Chapter 4 Aurora
AURORA
Iam wedged between my thin cot and the damp, cold stone of the servant's quarters. The back of my flimsy chair is jammed under the door handle, a pathetic, splintered piece of wood that wouldn't stop a determined child, let alone... him.
My heart is a trapped chirops, beating frantic, silent wings against my ribs.
I can't breathe. The air in my tiny, windowless room is ripe with the smell of lye soap and my own sour terror. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I heard the whispers of Lady Lamas’s "accident. " Her death was my death warrant.
I clutch the paring knife I stole from the kitchen. It’s small, the blade dull, but it’s all I have. It's not for him. It's for me. A last resort, if he tries to...
Thud.
My breath seizes.
Thud.
Heavy. Deliberate. Not the quick, sharp steps of the elf guards. Orc footsteps. His footsteps. The Tusk.
He's walking down the servant's passage, his tread so heavy I can feel the vibration through the floor. He's coming for me. Oh gods, oh gods...
The footsteps stop. Right outside my door.
The silence that follows is worse than the sound. It's absolute, suffocating. I can hear the thump-thump-thump of my own pulse in my ears, so loud I'm sure he can hear it too. He's just... standing out there. Waiting. He knows I'm in here. He knows I'm terrified. He's here.
I brace myself for the crash, for the door to explode inward, for my pathetic chair to be tossed aside like kindling. I squeeze the knife hilt, my knuckles white, and press myself back against the wall, making myself small.
It doesn't happen.
A sound, low and rough, rumbles through the wood. A knock.
My mind stops. He... knocked?
"Girl." His voice becomes a low vibration, like stones grinding together, barely audible. "Open the door."
I can't move. I'm paralyzed. My fingers are locked around the knife hilt. This is a trick. A cruel game. He wants me to open it.
The silence stretches, thick and agonizing. Then I hear a soft, metallic click. The master key.
The door swings open slowly, pushing my flimsy chair, which scrapes uselessly across the stone floor.
He is there.
He fills the entire doorway, a seven-foot mountain of gray-green shadow. His sheer size sucks the air from my tiny room. I press myself back against the wall, my throat closed tight, the knife held up in a trembling, useless defense.
But... he's not in his raid-gear. He's not spattered in blood like he was this afternoon when he returned. He wears a simple, dark tunic and leathers. His axe is sheathed on his back, not held in his hands. He isn't snarling. He just... stands there.
He looks at me, cowering on the cot. He looks at the useless chair. He looks at the pathetic, shaking knife in my hand. His amber eyes aren't dead and flat like they were in the hall. They're burning.
He should be grabbing me. He should be dragging me to Privis's bed. That is his job. He is the monster who obeys the bigger monster. He is the axe.
He takes a heavy breath, the sound rasping in the small room. His gaze is fixed on me, and it’s... agonizing. He looks like he's at war with himself, his massive hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"He sent me for you," he rumbles, and his voice is a curse.
I flinch. This is it. My knuckles are white.
"To get you ready." He says the words with such profound, guttural disgust it rocks me back. He knows exactly what it means. He takes a heavy step back, out of my doorway, clearing the path into the hall. He isn't trapping me. He's... giving me an exit?
He looks at me, this massive, scarred, tusked creature—Privis's ultimate weapon. His amber eyes are burning with a pain I don't understand, a pain that mirrors my own terror.
"What. Do. You. Want?"
My mind shatters. The question is impossible. It's alien. No one has asked me what I want since before my family was killed, before I was sold to Lord Tull's estate. And he—The Tusk, the butcher, the monster—he is the one asking? My world tilts.
I stare at him, my heart hammering so hard it hurts. My entire life, my survival, has depended on being invisible, on anticipating the desires of monsters and obeying. He is a monster. Obey.
But my eyes are locked on his. He isn't just a tool.
He isn't just an axe. He is... in pain. The realization wounds me with the blunt force of a physical blow.
He hates this. He hates Privis. He hates himself.
The way he's standing there, his whole body vibrating with a tension that has nothing to do with me. ..
He's a prisoner, too. A different cage, yes. A much more terrifying one. But still a cage.
This isn't a test. This isn't one of Privis's cruel games. This is a choice. A real, terrifying, impossible choice.
I can stay. I can be dragged to Privis's bed and pray for a quick death when he's done with me. Or I can trust the other monster. The one who just gave me a choice.
My legs are shaking so hard I almost fall as I slide off the cot.
I take one, tiny, shuffling step. My knees feel like water.
I take another, moving out of the shadow, into the faint torchlight from the hall.
I am standing right in front of him now.
I have to tilt my head all the way back to see his face.
He smells like the forest, like a storm, like pine and iron. He doesn't move.
The paring knife is still in my hand. It’s useless. It’s a child's toy against the world he's offering to fight.
I let it drop.
It clatters loudly on the stone floor, the sound echoing in the tense, impossible silence between us.
I lift my chin. My voice is a reedy, pathetic whisper, but it doesn't break. I look him right in those burning, amber eyes.
"I... I want to disappear."
His massive chest heaves in a single, shuddering breath.
He looks at me for one more second, and the agonizing conflict in his eyes vanishes, replaced by a terrifying, cold certainty.
It’s the same look he must have had in his eyes when he swung his axe at Lord Dareksword.
It’s the look of a decision made. A new path chosen.
He gives a single, sharp nod.
"Done."