Chapter 6 #2
"You're not imposing. I'm kidnapping you.
" Delia linked her arm through Verity's with a casual intimacy that startled her.
"Consider it an exchange. You can tell me about the archives, and I can tell you what I know about the warchief, and we can both pretend we're not watching the training yard through my window while we talk. "
Verity glanced back at the yard despite herself.
Targesh had resumed sparring, his practice sword a blur of controlled motion. As she watched, he executed a spinning strike that sent his opponent's weapon flying across the packed earth.
He did not look at her again.
"Fine," she said. "Tea."
Delia's quarters were warm.
That was the first thing Verity noticed. After days in the archives, where the air stayed cold and dry to preserve the documents, the temperature difference was almost shocking.
The second thing she noticed was the evidence of two lives intertwined.
A sewing basket sat beside a weapon rack.
Dried herbs hung from the rafters alongside what looked like spare bowstrings.
Two chairs faced the hearth—one sized for an orc, and one clearly added later for someone smaller.
The quarters were military in their bones, all stone and iron and mounted weapons, but softened by domestic touches.
"Sit," Delia said, gesturing to the chairs. "I'll get the water heating."
Verity sat in the larger of the two chairs, leaving the other one for her hostess, and watched Delia move around the small space.
"How long have you been at Northwatch?" Verity asked.
"Eight months now." Delia hung a kettle over the fire and settled into the chair across from her, tucking her feet beneath her. "Though it feels longer. In a good way."
"And before that?"
"Valdara. A village called Iverton, specifically. I was—" Delia paused, her mouth thinning, her gaze dropping to her hands. "I was in a difficult situation. Ralvar found me. Brought me here."
The pause told Verity more than the words. "You don't have to explain," she said.
"I know." Delia's smile returned, though it was softer now. "I'm not ashamed of it. I just don't lead with it, usually. The short version is that I was running from something, and I found something better instead."
The kettle began to hiss. Delia rose to attend to it.
"The warchief," Verity said, when Delia returned with two cups of tea that smelled of mint and honey. "You mentioned him earlier. What should I know?"
Delia handed her a cup and settled back into her chair. "That depends on what you want to know."
"I don't—" Verity stopped. Started again. "He's been... unexpectedly accommodating. I expected resistance. Suspicion. I'm a Valdaran scholar in an orc fortress during a fragile truce. I expected to be watched constantly, restricted, treated as a potential threat."
"And instead?"
"Instead he gave me unrestricted archive access. He answers my questions. He—Well, he does not behave the way I expected a warchief to behave."
Delia blew on her tea, watching Verity over the rim of the cup. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know. The histories—"
"The histories are wrong." Delia's voice was matter-of-fact. "About most things. I grew up on the same stories you did. Orcs as monsters. Orcs as savages. Orcs as something to fear." She took a sip of her tea. "Then I met them."
"And?"
"And they're people. Complicated, flawed, honorable people with their own customs and histories and ways of seeing the world." Delia's hand drifted to her stomach again, that unconscious protective gesture. "Targesh is the one who granted me sanctuary. Did you know that?"
Verity nodded. "I read the reports. A human woman claimed sanctuary at Northwatch. The details were sparse."
"The details usually are, when humans write about orcs.
" Delia's smile had an edge to it now. "The warchief could have refused.
It would have been easier, politically. A human woman fleeing a human problem.
Why make it the clan's concern? But he didn't refuse.
He listened to my situation, considered it, and made a decision that prioritized what was right over what was convenient. "
Verity thought about this. About the way he had appeared in the archives at three in the morning, barefoot and sleepless, and still somehow composed. Still measured. As though even alone, even unguarded, he did not permit himself to be anything other than in control.
"He seems..." She searched for the right word. "Contained."
Delia's eyebrows rose. "That's an interesting way to put it."
"Is it wrong?"
"No." Delia set her cup down, her expression thoughtful. "No, it's actually quite accurate. He holds himself apart. Even from the people he cares about. And he does care, deeply, about the clan. About Northwatch. But there's always a distance. A wall."
"Has he always been like that?"
