Page 49 of Wed to the Orc Captive

Vrathgar regarded me, impassive, like he’d stripped the recognition from his eyes. That was fine. I was used to the idea that he was angry. I could endure whatever he was going to do.

“Hey, that's better!” Tyralk crowed. “You don't look like you just butchered someone now!” I froze. I must have reacted, because his eyes widened. “Not that there's anything wrong with killing someone sometimes, Rowena’s done it plenty⁠—"

“Tyralk,” Vrathgar said. “Shut up.”

And then his hand was on my back, and he was guiding me towards the door.

Khal stepped to join him. “I’ll walk with you.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” There was no venom in Vrathgar’s tone. “You are not required to go find trouble for yourself.”

“You’re at more risk alone.”

“I will be safe walking to my own house. The people who hate you want me alive, because they want you ashamed.”

“I could go,” Tyralk muttered. He was still flushed after his fumble over my murders.

“Mmhm. I love your mother too much to drag her kid along. Go eat something before your last milk-teeth come in.” He got us out the door, that confident roll to his shoulders, but I noticed that he slowed on the stone steps, that he took the way down more carefully, and I stayed close. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he started to fall.

We were walking a different way than Rowena had taken me. Sunlight filtered down from that palm’s-breadth of sky, and noises became louder, voices laughing, arguing, sounds of clacking wood and striking flesh and shouts. My shoulder brushed his, and I sensed the way he tensed, his inhale as the road turned. And then we broke the circle of trees, and it was another world.

A makeshift market was laid out on oilcloth and wooden tables, pieces of massive beasts, teeth as long as my forearm, pelts in rippling, shadowy colors, a head like a millstone sitting on a table. And women…orc women, bare arms, necklaces clinking with teeth and prey-tokens, they were laughing and haggling. Muscles rippled in arms, heads were thrown back to laugh. I’d never thought of myself as physically weak, but that one standing next to the beast’s head, laughing…she looked like she could tear me in half.

Wood thudded into flesh, and beyond the market, in a wide circle of earth ringed in stones, two young orcesses sparred with staves. They moved so fast, rapid clanking and wheeling and dancing in and out. They weren’t worried about the sunlight on their legs. Their only concern for gathered eyes was showing off this, this brutal, ferocious strength, back and forth, in and out till a blow landed, and an opponent went down.

The victor— she had a wicked scar tracing down her neck, a blue feather in her hair— she reached to help the other up, her teeth bared in joy. And then she saw us.

And I’d been so taken with seeing all of them that I hadn’t even noticed how they were looking at us.

The joy died in her eyes.

Quiet was spreading out around us, conversation ceasing. Vrathgar murmured greetings to some old orcs, and they scowled. One turned away. One spat in the dust. Then someone whistled and a holler went up. I clung to his arm, instinctively, and I think that was the wrong move, because some of the warriors with the necklaces joined in laughing. A few of them shouted questions, or something— I couldn’t understand— and Vrathgar sped up his gait. We were moving towards a wooden walkway, like a bridge wrapping up into the trees— how was this real life?— and a woman, the tall one who’d stood by the monstrous beast’s head, stepped to block the way, leaning on the wooden rail.

Her weight was back on her arms, casual, her face smiling, but nothing about this felt friendly. Least of all the way Vrathgar halted, rigid, next to me.

She said something in their language, her eyes sliding over me, waved a hand. “Hello.”

I didn’t want to offend them. “Hello,” I got out, and a laugh went up. I clung tighter to his arm. He felt like he’d turned into a block of wood, so tense no part of him moved.

She said something else, and he answered, few words, bitten off. Her mouth pulled into a pout, and she gestured to me again. He repeated.

She slid out of the way, still blocking part of the walkway, but enough that Vrathgar ushered me through. As he passed she ran her hand down his arm.

There were shrieks and whispers behind us, and Vrathgar was moving quicker, limping now. Had he been hiding the limp? I hurried to keep up, to not faceplant into the boards of the walkway. I felt light-headed, likely still weak from that fever, but I wasn’t about to antagonize him by asking him to slow down now. A few minutes' trek, past doorways and homes that snaked around the trees, that were in the trees, lights below and above, and he stopped outside a cottage door, clean white plaster and red shutters on the wide windows latched closed.

He took another breath, like this was another thing to brace for, and I remembered our own customs, carrying a bride over the threshold, expectations for what came afterwards. Would he be too ruffled by the orcs’ reaction to want that, maybe inhibited by his injuries, or still angry with me, or…

Anger never seemed to affect the appetites of the men at home.

“Do you have customs here?” My voice scraped. I flinched at the sound.

A muscle ticced in his jaw. “Probably the same number of foolish customs as your people, wife, with the same number of fools following them.”

So he was angry. I nodded, felt myself go calm. And that's the odd part, isn't it, how much worse the waiting is than when you finally get what you expect. How whatever punishment you've waited for feels like relief, just because you've waited for it.

He pushed open the door.

It was so empty.