Guinevere moved in a blur in the opposite direction of Blair, deliberately snapping branches as she went.
She made it maybe fifty feet before they closed on her. Two of his men came out of the trees to her left.
She spun with her stolen blade and opened the first one's forearm before he could grab her. The second used his own blade to knock hers to the ground.
The first one she cut, grabbed her by the neck from behind.
"Not so fast."
As his partner secured a grip on her arm, he released her throat only to wrench her other arm behind her back.
They shoved her forward through the trees into a small clearing, where the masked mage was waiting. The soldiers drove her down to her knees, gripping her arms hard enough to bruise.
The mage took a lock of her hair between two gloved fingers and rolled it in the sunlight the way a jeweler rolls a stone towards a lamp.
"Who do we have here?"
His voice was low, carrying a kind of patient amusement that made the hair on her neck stand up.
Guinevere lifted her chin, looking at his mask. No eyeholes. Bold design choice. She didn't know if they were making eye contact, or for that matter, how he could see.
He turned his head towards a man in the treeline. The one who had given the orders back on the path.
"Is this her?"
The soldier nodded once. "That's the one. She dropped two of mine back there. Broke Varek's nose. Took Hollis's dignity."
"Did she now."
Her ribs and right hand were throbbing with her pulse and she tasted blood in her mouth. She was in no position to do anything but cooperate. But her mouth had other plans and what came out was not strategic.
"In fairness, Varek's nose had a crooked future ahead of it regardless. I gave it a much-needed correction. And Hollis's dignity was a preexisting condition before I showed up."
Behind her, one of the soldiers laughed, then turned it into a cough.
"For someone playing with dark magic, your recruitment pipeline is a bottom-tier, clearance bin tragedy. And that villain mask aesthetic you're going for is, frankly, the most ridiculous thing I've seen this week. A high bar you cleared with flying colors."
The mage's posture stiffened. A small warm spark of joy lit in the cold pit of her chest. Worth it. Possibly fatal.
"Why you little—"
She cut him off. "Original. Truly. Why you little. Haven't heard that one before."
There was a sound of wings from above, and a black dragon dropped into the clearing.
He shifted to human form as soon as he landed, already walking towards her.
He was tall. Not Maddox tall, but close. Dark hair, sharp features, a face that suggested old blood and older money.
Ignoring the mage entirely, he reached down taking the exact same lock of hair the mage was holding. The mage let go.
Guinevere looked at the mage, then back at the dragon. Pecking order established.
"Well." His voice was low and amused. "Things just got interesting."
He tilted her chin up with one finger. His eyes were the color of old iron.
"What are you."
Guinevere held his gaze. "I'm a servant."
He laughed. Actually laughed. It was a rich, delighted sound, and it chilled her more than the mage had.
"Not what I was asking. But please, insult my intelligence a little more, I'm enjoying it." He let her chin go and straightened. "Servants don't drop armored men in under a minute. Servants don't have a scent I can't place on two continents. Try again."
"Upper ward laundry." Guinevere's voice was flat. "The hours are brutal. The benefits are worse."
His mouth curved.
"Bind her."
They hauled her to her feet. One of the soldiers produced a length of rope from inside his cloak and stepped behind her. She didn't flinch when they tied her wrists with cord that bit into already raw skin.
A second length of rope went around her waist. A belt.
She glanced up at the iron-eyed man, eyebrows raised.
"A rope belt. Bold. I assume there's a vision."
He didn't answer, arms folded, clearly mindlinking his men.
The soldiers binding her seemed to realize that too. One of them frowned, then moved to tie a cloth over her mouth, gagging her. She rolled her eyes, unimpressed.
Another soldier latched a rope onto the belt they made. Creative. A leash. Most wolves would've been offended, but she appreciated the irony.
They moved through the forest in a tight formation meant for a prisoner far more dangerous than a girl who broke her hand punching one of their faces.
The stranger and the mage walked side-by-side in front. Behind them was a soldier holding her leash. Two additional soldiers flanked her.
Four grown-ass dragons and a mage for one girl. A personal best.
She let her hands go loose behind her back.
The rope was tight, but not as tight as silver, and whoever had tied her had tied it just loose enough she could wiggle out of it. Probably never tied a woman before. Not only a woman, but one who could shift.
She worked the loops in tiny, patient increments as she walked. One millimeter. Two. A twist of her thumb joint. She felt her thumb dislocate. The world flared white for a second, a hot, screaming needle of pain that she buried under a layer of cold iron will.
It'd take a day to heal. She'd survived worse. Her first shift was much more painful than that.
She kept her steps shuffling and her eyes down and her breathing perfectly even, and by the time they had gone another fifty yards, she had bought herself enough slack that the rope would slide off the moment she chose to let it.
She did not let it yet.
She needed the moment. She was going to have exactly one.
The stranger with iron eyes glanced back at her once over his shoulder. Whatever he saw in her face made him flash an annoying smile before he faced forward again. Like he'd already won.
The second he turned back around, she made her move.