FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 297: Chapter 297: I’M READY!!

Lumi.

“Okay,” Gorr announced loudly, his voice grinding through the silence. “Since I am so understanding of your tribal customs, I will not push the matter of your daughter further.”

The Veynar elders let out a collective, shaky breath of relief.

“But…” Gorr continued, raising a single, pale finger and pointing it directly across the room. “Sincerity must still be shown. An alliance requires blood to seal the pact. I want her to be my bride.”

Everyone in the High Hall turned their heads, following the line of his finger.

Lumi stood frozen, her eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated terror. The wooden serving tray slipped from her numb fingers, clattering loudly against the stone floor, the nectar spilling like dark blood across the stones. She backed up until her shoulders hit the wall, her small frame shaking violently.

“I don’t think she has a hidden partner tucked away in the shadows, am I right?” Gorr asked, a cruel, sarcastic sneer twisting his face. He looked at Thorne. “A simple serving girl. A small token for the survival of thousands.”

Sol didn’t hesitate. He stepped away from Kira, his silver-crimson eyes flashing with immediate, aggressive rejection.

“No way,” Sol spoke, his voice cutting through the hall with absolute finality.

Prince Gorr’s head snapped toward him, the oily darkness in his eyes flaring with renewed malice. “Oh? You have got something else to say, outsider?”

“There’s no way something like this can happen,” Sol stated firmly, gripping his spear. “She’s not a piece of meat to be traded to secure your fragile ego. Pick some essence-roots from the baskets and leave the girls alone.”

Before Gorr could even respond to the insult, Elder Thorne practically threw himself into the middle of the room, his face flushed with panic and anger. He pointed a thick, calloused finger directly at Sol’s chest.

“Silence!” Thorne reprimanded him, his voice echoing loudly. “This is our tribe’s internal matter! You may have secured the Warchief’s daughter, outsider, but you have no right to dictate the political survival of the entire Veynar tribe! Who are you to decide what is possible or not when thousands of lives are on the line?”

Sol ignored Thorne completely. He turned his head, looking directly at Warchief Veylara, expecting her to unleash her Layer 4 pressure again and shut the tyrant down. He looked at the surrounding elders, expecting the same righteous outrage they had shown when Kira was threatened.

But as he scanned the room, a cold, heavy pit formed in his stomach.

They were completely silent.

Warchief Veylara sat rigidly on her throne, her jaw clenched, her storm-colored eyes deep and entirely unreadable. She did not raise her spear. She did not speak a word of defiance. The other senior elders looked down at the floor, refusing to meet Sol’s gaze, their faces tight with a grim, unspoken consensus.

Sol suddenly understood the brutal, horrific math of the Great Orrath.

Kira was the Warchief’s bloodline, an Elite Vanguard, a vital pillar of the tribe’s future. Her sacrifice was unacceptable. But Lumi? Lumi was just a commoner.

A sweet, bubbly serving girl with a weak Layer 1 core. In the cold, terrifying calculus of survival against the Zerith coalition, trading one common girl to secure an army of Zharun warriors was a bargain the elders were entirely willing to make. They hated it, it disgusted them, but they would not stop it.

Seeing the total, passive compliance of the Warchief and the council, Thorne felt a massive surge of encouragement.

“As you can see, Prince,” Thorne continued smoothly, turning his back on Sol to grovel before Gorr once again, “the tribe recognizes the honor you bring us. We would be delighted to—”

“Quiet, old man,” Gorr interrupted brutally, cutting Thorne off mid-sentence.

Gorr stood up slowly from his stone chair. He didn’t look pleased. He feigned a look of deep, profound insult, glaring toward Sol, then sweeping his gaze over Veylara and the silent elders.

“It seems you Veynar aren’t sincere at all,” Gorr rasped, his voice dripping with venom. “You allow an unranked stray to bark orders in your High Hall and insult your allies. If you despise us Zharun so much, if you think our aid is a joke to be mocked by outsiders, then there is no need for any further talk.”

He turned to his retinue of gaunt, pale-skinned elders. “We leave. Let the Zerith feast on their arrogance.”

Instantly, total commotion erupted in the High Hall.

The Veynar elders panicked, their previous silent consensus shattering as the reality of losing their only shield hit them. Warchief Veylara remained seated, her face a stoic mask, but her knuckles were stark white where she gripped her spear.

Gorr took a deliberate, heavy step toward the door, fully intending to force them to their absolute breaking point.

Suddenly, a loud, piercing voice shattered the chaos of the hall.

“I’M READY!!”

The desperate shout echoed off the vaulted ceiling, silencing the commotion instantly.

Prince Gorr stopped dead in his tracks. A slow, deeply satisfied smirk played across his bloodless lips. He turned around slowly, looking toward the far wall.

“What did you say?” Gorr asked, cupping a hand behind his ear in mock confusion. “I didn’t hear it properly.”

Lumi stepped away from the wooden pillar.

Her entire body was trembling so violently she looked like she might collapse at any second. Heavy, unbroken streams of tears flooded out of her bright eyes, tracking through the dust on her cheeks. She was gripping the fabric of her simple dress so tightly her fingers were white.

“I said… I am ready for this marriage,” Lumi repeated, forcing the words through her choked sobs. She tried to sound brave, to sound resolute, but her broken, terrified voice told the entirely true story of a girl walking to her own execution.

There was another, quieter uproar among the elders, a collective sigh of immense relief masked by feigned sorrow.

Sol immediately stepped forward, his spear dropping to his side. “No. Absolutely not. Lumi, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be afraid of him. Do not agree to this.”

Gorr didn’t say a single word to Sol. He just smirked deeper, his oily eyes shining with victory. He had broken the tribe’s spirit entirely.

Lumi looked at Sol. She saw the genuine anger and protectiveness in his silver-crimson eyes, a rare comfort in a brutal world. But she also saw the silent, desperate faces of the warriors and the elders standing behind him. She knew what would happen to her family, to her friends in the tirbe, if the walls fell tomorrow.

She violently shook her head, forcing a tragic, watery smile onto her face.

“I’m not forced, Sol,” Lumi lied, her voice cracking painfully. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her trembling hand. “I… I am happy for this marriage. It is my duty.”

Just as Sol opened his mouth to argue, to tear the entire diplomatic farce down and challenge Gorr himself, Elder Thorne aggressively stepped between them, his face flushed with panicked victory.

“Okay, okay! The matter is decided!” Thorne shouted loudly, desperately rushing to seal the deal before Sol could ruin it again. “Since the girl has agreed of her own free will, there is absolutely no need for any random person’s intervention! It is her choice!”

Thorne turned to the crowd, his voice taking on a sickening, theatrical tone of grand celebration. He threw his arms wide, gesturing toward the rotting, terrifying tyrant standing in the center of the room.

“And truly, it is her profound fortune to be able to marry Prince Gorr!” Thorne bellowed, piling on the sycophancy with nauseating enthusiasm. “He is the esteemed son of the current Zharun Chieftain, poised to become the next great leader of their people! And more importantly, the Prince is renowned across the lands for his virtues! He is extremely talented, deeply forgiving, and famously understanding of those beneath him!”

Sol stared at Thorne, genuine disgust twisting his features as the elder listed qualities that were the exact, horrific opposite of the monster standing before them.

“He is a kind and generous soul!” Thorne continued, his voice ringing through the hall as Lumi wept silently against the wall. “She is truly, incredibly lucky to be elevated to such a grand position! The alliance is sealed!”