her own.

The footsteps outside the door were muted, but familiar. Not military. Not uncertain. He walked straight. Like a king.

The door opened and Kaelan entered without a single word.

She lifted her gaze to him. Neither fear nor defiance. Only silence. Her own, deliberate, firm.

He sat slowly on the bed, farther from her feet.

“Yesterday gave me two pieces of information,” he began. “First, beating you is pointless. I could probably bring you even to the brink of death and still get nothing out of you. And second…” He looked straight into her eyes, ignoring her mocking smirk. “I’ve developed a taste for you,” he said confidently, almost charmingly.

The smile froze on her face.

“And those two things can be combined nicely,” he added, smirking this time.

Just then, the door opened a second time. A burly man stepped inside, wearing a leather apron and carrying a hammer. In one hand he held a basket filled with metal anchors, in the other a coiled chain and several hooks. Kaelan only nodded, and the blacksmith went to work without a word. He drove the first anchoring hook into the stone beneath the bed, a solid one with a circular eye. Another followed in the corner near the wall, just above the height of a standing man’s head. Two more above the bed. Then into the floor near her feet. And who knew where else.

Each hammer blow rang out with a hollow sound. Iron into stone, rhythmically, precisely.

Nirella did not move. She only watched as her world was turned into a chamber of torment. Her teeth clenched, her fingers curled tight. Not from fear, but from anger. From the humiliation of seeing a cage built before her eyes, as if she had long since been broken.

She was not. Not even close. They were only hooks. Pieces of metal in the wall. They could not bind the mind. They could not break the will. She told herself this with every strike that rang out like a mockery of everything she was – free, proud, unconquered.