Chapter 16
The wound was worse than he'd admitted.
Delia could see that now, with his tunic stripped away and his side exposed in the pale morning light. The bolt had carved a deep gash across his ribs, and blood still seeped sluggishly from the torn flesh, painting his green skin in dark streaks.
"This needs stitching," she said, surprised by how steady her voice came out.
She was already moving toward his pack. Her fingers found the familiar red cord, the worn bone needle, the supplies she'd used to repair his vest.
"You've done this before?" His voice was rough.
"Leather." She knelt beside him, laying out the needle and thread. "Never skin."
"Same principle." His voice was tight with pain he was trying to hide. "Just softer."
Her hands were trembling, she noticed distantly. Not from the cold.
She looked up. "This will hurt," she said.
"I know."
She began.
He didn't make a sound as she pushed the needle through his torn flesh, drawing the edges together with careful stitches. His jaw was clenched, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords, but he never looked away..
"You watched," he said quietly, somewhere around the fourth stitch.
She tied off a stitch, started another. "I needed to know."
"Know what?"
"If it would change how I saw you." The needle pierced his skin. He didn't flinch. "If watching you kill would make you into the monster I was taught to expect."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the whisper of sinew through flesh.
"And?" His voice was careful, but she could hear the thread of fear beneath it—fear of her answer.
"You were terrifying," she admitted. "I've never seen anything move like that. Never seen—" She swallowed.
He caught her wrist, pausing her work. "Delia—"
"Let me finish." She didn't pull away, but she didn't continue stitching either.
"You were terrifying. But not to me. Those men would have taken me back.
They would have—" Her voice cracked. "You killed them because they were trying to take me back to a place where I would have died slowly. And all I felt, watching you, was..."
"What?"
She met his eyes. "Relief. That someone finally thought I was worth fighting for."
Something in his expression shattered and reformed. His grip tightened.
"Finish the stitches," he said roughly. "And then I need to tell you something."
She worked faster after that, feeling somehow steadier than before. The wound was long but clean. When she tied off the final stitch, she sat back on her heels.
"It'll scar," she said.
"Good." His voice was still rough, but heat had crept into it now. A promise that made her pulse quicken. "I want to remember. Every time I see it, I'll remember that you were the reason. That protecting you gave me this mark."
"Ralvar—"
"Let me speak." He caught her hand again, drew her closer until she was kneeling between his spread thighs, his wounded side carefully angled away. "What you just said—that no one thought you were worth fighting for. That ends now. It ended the moment I found you in that hollow."
"It's only been three days." The words came out before she could stop them. "We've known each other for three days, Ralvar."
"I know."
"In Valdara, people court for months. Years, sometimes. They get to know each other's families, their histories, their—" She shook her head. "We've never known each other in peace. We've been running, fighting, hiding. How can you be so certain about any of this?"
He was quiet for a moment, studying her face.
"In your kingdom," he said slowly, "how do people know they've found the right one? After months of courting. After years."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. "I... they just know, I suppose. Eventually."
"How?"
"I don't—" She faltered. She'd never been courted, but she'd watched others go through the motions. "They feel it. They feel right together. Safe. Like they belong."
"And you think time creates that feeling?"
"Doesn't it?"
His thumb traced circles on her palm. "Or does it just take time for humans to trust what they already feel? To let themselves believe it?"
Delia went still.
"From the moment I scented you in that hollow," Ralvar continued, "my blood knew.
Not my mind. That was suspicious, trained by years of human betrayal.
But something deeper than thought looked at you and said her, she's the one, protect her, keep her, never let her go.
" His grip tightened. "Three days. A hundred days.
A thousand. The feeling would be the same.
The certainty would be the same. Time doesn't create the pull, Delia.
It just gives you permission to stop fighting it. "
Her heart was pounding. "That's—orcs are different. You have the pull. Humans don't—"
"Don't you?"
The question hung in the air between them.
She thought about the hollow. About terror so complete she couldn't breathe.
And then a monster kneeling before her, making himself small, offering safety.
She thought about being carried through the dark, about warmth she'd never known, about the way her whole body had relaxed against his chest like it recognized him.
She thought about watching him weep for his lost warriors, and how she had touched his face without thought, without decision. How natural it had felt to hold him. How right.
She thought about the cave. About giving herself to him completely, without reservation, without the hesitation that should have come from three days instead of three years.
"I..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I feel it. Something. When I'm with you, I feel—" She struggled for words. "Like I've been cold my whole life and didn't know it until I found warmth."
His eyes blazed. "Yes. Yes. That is the pull. That is what I feel when I look at you, when I scent you, when I touch you. It doesn't care about days or months or proper courtship. It knows what it knows."
"But we've never—in peace—"
"Then we will learn each other in peace.
" His voice was fierce. "Every day, for the rest of our lives.
I will discover what makes you laugh, what foods you love, what dreams you have when the world isn't trying to break you.
And you will learn me the same way. But the foundation—" He pressed her palm flat against his chest, over his heart.
"The foundation is already here. Can you feel it? "
She could. Gods help her, she could. His heart pounding against her palm, steady and sure, and something in her chest beating in an answering rhythm.
"Yes," she breathed. "I feel it."
He pulled her closer, carefully avoiding his wounded side, until their foreheads touched.
"In my tongue," he said, "there is a word.
Krenna. It means 'joined in intent.' Not yet bonded—that comes later, with ritual, with the full blessing of the clan.
But krenna means two people have recognized each other.
