Chapter 5
Mab woke to a small hand patting her face.
"Mab." Annie's voice was a whisper, urgent and tight. "Mab, wake up."
Mab's eyes flew open. For one terrible moment, she didn't know where she was—the ceiling was too high, the bed too soft, the light coming from the wrong direction. Then memory crashed back in. The raid. The pantry. The orc who'd held her against his chest while she slept.
She sat up so fast her head spun.
The bed. She was in the bed. The massive four-poster with its pale blue hangings and its mountain of pillows, the bed that belonged to a dead woman whose blood Mab had once scrubbed from the carpet. Tibbs was on her other side, still sleeping, his face slack and young in the morning light.
Varek was gone.
He must have carried her here. Lifted her from his lap like she weighed nothing and tucked her into the bed beside the children.
"Mab." Annie tugged at her sleeve, her small face pinched with discomfort. "I have to go."
"Go where?"
"Go." Annie's cheeks flushed pink. "You know."
Oh. Mab looked around the room, taking it in properly for the first time. The fire had been built up again recently, from the look of the flames. Fresh wood stacked beside the hearth. And there—a door she hadn't noticed last night, set into the far wall between the wardrobe and the window.
"Come on." Mab slid out of the bed, her bare feet hitting carpet instead of stone.
Annie grabbed her hand and held on tight as they crossed the room. The door opened onto a small chamber that made Mab stop in the doorway.
A garderobe. A real one, with a wooden seat and a shaft that dropped into darkness below. But that wasn't what caught her breath. There was a basin on a stand, porcelain painted with blue flowers. A pitcher beside it, and when Mab touched the side, the water inside was warm.
Mab stood there with her hand on the pitcher, trying to remember the last time she'd washed with water she hadn't hauled herself. The scullery had a pump in the yard. Winter mornings meant breaking ice off the bucket and washing fast because the cold would crack her skin if she lingered.
This water was warm. Someone had brought warm water to this room while she slept.
Not someone. Varek.
The thought landed strangely. The orc who'd killed Lord Cresswick, who'd walked through the holding with blood drying on his hands, who'd claimed her in front of thirty warriors like she was territory to be marked—that same orc had carried her to bed and brought warm water for her to wash with.
Mab didn't know what to do with that.
"Mab." Annie was dancing from foot to foot now, her urgency plain.
"Right. Sorry." Mab stepped back to give her privacy, but Annie shook her head.
"Don't leave."
"I'll be right here. Just on the other side of the door."
"No." Annie's voice cracked. "Please. Don't leave."
Mab looked at the girl's face. Twelve years old and terrified of being alone in a room for thirty seconds. Yesterday, Annie had watched orcs pour through the kitchen. She'd heard the screams. She'd hidden in a crawlspace and counted her own heartbeats and waited to die.
"Okay." Mab stepped back into the garderobe and turned to face the wall. "I'm not leaving. Go ahead."
She studied the basin while Annie did what she needed to do.
The porcelain was finer than anything in the kitchen stores.
The blue flowers were hand-painted, each petal distinct.
There was a small mirror mounted above the basin, silver-backed like the larger one in the bedchamber, and Mab found herself looking into it before she could think better of it.
She looked terrible. Her hair had come loose from its kerchief sometime in the night and hung around her face in tangled red ropes. Her eyes were shadowed underneath, her skin pale except for the flush the warm room had brought to her cheeks. There was a smudge of soot on her jaw.
This was what Varek had looked at last night. This was what he'd pulled into his lap and held against his chest. This was what he'd called mine.
Mab turned away from the mirror.
"Done," Annie said quietly.
They traded places. Mab used the garderobe while Annie stood with her back pressed to the door, and then they washed together at the basin.
The warm water was a luxury Mab made herself accept without rushing.
She wet a cloth and cleaned her face, her neck, the hollow of her throat where yesterday's sweat had dried.
She scrubbed her hands until the water in the basin turned gray.
Annie watched her with solemn eyes, then held out her own hands without being asked.
Mab washed them for her. The girl's fingers were small and cold, the nails bitten down to nothing. There was a scrape across one knuckle that Mab didn't remember seeing before. She cleaned it carefully, the way Hester used to clean Mab's cuts when she was small, and Annie didn't pull away.
