Chapter 13: The Price Of Songs… I Do Not Share!

Chapter 13: Chapter 13: The Price Of Songs... I Do Not Share!

Inside Vara’s chamber the fire had been built high.

The air already smelled of smoke, berry oil, and the faint copper of the day’s blood that still clung to Korr’s skin.

Vara turned on him the moment they were alone.

She shoved him back against the stone, mouth crashing into his, teeth scraping his lower lip until she tasted blood.

Her hands worked the loincloth free with practiced speed.

She wrapped her fingers around his cock and stroked him once, hard, feeling him thicken under her grip.

"On the furs," she ordered.

He went. She followed, shedding the vest and skirt in two motions, the bone necklace swinging between her heavy breasts.

She straddled him, guided him to her entrance, and sank down in one long, claiming drop of her hips.

A low sound left her throat as she took him to the root.

Then she began to ride deep, deliberate strokes that made her breasts sway and the necklace click in steady rhythm.

"You walked out of their camp still standing," she said between breaths.

"The tribe saw.

The captives saw.

Elka saw.

Every song they sing tonight is another stone in the wall around what is mine."

Korr’s hands gripped her waist, then slid up to cup her breasts, thumbs dragging over the tight nipples.

He thrust up to meet her, the healing cut on his side pulling but ignored.

The wet sound of their joining filled the cave. Outside the drums still pounded. Inside, Vara took her victory with open hunger.

She leaned forward, changing the angle, grinding down harder.

"Elka will not stop.

She smells the weight of your name and wants a share of it.

Gron watches the balance of the Tribunal and wonders how long one Matron can hold a symbol this bright.

And the new captives... some of the River women already look at you the way the tribe does."

She sat back again, riding faster, one hand braced on his stomach.

"I do not share. Remember that when the songs grow louder and the offers grow sweeter."

Korr drove up harder.

"I remember who claimed me first."

Something fierce flashed in her eyes.

She came with a sharp, shaking cry, inner walls clamping around him in strong pulses. The rhythmic pull dragged him over the edge with her.

He held her hips and spilled deep, the two of them locked together while the feast noise continued beyond the stone.

Afterward she stayed seated on him, breathing hard, silver-streaked hair falling around her face.

Slowly she lifted off, seed already beginning to trickle down her thigh, and reached for a soft hide cloth.

She cleaned herself with practical motions, then tossed the cloth to him.

"Sleep while you can," she said.

"Tomorrow the real work of victory begins. Captives must be sorted.

The eastern grounds must be held with more than songs.

And the Tribunal must decide how tightly to close its hand around what it has taken."

She settled against his uninjured side, one leg thrown over his, and closed her eyes. Korr stared at the painted ceiling until the drums finally began to fade and sleep took him.

Morning brought a different kind of heat.

The tribe gathered in the arena again, this time for judgment rather than celebration. The River captives who had sworn were brought forward in a line men too wounded to fight, women of various ages, a few older children.

Vara, Elka, and Gron sat on the high ledge.

Korr stood behind Vara’s seat, axe at his side, the marks of the previous night still faint on his skin beneath the ochre.

Vara’s voice carried cleanly.

"Those who swore under the Tribunal’s law will be given work, food, and a place among us.

In time they may earn more.

Those who look at our fires with hate still in their eyes will find the pit instead.

Choose carefully when you are asked."

One by one the captives were questioned. Most bowed their heads and accepted.

A few spat defiance and were dragged toward the holding caves for later judgment in the sand.

Among the women who remained, several younger ones kept glancing toward Korr with a mixture of fear and something sharper.

The weight of the songs had already reached them.

When the sorting ended, Elka rose and walked down into the arena.

She stopped in front of a tall River woman with dark hair and a healing cut across one cheek clearly a fighter before the camp fell.

Elka spoke to her in low tones, then looked up at the ledge.

"This one has skill with a spear.

I will take her into my band for training. Better she bleed for us than against us."

Vara’s expression did not change.

"As you wish.

See that she learns the difference quickly."

Elka’s gaze flicked to Korr for a brief, deliberate moment before she led the River woman away.

The message was clear enough to anyone watching closely: Elka was already gathering pieces of her own.

Later, in the quieter heat of the afternoon, Gron found Korr near the water channel.

The elder’s face looked more cracked than usual in the harsh light.

He spoke without preamble.

"The songs grow too loud, boy.

Loud songs make men ambitious and women possessive.

Vara has bound you tightly.

Elka tests the binding.

The tribe watches to see which holds.

Do not mistake their hunger for your strength as loyalty to you.

It is loyalty to the story they want told.

Stories change when the teller changes."

Korr met the old man’s eyes.

"And what story do you want told, Elder?"

Gron’s mouth twitched in something that might have been a smile on a less weathered face.

"The one where the Tribunal still stands when the next winter comes.

Everything else is noise."

He walked away, leaving Korr alone with the sound of the water and the growing certainty that the war on the river had only cleared the ground for the quieter, more dangerous war inside the kingdom.

That evening Vara summoned him again. This time there was less fierce claiming and more deliberate possession.

She had him on his back, her mouth on his cock first

slow, thorough, taking him deep until his control frayed then climbing up to sink onto him and ride with rolling, controlled hips while she looked down into his eyes.

"The captives change the balance," she said quietly as she moved.

"New blood.

New hungers.

Elka is already collecting.

Gron is already calculating.

And you... you are the stone everyone wants to build their next wall around."

She leaned down, breasts brushing his chest, and bit the side of his neck hard enough to mark. "Stay mine, Korr.

The alternative is a kingdom that eats its strongest before the next moon."