Have chosen each other. Have declared that they will pursue the bond, whatever comes. "
Delia's breath caught. The word felt sacred in her ears, weighted with meaning that transcended language. But a familiar doubt crept in.
"Can humans..." She hesitated, her fingers curling slightly against his chest. "Can humans be krenna? With orcs?"
Ralvar pulled back just enough to look at her, his brow furrowing. "Why would they not be?"
"I just—" She swallowed. "In Valdara, there are stories. That orcs and humans don't... that we're too different. That any union would be—" She couldn't finish. The words felt poisonous on her tongue, echoes of market gossip and her father’s warnings about the monsters beyond the border.
"Ah." Understanding softened his features. "Orcs and humans have joined since before the first war. Children have been born. Families have thrived. The clans do not care what shape a woman takes, only that she is chosen, and that she chooses in return."
"Truly?"
"Truly." His voice dropped lower. "My own grandmother's grandmother was human. A healer from the river settlements who wandered too far and found a warrior who would not let her go." A ghost of a smile. "The Stonefang line carries her blood still. Her courage. Her stubbornness."
The tightness in Delia's chest began to loosen. "And you want me to be your krenna?"
"That is what I am asking." His voice dropped lower. "Not marriage—not yet. Not forever, if you decide that isn't what you want. But a promise. A direction. A statement that we are walking toward the same horizon."
She pulled back enough to look at him properly. This massive warrior, wounded and bloody, declaring his intentions like a formal proposal. Like she was worth proposing to.
"What does it look like?" she asked. "If I say yes. If we're krenna. What does that future look like for you?"
The question seemed to surprise him. His brow furrowed slightly, as if he was looking at something far away. At a life he'd never let himself want before..
"You," he said finally. "Safe. Fed. Warm. Never afraid of being sold again, or used, or discarded."
"That's just... that's just safety. That's what you already promised."
"Let me finish." He cupped her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek. "I want you at my side when I wake. I want to learn what you look like in the morning light of my home, not just the forest. I want to bring you food and watch your face when you taste something you've never tried."
His voice had gone rough. Reverent.
"I want to show you the high passes when the snow melts and the flowers cover the mountainside.
I want to teach you my language. I want—" He stopped.
Started again. "I want to see you grow into the woman you were supposed to become.
The one the human world tried to crush out of you.
I want to be there when you realize you are strong, and beautiful, and worthy of everything I mean to give you. "
She was crying. She hadn't realized until the tears spilled down her cheeks, warm against her cold skin.
"I want you to bear my name," he continued, quieter now.
"To stand beside me in front of my clan and know that you belong there.
I want children, if you want them. Little ones with your softness and my stubbornness, who will grow up knowing they are loved.
And if you don't want children, I want you still.
I want you, Delia. However you come. Whatever you choose. For as long as you'll have me."
"That's—" Her voice came out broken. She tried again. "That's a lot of wanting."
"I have spent thirty years wanting nothing." His thumb traced the track of her tears. "And then you fell into my life, and suddenly I want everything. Is that too much? Too fast? If you need me to slow down—"
"No." The word surprised her with its certainty. "No, I don't want you to slow down. I just—" She laughed, a wet and overwhelmed sound. "I've never had anyone want a future with me. I don't know what to do."
"You don't have to do anything." His forehead pressed against hers again. "Just let me want. Let me plan. Let me build something for you, and when you're ready, you can step into it. Or not. The choice will always be yours."
She thought about the wagon. The contract. The life she'd been sold into without anyone asking what she wanted.
And she thought about this—being asked. Being consulted. Being given the space to choose.
"Krenna," she said, testing the word. It felt strange on her tongue. Foreign. And yet... right. "I don't know if I believe I deserve everything you're describing. I don't know if I can be the person you see when you look at me."
"I know you can."
"Let me finish." She borrowed his words deliberately. "I don't know those things yet. But I want to find out. I want to walk toward that horizon and see if I can become the woman you think I am."
He looked at her with bright intensity. "Delia—"
"So yes." The word came out steady. Certain.
"Yes, I'll be your krenna. Yes, I'll let you want a future with me.
Yes, I'll try to believe it's real." She gripped his hand against her face.
"But you have to be patient with me. When I can't believe it.
When it all seems too good and I start waiting for it to fall apart. You have to be patient."
"I will be patient until the mountains crumble." He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the wound, ignoring everything but the need to hold her. "I will be patient until the stars fall and the world ends. I am not going anywhere."
She buried her face against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. "The stitches will hold," she mumbled against his skin. "And we're close to Northwatch."
"We are." He stroked down her spine. "But I find I do not want to move."
"The guards who ran—"
"Will not return. They know what waits if they try." His arms tightened around her. "A few more minutes. Let me have this."
She let him have it.
The sun climbed higher, warming the rocks around them, and Delia stayed in his arms.
Eventually, Ralvar stirred. He cupped the back of her head and pressed his lips to her hair.
"We should go,” he said quietly.
She nodded against his chest but didn't pull away. "How bad is the pain? Honestly."
"Manageable." A pause. "Less than it was."
She leaned back to look at him, searching his face for the lie. His eyes were clear, his color better than it had been. The bleeding had stopped. Her stitches, rough as they were, had held.
"Then let's go meet your clan," she said. "Before I lose my nerve."
He rose carefully, testing his side, then reached down and lifted her as if she weighed nothing at all.
"You will not need nerve," he said, settling her against his chest. "You will need only to be exactly who you are."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to list all the reasons that wouldn't be enough.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her toward the mountains and toward a future she was only beginning to believe might actually be hers.