Page 94 of Wed to the Orc Captive

I was shaking so hard my teeth clacked.

“Breathe,” he ordered. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” It didn’t look like hate on his face, just that same, cold mask.

“I didn’t go…for help. I just…” This must seem like nonsense to him. How did I explain the axe handle, the blood? I was retching in the leaves, and my hands looked clean but they felt sticky and cold, like they were smeared with blood and they’d always be.

His hand squeezed on my shoulder, tight. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

I shook my head. “I’m not…a good person. I watched him.” He’d know I was the monster now. He’d know it and he’d hate me and I still couldn’t lie. “I didn’t…I felt nothing. He’d been drunk and he got the axe. And then, then he fell…” His face was close, and I needed to stop, couldn’t. “He was begging for help and he had my wrist, he wouldn’t let go, and his belly-ropes were hanging out and I just…I watched. I watched the light leave his eyes while he cried, like some blubbering child, and he had my arm and I didn’t do anything or even comfort him, like he was just…And then the men in the forest…and now…” My hands were shaking. Maybe I’d never stop shaking again. “Vrathgar, I don’t know if I can kill again.”

His face was still that mask, severe. “I don’t need you to kill, Nora.”

The sound from my throat was strangled. “That is what they want. They want blood on my knife, they want more lives taken, but what if I can’t? What if I broke myself and I’m broken, and I can never fight again? What if I’m ruined by his awful, blubbering face? Like he broke me while he was alive and then he broke me by dying?” Vrathgar had my shoulder, and I needed to stop, but I couldn’t. “My mother couldn’t kill my father. She had the chance and she didn’t, and that’s why I’m here. How many times do we have to kill before we’re allowed to live?”

His hands closed over mine, and his voice was fierce. “You don't have to do it again. You don't have to do any of this ever again, do you ken?” He swallowed, like he fought something back. “You can have a garden and go out and gather leaves and flowers. You can work with Grezha and bake bread and rest and sing. The enclave doesn't need another fighter. I'll fight. You just heal.” There was blood sticky on his skin, but his hands were hot on mine. “I kill enough for both of us, do you ken?”

Krashak appeared behind him, looking pale, said something in Orcish. Vrathgar nodded at him, turned back to me. “Annora, our friend is hurt. I need you to help.”

I was still shaking like a leaf, stupid with terror.

“Can you help him? Can you help me?”

I pushed to my feet.

Bogdanna had barely had the chance to talk to me about snake bites. Hagnar didn’t appear to be envenomated, but the puncture wounds were deep. One of the fangs had torn down his face to skewer him above the collar bone, the other scoring across his ribs.

They had been applying pressure at the shoulder puncture, because stopping the blood was the first concern. It was clear he wouldn’t keep the eye, but stitches would help the torn lip, if we could get the rest of the bleeding to stop. I packed his shoulder with moss and tied the bandages tight. Larrakh and Tyralk held his hands while I sewed his face back together, already messy because of the swelling. It was odd that the action calmed me down, like I became a different person, detached. And even though my throat was tight from crying I managed to sing something stilted, and when I stopped the bleeding had been staunched, and he was unconscious.

Vrathgar crouched next to me in the leaves. “We’ll need to get him back.”

I didn’t answer, still swimming in all the decisions that weren’t mine to make. The love that wasn’t mine to keep.

“We’re allotting out the creature as quickly as we can. There aren’t many of us, and dragging Hagnar will take a lot of our force. But the glory of bringing back an aberration will be good for Tyralk. For all of us.”

“He’ll need Grezha, at the enclave,” I said.

Vrathgar’s lips pressed together. “We’re not going to the enclave,” he said. “We’ll meet them at the Kael, at the Great Stones.” For the trial was what hung in the air, unsaid. Unsayable.

So I’d never see our barren little house again. Not ever again. I nodded, swallowed. “Oh. Good.”

One of them yelled for his help, and he pulled away.

They dragged sledges, one for Hagnar and three for the beast's pieces. I stayed with our wounded as much as I could, foraged medicine and gathered kindling. I was grateful to the cooler weather for keeping the creature’s remains from stinking, and for being the reason that Vrathgar, who between the sledges and patrols was so buried we barely spoke, still lay beside me those nights, with so little said, keeping me warm.

I didn’t sing again, over anyone’s wounds. We couldn’t afford it if more monsters came. No one asked me to sing, and no one talked to me about my weakness in battle. I imagined I had always been bound to mess up badly enough, to become enough of a lost cause that eventually people gave up.

The stones of his people, their “kael,” rose above us on the fourth day. A central obelisk, wrapped in vines, surrounded by other stones flung out wide, a flurry of woven and hide tents splayed in all directions like a festival, bright colors, joyous voices calling the warriors back.

Vrathgar disentangled his arm from mine and went to speak with a tall woman with a severe face, who pointed to another tent. He craned his neck, nodded.

Rowena’s hands fastened on my own, her hair wild, and her cheek flushed.

“How was it?” she asked, and her voice had traces of their accent; she’d spent so much time here that even her speech was affected. And that made sense; she was the kind of bride they wanted. She was the one who’d get to stay, who’d get to belong. “I heard they killed a monster. Grezha is with Hagnar. The water helped you? You’re walking!”

I just nodded. There wasn’t anything else in me, besides. The tall woman said something sharp, and I made out a name, “Fenha.”

Oh. This must be the aunt he’d talked about. He was checking on his mother.

“Sephar’s grandmother tries to push for the trials to occur with the favorable moon. Her faction is best served if tensions are high moving into the waning crescent.” This felt like gibberish to me. “Are you prepared?” she said. “You’ve made your decisions?”