I swore to deliver Queenie as the untouched prize that would settle the debt and shield my people from war. But in the mist-veiled caves above the keep her presence strips away the command I hold over myself.

Her eyes hold a defiance that challenges the oaths binding me, and when I cut the bonds from her wrists she does not run. The hunger to keep her, to mark her as my own before any other can take what is owed, grows with every hour I delay the handover. She could walk out of these caves. She has not tried. The debt comes due, and I still have not decided which oath I will break.