"Is he going to kill us?" The question came out flat. Not frightened, exactly. Just tired.
"No." Mab kept her voice steady. "He said we're under his protection."
"What does that mean?"
Mab wrung out the cloth and hung it over the edge of the basin. "I'm not entirely sure yet."
It was the truth. She didn't have better words for it, and Annie deserved honesty more than comfort.
"But he didn't hurt us last night," Mab continued.
"He brought us here. He built up the fire.
He—" She stopped, not sure how to explain the rest of it.
The way he'd held her. The way he'd said mine like it meant something different than ownership.
"I think we're safe with him. Safer than we'd be walking south alone. "
"Tibbs said orcs eat people."
"Tibbs is thirteen and knows about as much as the rest of us." Mab dried her hands on her apron. "Which is to say, not much."
They found Tibbs awake when they came back into the bedchamber, sitting up in the bed with his knees drawn to his chest. His eyes went to Mab first, then to Annie, then swept the room in a quick circuit that ended on the closed door.
"We're alone," Tibbs said. Not a question.
"For now." Mab crossed to the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress dipped under her weight instead of pressing back like the thin straw pallet she'd slept on since she was a girl. "There's a garderobe through that door. Warm water for washing."
Tibbs didn't move. "What happens now?"
"I don't know yet."
"But you talked to him. Last night. I heard voices."
Of course he had. Tibbs had survived this long by staying alert, by listening, by keeping his eyes open when everyone assumed he was asleep. Mab had done the same thing at his age.
"I talked to him," Mab said. "His name is Varek. He's the one in charge of the raiding party."
"And?" Tibbs's jaw was tight. "What did he say?"
Mab smoothed her hands over her apron, buying time. How did she explain any of it? The pull he'd described, the weight in his voice when he said mine. The choice he'd offered her—north with him or south alone.
"He said the raid was justice for something Lord Cresswick did. An attack on an orc settlement."
Tibbs was quiet for a moment. "I heard the stable master talking once. About border raids. He said the lord was getting coin from somewhere for—" He stopped, glancing at Annie, but before either of them could continue, the door to the room opened.
Varek filled the doorway the same way he had last night. Armor cleaned, hair rebraided, a fresh slash of red across his knuckles that said he'd been working already this morning.
His eyes found Mab first. Held there for a beat longer than necessary. Then moved to the children on the bed.
"Good. You're awake." He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "The servants are being released within the hour. Food, water, directions south. Anyone who wants to walk can walk."
Tibbs stiffened. Annie's hand found Mab's sleeve and gripped.
"You have a choice." Varek crossed to the hearth, not looking at any of them, and stirred the fire with an iron poker. "Stay with me. Travel north to Northwatch. Or leave with the others and take your chances on the road."
"Just like that?" Mab's voice came out sharper than she intended. "You're giving children a choice about where to spend the rest of their lives and you want an answer within the hour?"
Varek set the poker back against the hearth and turned to face her. "Would you prefer I make the choice for them?"
"I'd prefer you give us time to think."
"You have time." He leaned against the mantle, arms crossing over his chest. "The servants leave within the hour. You don't have to leave with them. You can decide today, tomorrow, the day after. We ride north in three days."
Mab's grip on Annie's hand tightened. Three days. Three days to decide whether to walk into the unknown with an orc warlord or take two children onto roads she'd never traveled, toward villages that had no reason to take them in.
"And if we stay," Mab said slowly, "what does that look like? For them."
"They eat. They sleep. They travel with the warband."
"That's not what I'm asking." Mab stood, putting herself between Varek and the bed. Her heart was hammering, but she made herself hold his gaze. "I want to know what their lives look like. Not just tomorrow. Not just the journey. After."
Varek's head tilted slightly as he listened.
"Tibbs is thirteen," Mab continued. "In two years, three, he'll be a man. What happens to him then? Does he haul water for your kitchens until he's old? Does he get a trade? An education?"
"He gets whatever he earns." Varek's voice was even. "Orc children train from twelve. If he wants to learn a trade, he learns. If he wants to train with weapons, he trains. No one in the Iron Wilds is kept small because of where they started."
"And Annie?"
"The same."
Mab shook her head. "That's not enough."
"What would be enough?"
"I want it said. At Northwatch." Mab's voice stayed even, though her hands didn't. "Not just that they're under your protection because of me.
