Chapter 3 Othic
OTHIC
The barracks stink of stale zhisk, unwashed mercenary sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of the oil I’m using on my whetstone. The sound of my work is a steady, rhythmic shing-shing-shing that grinds against the noise of the others. They are celebrating.
Dareksword's blood is a stubborn, dark film on my axe blade. It gums up the stone, and I grunt in frustration, applying more oil and pressure.
"To the 'grieving' widower!" Krell, the mercenary captain, roars from the far table, raising a stolen silver goblet.
"To Lady Lamas!" another shouts. "She always was a slippery bitch!"
A wave of crude, braying laughter follows. I keep my head down, my gaze fixed on the steel under my hands. So that's it. I knew it the moment I saw the guards outside her bathhouse, their faces too pale, their lies too practiced. He’s not just a raider. He’s a wife-killer.
"Heard she 'slipped' on a bar of K'sheng soap," Krell guffaws, his voice loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Right into the bath's drain! Tragic! Snapped her neck like a dry twig."
More laughter. They are drunk on cheap zhisk and the spoils of the raid. They are animals, and I am kenneled with them. My stomach churns, the stew I ate this morning threatening to rise. I am paid by the same hand. I am no different.
"Wonder how long before he pulls that little human doll into his bed?" another voice slurs. "Now that the lady's gone..."
My hand stops. The whetstone screeches on the blade, a high, thin sound that cuts through the laughter.
Krell’s head snaps toward me. "Got something to say, Tusk?"
I look at the blood-red stain in the grain of the whetstone. I say nothing. I am a tool. A stone. I go back to sharpening my axe. Shing-shing-shing.
"Tusk! Front hall post! Privis wants his 'mourners' to see the beast he keeps."
Krell’s order is a sharp bark, and I am glad for it. I rise from the barracks, the stench of sweat and zhisk clinging to me. I need air, even if it’s the suffocating, perfumed air of the main hall.
I sheath my axe. The blade is clean now, its edge wicked and sharp. I stalk through the corridors, my heavy boots silent on the marble. The house is quiet again, plunged back into its false grief. The rirzed blossoms are everywhere, their cloying sweetness a lie to cover the reek of murder.
My disgust is a physical, burning bile in my throat. I serve a worm who kills women and hires butchers to do his dirty work. I am the chief butcher.
I round the corner into the main hall and freeze.
She is there.
Aurora. His "Lady Doll."
She’s on her hands and knees by the study door, scrubbing the floor. My stomach clenches. She’s not just cleaning. She’s scrubbing the dark, dried bloodstains left by Dareksword’s corpse. My work. The filth I left behind.
She has no idea. She is just a maid, cleaning up another mess.
The fated bond, the one I have been crushing with ipia and self-loathing for weeks, yanks at me. It’s a physical hook behind my ribs, sharp and hot. Mine. The word explodes in my skull, a primal roar. Mine to protect.
I just stand there, hidden in the archway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped beast.
She’s cleaning up my filth.
The hypocrisy of the bond is a blade in my gut. My soul is screaming at me to protect her, but I am the very thing she needs protection from.
I just returned from a raid where I murdered a servant boy for sobbing. I stood by and watched as other women, servants just like her, were dragged onto wagons to be used and discarded. I am a monster. I am complicit.
She scrubs at a stubborn stain, her small shoulders trembling. She’s afraid. She’s probably heard the whispers about Lady Lamas. She’s scrubbing the blood of her master's last rival, and she has to know she’s next on his list.
And here I stand, her fated mate, reeking of the slaughter I just committed.
A savage, protective rage floods my veins, so potent it makes me dizzy. It’s not directed at her. It’s for her. I want to kill Privis. I want to tear this house down, marble block by marble block. I want to rip Krell’s laughing tongue from his skull.
But I am a coward. I am The Tusk, bought and paid for.
She doesn't see me. She is trying to be invisible, her head bowed. I can smell her—soap and fialon berries and the sharp, clean scent of her fear.
I clench my jaw so hard a molar groans. If I speak to her, if I even breathe her name, I will betray us both. I force my legs to move, my boots thudding heavy on the marble.
She flinches at the sound, her whole body seizing, but she doesn't look up. She just presses herself smaller, scrubbing harder, trying to erase herself from the world.
I stalk past her, the air around me vibrating with the effort it takes not to stop, not to kill every guard in this hall and carry her out. I leave her there, on her knees, cleaning up the proof of my monstrosity.
I am summoned. Not to my usual post, but to the Lord’s private wing.
The two house guards outside Lady Lamas’s bedchamber look pale and spooked. They see me and press themselves against the wall, their hands gripping their sword hilts. They are afraid of me, yes, but they are more afraid of him.
I push the doors open.
The room is not a place of mourning. It’s a celebration. The rirzed blossoms are so thick in here the air is almost unbreathable, a sweet, sickening fog. Privis is not in black. He wears a gaudy, colorful silk robe, one of the "trinkets" we "liberated" from Dareksword’s estate.
He’s admiring a new statue, his head tilted. And on the massive, silken bed, Lady Lamas is laid out. Her skin is a waxy, bluish-gray. Her death is a "tragic accident," but there is no one here to mourn her.
"Ah, Tusk," Privis says, not turning. He raises his goblet of zhisk. "A good day’s work. Dareksword is gone. My... dear wife... is gone." He finally turns, his pale face flushed with drink and triumph, his eyes gleaming. "It's a day of new beginnings. The board is finally clear."
He wanders the room, giddy with his new freedom, trailing his thin fingers over the stolen loot that his men have piled in the corners. He is a rodan nesting in a dragon's hoard.
He's celebrating, I realize, my disgust a cold, heavy weight. He didn't even wait a day. He is a wife-killer, a thief, and a worm.
And I am his beast.
Privis stops in front of me, looking me up and down. He sips his zhisk. The silence stretches, filled only by the crackle of the fireplace. He is admiring his own power, admiring the two great monsters he has slain today: Dareksword, his rival, and Lamas, his cage.
"I am... in mourning," he says, his voice dripping with false sincerity. "And in my grief, I find myself in need of... comfort. Consolation."
His eyes slide past me, toward the hall, as if he can see her through the thick oak doors. He knows exactly where she is.
He looks at me, his smile thin and wet. "Fetch my 'Lady Doll.'"
My blood runs cold.
"Everyone in this house knows who she is," he continues, his voice dropping to an oily whisper. "Go to the servant's quarters. Find her. Tell her her master is finally... free... to see her."
He takes another sip of his wine, his eyes glittering. "And Tusk? Get her... ready."
The order hangs in the air. Get her ready. He wants me to be his procurer. He wants me to break her, to drag her to his bed, to be the final instrument of his depraved victory.
My hand tightens on my axe. No. The word is a silent explosion in my skull.
The fated bond, the thing I have been crushing and hating for weeks, doesn't just roar. It shatters my chains. My duty. My ipia. My shame. It all burns away, leaving only a cold, pure certainty.
I give a single, sharp nod. "Yes, Lord Privis."
I turn, my heavy boots grinding on the marble—a sound he hates. I walk out of the room. The guards in the hall press themselves against the wall, but I don't see them.
I am not going to the barracks. I am not going to my post. I am not thinking at all.
My feet are moving on their own, a heavy, certain tread, carrying me away from my duty, away from my ipia, away from the monster I have been.
They carry me down the servant's passage, toward the smell of rain and fialon berries.
They carry me to her.