Page 52 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“I should go with⁠—"

“I will be safe at the stream. The people who hate you want me alive, don’t they?” He didn’t answer, and I got out, “Please.”

He turned away, nodded.

I fled.

My legs still wobbled from yesterday's fever, and wooden planks clunked under my feet. And I hadn't lied when I said I'd seen the stream, that I could find the way, but my eyes hadn't been blurred with tears before.

I was a fool. I was a little fool. And of all the outcomes I'd prepared myself for, this wasn't one of them.

Splashing sounded, calling and laughter.

I stopped on the earthen path. Drinking water should be gathered upstream from bathing, and I wasn’t ready to be seen by anyone. But I didn't know which way the stream flowed.

The laughter stopped when I came into view, a group of women as young as me, one washing a garment in the shallows, the others wading with already short skirts hiked higher. They had necklaces like Vrathgar did, intricate knots and beads, pieces of tooth and claw and fur. Trophies.

The water was flowing that way. I turned away, started moving upstream.

“Hey!” One of them was striding towards me through the shallows, an amused twist to her mouth. Her accent was thicker than the others. “You kill?”

I didn’t understand. “What?”

“Married. You kill?” She’d stopped not two feet from me, so much of her body on display in this dress, pulled a spear off her back. I flinched, and the ones in the water laughed. “Married,” she repeated. “You kill?”

I clutched the water jar to me, a foolish stand-in for a shield. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She swung the spear over her head, held it out, like I could take it. I shook my head. Someone snickered.

A deeper voice came from the bank behind me, chiding, and the spear-woman rolled her eyes and bantered something back. When she turned away, there was something like contempt in her face.

“I’m sorry about that,” the voice said behind me. “They haven’t had as much opportunity to speak Common, given the way our peoples interact.”

The stranger had a handsome face, for an orc, an unassuming frame. He kept his distance, raised his hands, as if he could see me stiffen, see me waiting for something worse, and that brought a flood of heat to my face. None of those women in the stream before me seemed on edge with him. Any of them looked able to take him in a fight, and here I was, still shaking like a rabbit. He smiled.

“What was that about?” I asked, if nothing else to divert from the shame. My throat felt a little raw.

“It’s customary for our young women to prove themselves in battle or the hunt before they take a husband. She was asking if you were blooded, as a warrior.”

“I slit a man open on the way here, if that counts.” My entire stomach ached.

A laugh burbled out of him. “Whether or not it counts, it’s nothing to scoff at.”

I surveyed the water. I was used to wells. I was used to springs. Moving water was harder. Should I draw from the middle? I had no interest in getting sopping wet, or in baring my legs to this stranger.

“I’m sorry they were so aggressive. They know Rissa quite well, so it makes sense there’s some friction.”

I leaned out to dip the jar into the water.

“Did he tell you about them? About her?”

At least the water was clear in this place. “No one has told me anything.”

“No one?” He seemed troubled. “Well, that’s not my place.” I didn’t contradict him.

I had to steady the jar as it grew heavier, shoved my sleeves farther up my arms.

“That’s a nasty bruise there.”