I want their names spoken. I want them claimed separately.
So that if you—" She stopped. Made herself finish.
"So that if you tire of me, they don't lose their place. "
"You think I'll tire of you?"
"I think I've watched men my whole life." Mab kept her chin up even though every instinct told her to drop her gaze. "I know what happens when the new thing stops being new."
"I'm not a man."
"No. You're an orc who's known me for less than a day." Her voice cracked on the last word, but she pushed through it. "Forgive me if I want something more solid than your word in a bedroom."
Varek was quiet for a long moment. His eyes stayed on her, and Mab made herself hold still under the weight of that gaze. She'd asked for something. She wasn't going to flinch away from it.
"You want their names spoken," he said finally. "Claimed as their own, not as extensions of you."
"Yes."
"And you want my word that their place holds even if yours doesn't."
Mab's throat tightened. Hearing it said back to her made it sound both reasonable and impossible. "Yes."
Varek pushed off from the mantel. He crossed the room in three strides, and Mab forced herself not to step back, not to retreat toward the bed where the children were watching with wide eyes. He stopped close enough that she had to tilt her head back to see his face.
"Done."
Mab blinked. "What?"
"Is there more?"
More? Mab's mind went blank.
"I—" She stopped. Started again. "You're just agreeing?"
Varek's head tilted, that slight movement she was beginning to recognize as curiosity. "Why would I refuse?"
"Because—" Mab's hands clenched in her apron. "Because that's not how it works. You're supposed to argue. Tell me I'm asking too much. Make me settle for less."
"Is that what you want? To settle for less?"
"No."
"Then why are we discussing it?" His hand came up and brushed her jaw almost thoughtlessly. "This is how it works with me."
Behind her, Mab heard Tibbs shift on the bed.
"The children are watching," she said quietly.
"Let them watch." His thumb traced the line of her jaw, unhurried. "Let them see that you're safe with me. Let them see what it looks like when someone touches you without hurting you."
Mab's breath caught. She didn't have an answer for that.
"Now." Varek's hand dropped away, and he turned to face the bed. "You've heard what she asked for. You've heard me agree. What I need to know is what you want."
Tibbs sat up straighter, his shoulders squaring in a way that made him look older than thirteen. Annie pressed closer to his side, her fingers twisted in the coverlet.
"You're asking us?" Tibbs's voice was careful. "Actually asking?"
"I'm asking."
"And if we say we want to go south?"
"Then you go south. With food. With water. With a knife better than the one you tried to gut me with." The corner of Varek's mouth moved. "You'd be walking with the other servants. Six miles to the nearest village. After that, you find your own way."
Tibbs was quiet for a long moment. His eyes moved from Varek to Mab to Annie, then back to Varek. Calculating.
"You didn't kill me," Tibbs said finally. "In the pantry. I swung at you and you just... stepped back."
"You were protecting them." Varek's voice held no judgment. "A boy who fights for his people is a boy worth keeping."
Tibbs looked at him for a long beat. Then he nodded.
"I want to stay." The words came out rough, almost defiant, like he expected to be told he'd chosen wrong. "If Mab's staying, I'm staying."
Annie's grip on the coverlet tightened. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. Not quite.
"Annie." Mab turned toward the bed, keeping her voice soft. "You don't have to decide right now. You can think about it."
"I don't want to think about it." Annie's voice was small but steady. "I want to stay with you."
"Even if staying means going north? To the Iron Wilds? Living with orcs?"
Annie's chin wobbled. A single tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't look away. "You're the only one who's nice to me. You and Tibbs. Everyone else is gone or—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I don't want to walk to the village. I don't know anyone in the village."
Mab's chest ached. She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge, gathering Annie against her side. The girl pressed into her immediately, face buried against Mab's shoulder.
"Then we stay," Mab said. The words came out firmer than she felt. "All three of us."
Varek nodded. "Breakfast is in the hall. Get dressed. I'll wait outside."
Mab looked down at herself. At the stained apron, the wrinkled dress she'd slept in, the bare feet she'd been padding around on since she woke. "We don't have anything else to wear."
"There are clothes in the wardrobe." Varek was already moving toward the door. "Lady Cresswick won't be needing them."
The door closed behind him before Mab could respond.