"I don't know." Delia paused. "But Ralvar says he's been warchief for nearly twenty years. That's a long time to carry a clan's weight."
"It must be lonely," Verity said.
"Yes. I imagine it is."
Verity turned her cup in her hands, watching the steam curl upward. The fire crackled between them.
"You're thinking very loudly," Delia observed.
"I'm always thinking loudly. It's a professional hazard." Verity took a sip of her tea. The mint was sharp and bright, cutting through the fog of too many hours in candlelit rooms. "This is good. Thank you."
"You're welcome." Delia stretched her feet toward the fire. "And you're deflecting."
"I'm not deflecting. I'm appreciating tea."
"You can do both." Delia's smile was knowing. "But I won't push. I remember what it was like, being new here. Feeling like everyone could see right through me."
"Can they?"
"Orcs? Sometimes. They're more observant than we give them credit for. They read body language, tone, the things we don't say." Delia shrugged. "And their sense of smell..."
"Smell?"
"They can smell emotions. Fear, anger, attraction. The chemical changes our bodies make when we feel things strongly."
Verity's cup stopped halfway to her mouth. "They can what?"
Delia's expression was sympathetic but amused. "I know. Apparently humans are quite... fragrant, when we're feeling things."
Verity thought about standing in the courtyard. About watching the warchief spar, cataloguing the movement of muscles beneath sweat-slicked skin. About the prickling flush that had overtaken her when Delia appeared beside her.
About Targesh turning, finding her with his gaze, that slow deliberate lift of his chin.
Oh no.
"How much can they smell?" Her voice came out slightly strangled.
"Quite a lot, apparently." Delia took a sip of her tea, watching Verity's expression with poorly concealed amusement.
Verity set her cup down very carefully, because her hands had started to tremble. "So when I was standing in the courtyard—"
"Watching the warchief train?"
"I was observing martial customs—"
"While he was shirtless and sweating?"
Verity closed her eyes. "He could smell that I was—"
"Appreciating the view? Almost certainly." Delia's voice was gentle despite her obvious enjoyment. "If it helps, orcs don't consider it shameful. Desire is natural to them. Expected, even. They'd find it stranger if you weren't affected."
"That does not help."
Verity pressed her palms against her eyes, as though she could block out the memory of Targesh's gaze finding her across the training yard. The weight of it. The knowing quality of that unhurried acknowledgment.
He had known. The entire time, he had known exactly what she was feeling.
She reached for her pocket. Caught herself. Folded both hands in her lap. She was not going to write this down. This was not archival information. This was a personal catastrophe and it did not need to be documented.
"I need to go back to the archives," she said. "Immediately. And never emerge again."
"That seems excessive."
"I have just learned that I have been scent-signaling attraction to the Warchief of the Mountain Clan. Excessive is the minimum appropriate response."
Delia laughed. "You're not the first human to find an orc attractive, Verity. You won't be the last. And Targesh is—" She paused, considering. "He's not going to hold it against you. If anything, he'll pretend he didn't notice."
"Will he?"
"He's very good at pretending not to notice things." Delia's expression turned from amused to thoughtful. "Too good, maybe. Ralvar says he's been alone for as long as anyone can remember. No mate. No... anyone."
Verity had eaten enough solitary dinners at her desk in the Valdaran archives, surrounded by other people's histories, to recognize the shape of that.
"I should go," she said, setting down her half-finished tea. "I've taken enough of your morning."
"You've taken exactly as much as I offered." Delia rose when Verity did. "Come back. Tomorrow, or the day after. I meant what I said about humans needing conversation occasionally."
"I'll try."
"You'll forget." Delia's smile was knowing. "So I'll come find you instead. Someone has to make sure you don't waste away while pursuing your obsession."
"I'm not—"
"You are. It's all right. Obsession can be useful, in the right circumstances." Delia opened the door, and the cold mountain air rushed in, sharp against Verity's flushed cheeks. "Just don't let it consume you entirely. There's more to Northwatch than dusty documents."
The training yard came back to her unbidden. Dark green skin gleaming with sweat. Iron-colored eyes finding her across a crowded space.
"I'm beginning to realize that," she said.
Delia's laugh followed her out into the corridor.