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Marvik quirks a brow. “Can you take your knife away from my throat first?”
I glower at him. “No. Answer me.”
The human sighs. Actuallysighs, like I’m the unreasonable one, thrice-damn him. But he answers. “I came here to find you. Why else would I be here?”
“But why did youwantto find me? Do you not get it? You are free. Free to go wherever you want, do whatever you want. I do not want or need your life debt.”
“I know,” he responds. “You made that abundantly clear when you left.”
“Then, again, why are you here? Go be with your sister! Don’t you want to see for yourself that she is safe and happy?”
He looks considering, the calculating look I am used to briefly on his face. Like he’s weighing what to tell me, how much to tell me. It makes me wary and I tighten my grip on my knife.
Finally he says, “I did. Last night.”
Confusion wars with frustration in my heart. “What do you mean you did last night?”
Marvik answers, “Since you took all the supplies and money when you left, I had to stay in Portia for a few days, working odd jobs and earning coin. While working, I listened to gossip. I heard that the king and queen would be in Grimblton soon.”
My heart lurches for a moment. Rognar in Grimblton? So close? “For your mother’s trial?”
Marvik nods tightly, avoiding my knife biting into his skin. “And because of that plot to destabilize the country that the innkeeper in Kingsbury mentioned. With the fires. Apparently, the High Houseswere involved. Adalind and her husband are traveling to the capital to sit in judgment over the trials.”
He continues, “Since I was coming here anyway, I decided to see with my own eyes how your king treats my sister. I had your word that your king was a good orc, but there was a part of me that wanted, thatneeded, to know for myself. I used some of my earnings to buy a spyglass and, when I arrived last night, I watched them from afar through their window before your king closed the curtains. You were right. I have never seen my sister so content and unguarded.”
Marvik looks a little sad as he says the words. Questioning, I prod, “Isn’t that a good thing?”
A bitter little smile plays on Marvik’s lips. “It’s the best news I could have gotten. Once, it would have been the only thing I wanted to hear. But it also just shows how much I failed her as a brother when I was in her life.”
I shake my head, even as I keep the dagger at his throat. “That wasn’t your failing, but Yorian’s and your parents’. You werealsoa child when your parents were abusing her. There wasn’t much you could do against them. And now you could be together with your sister, without their specters between you. Why did you watch her from afar when you could have just reunited with her?”
“I’ve learned from you how sensitive an orc’s nose is, which is why I stayed so far away. But as to why I didn’t reunite with her . . . if she is happy without me, maybe it is for the best that I am out of her life. Especially after all the sins of my family against her. Maybe this is her chance to start fresh.”
I growl a little at his self-pitying words. “If you believe that, you are a fool. No one is better off with a loved one dead.”
He shrugs again, “Maybe. But that is not the only reason that I want to stay a dead man.”
“What do you mean?”
Marvik’s eyes sharpen, piercing me with their intensity. “ThoughI am glad to have seen my sister and her happiness, that was merely a bonus. When I woke up and you were gone, having taken everything and left me with nothing, all I could think about was you. Though I probably should have been angry, or maybe even relieved, all I felt was that I was desperate to see you again.”
His words immediately make me suspicious, like his words at the pond last week. He’s telling me what he thinks I want to hear again, I’m sure of it. But I don’t even get the chance to try to check his scent, when, looking at my face, Marvik shakes his head, making my knife accidentally bite into his skin. A red line appears, a shallow cut. Alarmed, I pull the knife back slightly, just enough that it is no longer touching his skin.
“I can see what you are thinking. It’s in your eyes. No, I’m telling the truth. I was worried about you, whether you would be alright.”
There’s no lie in his scent, but his words merely make me angry. I don’t want his pity. “I can take care of myself,” I snarl.
“I know,” he replies simply. “But there is more to being alright than simply taking care of physical needs. I know more about you than you might like. I know that you have lost everything, gave up everything to gamble on hope. And when I woke, I dashed those hopes, and you have been distancing yourself from me ever since. But I realized that means that you are hurting and trying to hide it, too strong and proud to let it show.”
It’s like my worst nightmare come to life. Heishere out of pity.
He continues, “But beyond my worry, I had the realization of what you said: that Iamfree. More than you even know. Ever since I was a child, there have been expectations on me. My parents wanted me to be the perfect heir, the inheritor of their will and work. My men needed me to be the perfect, undefeatable captain. My king expected me to protect him, even as he willfully harmed my sister. Even Adalind had expectations of me as a brother and protector, expectations that I failed again and again. But now, all that is gone.Everyone who knows me must think I am dead after this long. Like I said, I’m a dead man. And a dead man is free to do with his life what he likes. I could find my sister or go across the sea or become a hermit in the mountains. While I worked in Portia, believe me, I considered all my options. Do you know what I found?”
“What?” I ask, slightly breathless.
Marvik suddenly strikes upward, knocking my knife away from his throat. He does some footwork, grabbing me and twisting so that we switch places. Suddenly,Iam the one pushed up against the tree, Marvik looming above me, his gaze smoldering. He is holding me against the trunk with a firm grip, though loose enough that I could escape if I truly wanted to. Embarrassingly, I get wet at his forceful display and barely stop myself from thrumming.Damn my primal instincts.
“I found that, if I allowed myself to be selfish, the option that filled me with the most longing, the most hope for a bright future for myself, wasyou. You who have no expectations of me, you who might be my soulmate, everything that I didn’t know I was looking for. You, Dura. How could I go back to society and leave you behind? How could I let you go?” His face comes closer to mine, his intentions clear.
