Chapter 4 Marked for the Capital
Lyanna
We were moving again.
The iron-banded wagon groaned as it lurched over another stretch of frozen earth, wheels grinding through mud hardened by late-autumn frost.
I no longer knew how many weeks had passed since the inspection—three? Four? The days had blurred into a single, unbroken rhythm of rattling wheels, clanking armour, and the smell of terrified bodies crammed into steel.
Cold wind leaked in through the bars, brushing over my bare ankles like skeletal fingers. We had travelled deep, far deeper, into Drakovian territory. A few days ago, the caravan had veered sharply west, onto an old military road half-swallowed by frost and weeds.
“Scout patrols hit the lower roads. Chancellor says to stay on the old route,” one of the soldiers had complained loud enough for us to hear.
“Good,” another replied. “Last thing we need is Aelorian dogs trying to reclaim their scraps.”
The narrow path cut through hills and ravines, harder, colder, more isolated. If anyone was searching for us… they would never find this trail.
I sat near the back of the cage, legs folded neatly beneath me, hands quiet in my lap. Head bowed. Eyes soft, unfocused.
Mira.
That was the name inked on the parchment tied at my waist.
NAME GIVEN: Mira
AGE EST: 23–26
CONDITION: Fertile. Silent. Non-aggressive.
SUITABLE FOR TRANSPORT TO THE CAPITAL.
A name for a body, not a person.
I had survived the healers’ test by inches, reacting only to gestures, trembling when their hands neared my face, letting fear blur into performance until even the suspicious ones decided I wasn’t worth extra effort.
Rubin’s presence pulsed faintly beneath it all. A bruise under my ribs. A tug beneath my skin.
Rubin… where are you? Are you alright? Are you searching? Will you find me?
Every question collapsed into the same crushing silence.
A gust of wind shoved the wagon sideways, and for a heartbeat, I smelled smoke—burning cedar, scorched wool—Rubin’s scent from the morning we parted.
The memory stabbed through me: his roughened fingers brushing my cheek, the soft scrape of his beard against my jaw when he kissed me goodbye, the warmth of his breath when he murmured his promise.
I was still waiting.
The wagon rattled violently, and an omega beside me whimpered. I didn’t react. Skittishness drew eyes. Eyes drew questions.
The others sometimes watched me. Most were Drakovian-born—tall, hardened things with too-sharp eyes. They whispered when the guards drifted ahead, trading stories that made my stomach knot.
Across from me, Sera crouched with her knees hooked up, fingers looping lazily around a bar. She wasn’t caged consistently—sometimes riding with the other drakovian omegas behind the wagons, sometimes tossed back in with us if the soldiers were annoyed or bored. An extra body wasn’t worth the paperwork.
Now she watched me again, gaze flicking briefly to the parchment.
“Fertile,” she muttered under her breath, voice low enough that the guards riding alongside the wagon couldn’t hear. “The worst word to have inked beside your name.”
Others murmured agreement—dark, defeated.
Another omega—Nalia—whispered, “The capital has pits. Breeding pits. They keep the outside ones there.”
“Not pits,” said a freckled girl. “Basements. Hovels. They make omegas—”
A spear slammed against the bars.
“Quiet.”
The girl fell silent instantly. I didn’t flinch. But my heart hammered so hard I feared it would break my ribs.
Breeding pits. Experiments. Noble hunts. Stories I’d heard whispered by Aelorian soldiers, dismissed as fear-mongering propaganda—now confirmed by those who had lived under this nightmare all their lives.
A pregnant omega from my village curled into the corner, shoulders shaking silently. My hand rose toward my own stomach before I caught the motion and forced it down.
What if I am? What if Rubin had left more than heat and memory in my blood?
A faint nausea pressed at my throat. If I were carrying… would the healers have known? I didn’t dare find out.
The wind howled, battering the cage like a hungry beast. The Drakovian cavalry pressed onward, hooves pounding frozen dirt, armour clanking in an irregular rhythm—a cold, metallic heartbeat.
Outside, the terrain gradually shifted as we travelled deeper into Drakovian land. At first, starving villages. Homes half-collapsed—children with eyes too big for their faces. Then poorer settlements with thin-smoke fires. Exhausted but surviving. Then small towns with full markets, sturdier roofs, and citizens who watched the caravan with wary respect.
