Chapter 214: The Hostage Situation

Chapter 214: The Hostage Situation

There he is.

Sir Odran the Radiant. The Gilded Galloper. The Walking Hard-On in a cape.

Riding his pristine white stallion like he’s posing for a tapestry, lance raised, hair fluttering, cheekbones all sharp and noble and tragically stupid.

He sees me.

I give him a little wave from the clouds.

He smirks.

Gods, I hate how good he looks when he’s complicit.

The crowd roars as he lines up for the joust. His opponent looks like a half-melted candlestick in chainmail. No chance. Doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the match. This is about the moment.

I crouch low against the Dragon’s spine, wind in my face, grinning like a lunatic.

“Target locked,” I whisper.

The Dragon grumbles. “Do I really have to—”

“YES. Dive now. I want screams.”

We drop.

Fast.

The world rushes up in a blur of velvet tents and squealing nobles. Someone drops a flag. A trumpet blares. Hooves pound—

And bam.

The Dragon snatches Odran clean off his horse with one precise swipe of his claw, like scooping up a pastry. The horse keeps running. Odran goes airborne, arms flailing in fake panic.

“UNHAND ME, FOUL BEAST!” he bellows, perfectly on cue.

I cackle.

The crowd erupts into hysteria. A lady faints onto her husband's codpiece. A dog yelps. One bard starts screaming “The prophecy!”

We wheel away from the chaos, banking hard over the main tent, scattering banners and roast chickens.

I scramble down the Dragon’s foreleg and into the claw, landing face-to-face with our “hostage.”

“Hello, my sweet idiot,” I say, yanking off his helmet. “Comfortable?”

He grins, eyes wild with adrenaline. “I was born for this.”

“Oh, I know,” I purr. “That scream was chef’s kiss. The part where you flailed your arms? Inspired.”

The Dragon sighs. “Do I get hazard pay for this?”

“No,” I snap. “You get roasted turnips and my eternal gratitude.”

“So just the turnips.”

I elbow Odran as he tries to shift in the claw. “Keep still. If you fall, we can’t ransom you. Your bones aren’t worth that much.”

He laughs. A real one.

And for a second, as the wind screams past and the nobles below scatter like ants with fancy hats, it feels… good.

Stupid, dangerous, doomed.

But good.

We’ve got a knight in the claw, a plan on parchment, and about three hours before the world catches up.

Plenty of time to ruin something beautifully.

***

Sir Odran is tied to a chair in the middle of the ruined hall, looking like a very expensive roast waiting for a garnish. Wrists bound behind his back, ankles lashed to the legs, shirt artfully torn for dramatic effect, a tasteful smear of fake blood on his cheek courtesy of my thumb and some berry jam.

The Dragon looms over him, unimpressed.

“Was this strictly necessary?” he asks, nostrils flaring as he inspects the knots. “He looks like a badly staged dinner theatre hostage.”

“I was wondering the same,” Ogden mutters through the gag I just re-tied because he got snippy. “This rope is chafing. And this chair smells like goat.”

“Oh, please,” I say, adjusting his collar so his collarbone catches the light just right. “One: it serves you right for marrying behind my back.”

He groans. “I told you—”

“Shhh. Hostages don’t talk.”

The Dragon coughs. “Technically, they scream. Should I light something for ambiance?”

“Two,” I continue, ignoring both of them, “it’s for authenticity. We’re professionals. This isn’t some half-assed kidnapping by a jealous ex and her large, scaly life coach. This is a high-end hostage extraction service.”

The Dragon mutters, “Life coach is generous.”

I whirl on him. “What if someone barges in? Huh? And they see him not tied up? You think they won’t immediately clock that pretty-boy paladin is in on the deal?”

The Dragon tilts his head. “Do you expect someone to barge in?”

I shrug. “It’s a ruined keep. Barging is what keeps like this do.”

“I can still hear you,” Ogden says. “And I’m having second thoughts.”

“Too late,” I chirp. “Your fiancée’s father is about to cough up a sack of imperial florins big enough to build me a bathhouse.”

“I feel used.”

I lean in, whispering in his ear, “You are used. And if you’re very lucky, I might use you again.”

