Page 103 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

He nodded at her.

“You don’t believe me?” She studied his expression. “You are angry with me?”

“I don’t know that I could be angry with you,” he said, giving her a little smile, one full of affection. It was true that he was the only person who had treated her like family amongst her father’s people. Her father had a wife and he had three legitimate children. Hathrak was not the oldest of her half brothers, not the heir, but he had been overjoyed to have a sister, he had told her, and he had spent time with her during training, and they had been close for time. “It is only that you are a bit impulsive, beloved. You sometimes do things that I think are deeply dangerous. And I have not understood why you deserted the army. Now that I have you, I must know what happened.”

“Of course,” she said. “Well, it was impulsive.”

“Of course it was.” He chuckled, drinking his ale.

She gave him a wan smile. “I thought I could get the High King killed.” She shrugged. “I suppose I did do it, at that. I don’t know, however, how much of it was really me and how much of it was because there were wheels already turning. It was in motion before I got myself into the midst of it. It may have happened without me.”

“You are responsible for the death of Findas?”

“Well, I didn’t do it personally,” she said. “But I was part of it.”

“So, then, where have you been? Where did you go afterward? Have you been held prisoner by the elves in Cirlahir?”

She squirmed, unsure of what to admit to her brother. “No, not prisoner, no.”

“You were there willingly?”

“I went home to my mother,” she said.

He nodded. “Of course.”

“But my mother was not there,” she said. “A dragon had destroyed the family farm—”

“I’m ever so sorry!”

“Well, my mother is now living willingly with the dragon.”

Hathrak’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re making a jest.”

“I only wish I was.” She drank some ale, and she realized how genuinely tired she was, how long it had been since she had felt comfortable enough to rest, really rest. She realized it may have been years. It may have been sometime before Arzakh. But even then, even back at home on the farm with her mother and uncle, even then, she had never really felt quite comfortable either.

She tried to think of a place, any place, that had ever felt like a place she could relax.

And she couldn’t think of any place at all, but Iahir’s face danced there, Iahir who she could fall apart in front of, who she could allow to pleasure her, who seemed to accept her no matter what she had done.

Her half brother would not accept that she had been fucking an elf.

“But this explains nothing,” said her brother. “How did you end up in Cirlahir, tied up in that cave?”

She had just gotten finished thinking that her brother would never understand about her and Iahir. Now, she had to decide what to reveal and what to conceal. “A member of the kingsguard assisted in killing the High King,” she said. “We traveled together, and I ended up here with him. He is the next envivtain of Cirlahir.”

“The heir is the one who negotiated with me for you. So, you traveled with this man, and then he betrayed you?”

“No, that’s his brother. But he’s mad, really, out of his head. He thinks he’s three or four different people, all trapped inside his body or something, I don’t know.” She eyed Hathrak. “Are you going to attack Cirlahir?”

“We were never going to attack,” said her brother. “We threatened, to see if we could get the city emptied of elves, and then we would go in and occupy it. But it was always an empty threat. I saw no reason not to negotiate with that one, however, to get you back, since I assumed you were being treated badly.”

She sighed heavily. “That mad one, Adalir, he did capture me and tie me up and all of that. So, you did rescue me.”

“But you were traveling with the other one, the one from the kingsguard. I have heard his name, because he is rumored to have assassinated the High King. Iahir. I wondered about that when you said you were involved.”

“Well, he did it, but I was there,” she said.

“Why were you with these elves at all?” said Hathrak.