And now—hills of worked stone. Wealthy farmland. Solar forges blinking gold in the distance. The change was nauseating. Starve the poor. Feed the rich. Use the omegas to fuel both.
By midday, the wagons slowed. The alphas riding flank tensed, weapons shifting in easy reach. A dust cloud rippled ahead—too fast, too wild.
The soldiers muttered.
“Bandits?”
“No—scouts. Aelorian colours.”
“Already? King must be pushing harder at the border.”
“Chancellor Varyon said the Aelorian king must fall before winter.”
“And without the riverlands, Drakovia will starve.”
I froze. This wasn’t just raids. It was a calculated war. The knowledge coiled like ice in my lungs.
A glint of steel flashed ahead—then a scream, a horse’s shrill cry, and suddenly—chaos.
The wagon lunged; bodies slammed together. I braced silently.
The first death came fast. A girl screamed too loudly. A soldier thrust his spear through the bars—through her throat. Her body slumped forward, twitching, blood blooming across the floorboards.
“Next one who makes a sound joins her.”
Silence fell like a burial shroud.
My vision blurred. My breath hitched. Shoulders trembled with a terror I couldn’t contain. Why take us alive only to kill us for noise? What purpose did cruelty serve but cruelty itself?
From the wagon across, a broad-shouldered girl suddenly lunged at the locked wagon door, forcing it open. She didn’t make it a full step. An arrow from a mounted alpha struck her square in the back. She collapsed, fingers scrabbling uselessly in the dirt.
No one moved again.
“Secure the stock!” a soldier shouted.
The wagons halted fully. Bodies were yanked out unceremoniously. The omegas still breathing were counted and forced back into tight formation. No one spoke of the dead again.
The skirmish ahead lasted minutes, ending with a few Drakovian shouts and the sight of two bodies dragged to the roadside—men in patched leather with Aelorian colours slashed across the chest.
The wagons resumed moving.
By sundown, the caravan set camp in a forest clearing. Fires burned low. Alphas lounged, sharpening blades, laughing over wineskins. We omegas were left in the cage wagon, door padlocked, a single guard posted on the step.
I kept still, staring at the space where the girl had died. My eyes burned, tears streaming silently.
A shadow loomed.
A soldier climbed the wagon step. His eyes swept lazily over us until they landed on me. He leaned in.
Sera stiffened on the far side as she served the soldiers. The others pressed back, trying to vanish into the walls though there was nowhere to go.
I kept my eyes on the dried stain, not hearing the footsteps. A hand reached through the bars toward my face.
“Uftar!” another voice barked from across the camp. The hand froze.
I lifted my eyes just enough to see Marek stride over, tall, severe, the pinned sleeve of his missing arm stiff against his side.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
The soldier shrugged. “Just helping myself—”
“Capital stock. Not yours to use.” Marek stepped closer. His voice dropped into a rasp. “Touch her again, and I’ll remove your fingers. One by one.”
The soldier spat and retreated.
Marek’s gaze flicked to me. “You again, quiet one?” I shifted my stare immediately. He didn’t linger, but I felt his attention long after he left.
Night passed in shivering fits. No one slept well. By dawn, frost coated the bars of the wagon in delicate silver veins.
We resumed the journey, moving deeper, farther, toward a future I feared more with every mile.
And the land changed yet again. Wide fields. Prosperous estates. Well-fed villagers. Roads paved smoothly. Markets bustling even in the cold.
Sera edged closer around midday. When the guards weren’t looking, she slipped a small hunk of stale bread into my hand.
“You’re hungry,” she murmured, sneaking it into my cold fingers. “Not like the others. Different.” She tapped her own stomach lightly. “I know the signs.”
I froze.
Her mouth tightened. “If you’re carrying…” She looked toward the horizon. I followed her gaze. Ahead—rising between jagged black cliffs—stood the colossal gates of the Drakovian capital. Dark stone. Towering battlements. Iron spikes shaped like dragon teeth. Torches blazed along the walls, flickering like watchful, hungry eyes.
“…you’ll both die in there,” Sera whispered.
The gates of the Drakovian capital opened.