He flushes. The gag goes back in.

The Dragon sighs and paces toward the crumbled window, peering out at the sunset. “Honestly, we should’ve just sold him to the Amazons.”

“Tempting,” I admit. “But this way we get paid and I get closure.”

“Is closure always this… rope-intensive?”

“With me? Always.”

The Dragon shakes his head. “You’re a menace.”

I blow him a kiss. “And you love it.”

He grumbles. Ogden muffles something through the gag. I slap his thigh just hard enough to make him jump.

“All right,” I say, clapping my hands. “Let’s ransom a bastard.”

***

“Don’t smudge it,” I mutter to myself, hunching lower over the parchment.

The quill is shit. The ink smells like donkey ass. The letters are uneven and probably half-wrong. But I’m doing it.

I’m writing the godsdamn ransom note.

Behind me, the Dragon shifts, looming and sighing like a disappointed governess. “You know I should be doing this.”

“No.”

“I have better handwriting.”

“No.”

“I know how to spell ‘sovereign’ correctly.”

“I said no.”

He pauses, tail swishing with dramatic restraint. “Saya. Darling. You once misspelled your own name on a forged brothel license.”

“That was calligraphy, and I was drunk.”

He leans in. “You wrote ‘Soya the Wench.’ With a carrot drawing.”

“Shut up.”

Ogden, tied and gagged (again), makes a small choked noise that might be laughter or maybe mild strangulation. I ignore him.

I dip the quill again, shake the excess ink off with a flick that sprays a blot onto my thigh. Great. Bloodstain chic. Authentic.

The Dragon tries again, more gently now. “Let me just—”

“Don’t take this from me.”

That stops him.

I don’t look up.

“You can hoard the gold. Torch the tower. Write the memoir. But this?” I jab the parchment with the tip of the quill. “This is mine.”

He lowers his snout slowly, respectfully.

“All right.”

I keep writing.

WE GOT YOR KNITE

he iz not ded… yet

giv us LOTS GOLD (real ones not fake church coins)

put it under bird poo brige at midnite

come alone or we chop bits

Sinsirly,

THE BAD GUYS

(very serius)

I pause. “How do you spell sincerely?”

The Dragon groans and knocks his forehead softly against a pillar.

I smirk. “That’s what I thought.”

This might be the worst ransom note ever written.

But it’s mine.

And for once, it’s me holding the strings.

***

“Um,” says the Dragon from the window slit.

The way he says um means run.

Means oh gods it’s worse than we thought.

“What?” I snap, still adjusting the ribbon on Ogden’s fake neck wound for drama.

He cranes his long neck around, eyes wide. “Mercs. A dozen, maybe more. Crest of House Glavorn. Looks like a private kill team.”

“Okay,” I say, slowly backing toward the window too. “Okay, we can improvise. We’ve improvised before.”

“They’ve got two griffon riders.”

I freeze.

“No,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he hisses. “Red plumes. Amazon gear. And they’re descending.”

I whirl on Ogden.

Still tied. Still gagged. Still smug somehow, the bastard.

“You told them, didn’t you?” I growl.

He shrugs with his eyebrows. That’s all he can do. I may have overdone the knots this time.

The Dragon is already crouching low, preparing for liftoff. “Saya. We leave. Now.”

I hesitate.

Just a second.

Then I rush to Ogden, grab a handful of his hair, tilt his head back, and kiss him hard — open-mouthed, messy, spiteful.

I pull back and slap him lightly on the cheek, palm lingering.

“Good luck in married life, you absolute asshole.”

He grunts something muffled. Probably a threat. Or a moan.

I bolt toward the Dragon.

Outside, the shriek of a descending griffon tears the sky open.

“Sorry, no refunds!” I shout over my shoulder.

The Dragon grabs me in one claw and launches us upward, wings beating like thunder. The roof crumbles behind us.

I catch one last glimpse of Ogden below — still tied to the chair, wide-eyed, surrounded by stone, feathers, and incoming doom.

He’ll live. Maybe.

Probably.

If his in-laws love him enough.

And if not?

Well.

I already said goodbye.