Page 63 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“It’s very good,” I murmured. Vrathgar’s tension felt catching. Or maybe this was my own. Maybe every word from her felt like an undeserved kindness, for someone who’d entrapped her son.

“The outlands keep you too thin. You need hearty foods if you’re going to bear daughters.”

Vrathgar coughed, but it seemed like the least outrageous thing that had been said to me in the last fortnight.

She reached to take the bowl out of my hands, and I moved wrong.

It slipped.

The pottery shattered across the floor, bits and pieces, all the way to the hearth. I was on my feet. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll help⁠—"

But my speech was cut off by a sound, high, warbling, like it didn’t know whether to be a wail or a scream. Fenha’s gaze was fixed on the crockery, frozen, her mouth open.

“Mom, it’s alright.” Vrathgar was on his feet. Fenha dropped to her knees, breathing fast. I didn’t know what to call her. Did I say Fenha? Vrathgar’s-mother? Was I supposed to call her mum?

“It’s alright,” she repeated. “It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, we will fix it, it's alright—" She started grabbing up the pieces, slow and then faster, like she had to scoop all of them up in a race against whatever was hanging over us. Her hands were bleeding, both her hands now, grabbing up the shards.

“Mom. Mom, it’s okay.” Vrathgar grabbed for her wrists. “Mom⁠—"

With a ragged gasp, she yanked free, her hand in an arc, a sound as it hit. Blood slid from the fresh slice in his cheek.

She froze, her gaze only on him, so much fear. “No, no, your face…”

“I’m fine. We’re cleaning the bowl up. I’m fine⁠—"

She was touching his face, more blood smearing onto his cheek from her hand. Her hand moved to that scar, the dark purple, down his brow.

“Mum—"

She curled in on herself, a high, keening wail like someone had died. He pried the shards out of her fists, more blood, threw them down with the rest.

“Mum, I’m okay. It’s alright. Mum⁠—"

Bogdana would have had a draught for this, something to put her to sleep. Bogdana would have had what she needed, what he needed, trying to hold his mother as her mind went somewhere we couldn’t follow. And I didn’t even have my own voice, the magic strangling and muddling my tongue, turning everything I even tried to hum into something else. As much as I needed the magic to help me, I hated it. She didn't need words and reason; she needed comfort. I found in my mind the tether that held Rowena’s magic here, and I broke it.

I felt the flooded heat drain, felt its grip loose on my tongue.

I reached for a song I remembered, the lyrics long lost and unimportant, and I sang. I sang the rhythm and the call, the heartbeat and the breath. It was a lullabye my mother had taught me, a song she’d hummed when I was in her arms.

It didn’t make sense that good people suffered and were cut on the edges of how the world broke. I couldn't be a shield from blows, couldn’t fix this for her or him, but I could be a balm. I could beg what needed begging from my own heart that also screamed. I could put a blanket of song, this melody that rose and fell, between her and the pain, and I could make her not alone.

Slowly, her fists unclenched. The wailing became sawing breaths, then quiet, and he caught her as she dropped into his arms. He looked at me.

“This is magic?” he said. “You gave her sleep?”

He hadn’t given me permission to help. Fear clenched my ribs. I nodded.

He was holding her, shook his head. “Then we don’t need Grezha. If she’d fainted, I’d think…” he swallowed.

“I’ll clean this up,” I whispered. “You take care of her.”

I found a broom, swept the fragments into a pile while he carried her to a small bed. I found a rubbish pail for the pieces, a rag to mop the blood away. The cut on my own thumb stung. How many times had this happened, for his reaction to anything breaking to be stopping someone's hands?

My voice was hoarse from the force of the song, like more power had been running through me than I was used to using, but I felt steadier moving task to task.

He leaned against the fireplace. He still looked shaken. “Her hands,” he said. “If I could ask…” And it was the first time he’d asked it of me, the first time he hadn’t acted like my magic was a curse. My throat was strained, but I crouched over his mother’s small hands— she had such frail wrists— and I hummed again, crooning for the knicks and slices to heal, for the trouble to ebb away, for her to be spared pain. And there wasn’t much left of me, and even the little knicks didn’t heal all the way, but the scabs closed and browned. Perhaps it would hurt less, like having old cuts instead of fresh.

“That’s all I can do,” I squeaked.