Page 8 of Wed to the Orc Captive

The priest, Father Robert— God, I’d known him since I was five— he approached the cage, a pained anger in his face. He started the prayers. The light was daffodil-yellow through the doorway, throwing the purple shadows of the cage across my soon-husband’s face. “The chalice.” Father Robert cleared his throat. “The orc will need to approach the bars.”

With a roll of his eyes, my groom pushed himself onto his feet. The ropes were tight across his upper arms, his chest, cutting into the flesh. They’d tied him more after I’d gone. He lounged against the lattice next to the door. “You'll help me, wife?” I held up the chalice to a gap near his face. He drank.

“And for the hand-fasting—" Father Robert faltered, looking at the ropes. “...we will overlook that part.” The priest dabbed the blessing on each of our heads, his face still twisted in anger, or regret.

The Overseer fumbled with the keys. “Are you going to let me wash?” The orc drawled, and he almost dropped them. The orc raised his eyebrows. “That seems the minimum courtesy for your sacrificial bride.”

Silence hung.

Bogdana snapped, “For godsakes the door has to open anyway! And he’s tied! Are you going to let the beast be more considerate to our girl than you?”

Someone rolled in the rain barrel from outside, with the dipper. Bogdana scolded them through dragging the dingy guard cot inside. When they opened the cell, I focused on helping move the cot into the cage, and not the door locking behind me.

“You will be released in the morning.” Overseer Marsen sounded so uncertain. He shuffled in place.

The orc’s gaze was flat. “I assume you’re not staying to watch?”

The overseer flinched. Some command was announced. I didn’t watch any of them as they filtered out, just stood by the pallet bed, feeling the heat and cold flooding over me. I’d never fainted before. I wasn’t going to tonight. I would prove myself useful to the orc, and I would endure, and I would survive.

I stepped towards my groom. “Let’s get you out of those ropes.” I sounded calm. He sat at the edge of the narrow bed and didn’t protest as I moved around him, to the knots at his wrists, his lower back.

“I don’t suppose you brought a knife,” he rumbled.

The myriad ways a blade could make this night worse flashed before my eyes. “I did not.”

“Well. We didn’t have a pleasant interaction the last time you were here.”

I got slack on one of the knots, tugged the rope through. “Well,” I muttered, “this is not a pleasant circumstance.”

He let out a chuckle. I got one knot undone. One unbinding closer to my undoing.

“I didn’t expect the border towns to adhere to the old ways.”

“The old ways?” The rope cut into his forearm here, and I tried to still my pulse, be careful. I didn’t need to make my husband more my enemy.

“Thrak ishi and Tar ivan. Alliances by force. Our people have moved away from such things, though there are always backward enclaves.” He winced and the cord slid across the cuts. “Like yours, I suppose.”

My stomach twisted, pride and shame like a knot. “People do desperate things when they need to survive.”

He glanced back at me. “I meant no offense. My grandmother was a war bride. There is no shame in navigating this world as best we can.”

The last rope came loose under my fingers, sliding off, and my husband stood.

He was so much taller than me. Broader than me. Aside from the marks my kinfolk had put on him, this was a body peppered and nicked with scars, white against green in the pale lavender of the twilight. He rubbed the feeling back into his wrists, his hands, towering over the cot and me, over this whole cell, a lithe body and powerful.

He passed me and walked to the barrel.

“First things first.” He ladled water over his face, raked fingers through his hair. He kept speaking, even as he didn’t look at me. “I wasn’t about to ask you in front of them. No one’s forcing you to do this?” Another splash, water over the smooth expanse of his shoulders. “I’m not interested in forcing anyone.”

I wondered what happened if I said yes, what would even happen then. I held Todderick in my mind. “No,” I said. “This is the best choice for me.”

He continued his ablutions, water running down his back. “Well, congratulations, you are currently my best choice for survival as well.” He paused his task. “...that sounded flippant. Don’t worry. The Drashik keep their oaths.” He set the ladle down, started at the ties of his trousers, and I turned away, and he spoke behind me. “I can’t speak for the other hordes, but we do.”

That meant the town would be safe, I supposed. I should take that as some kind of comfort. I wished it relieved some of the cold dread in my chest.

“Are your family going to be angry about this?” His voice sounded light. “Do I have to fight someone when we're done?”

“No,” I whispered. “They're all dead.” I remembered in my haze that this troth had to bind him to the community. “—but I have many people here I care for.”