Chapter 9
The great hall was already half-full when Verity arrived.
She had timed it intentionally—not so early that she would be alone, not so late that her entrance would draw attention. A normal hour. A reasonable time for a scholar to take her morning meal before descending to the archives for another day of work.
She had changed her dress. Washed her face. Even attempted to tame her hair, though the result was questionable at best. The quill she habitually kept tucked behind her ear had been relocated to her pocket, which felt strange.
You are being ridiculous, she told herself as she crossed the threshold. It is breakfast. You have eaten breakfast before. You are capable of sitting at a table and consuming food like a functional adult human.
Her gaze found Targesh immediately.
He was at the high table, as she had known he would be.
Positioned where he could see all the entrances, speaking with a gray-haired orc whose scarred forearms suggested decades of military service.
He did not look up when she entered, but his posture shifted.
There was a tension that had not been there a moment before.
He knows you're here.
Of course he did. He could probably smell her from across the room. The thought sent heat crawling up her neck, and she forced herself to focus on the immediate problem: where to sit.
The hall was arranged in long communal tables, with the high table set perpendicular at the far end.
The serving area, with its enormous pots and laden platters, occupied one corner, steam rising from the assembled dishes.
Warriors and craftsmen filled the benches in clusters, conversations layering over one another in a comfortable din.
Verity chose a seat near the middle of the hall. Far enough from the high table to avoid the appearance of seeking attention. Close enough to the serving area to suggest she was here for food, not observation.
She was here for food. Exclusively.
She rose to fill her plate, and the motion brought her into Kira's line of sight. The old cook's eyes narrowed, tracking Verity's approach with an expression that suggested she had been monitoring the archivist's eating habits and found them wanting.
"You are eating at a normal hour," Kira observed. "This is progress."
"I was advised to improve my schedule."
Kira's weathered face creased with satisfaction as she ladled a generous portion of grain porridge into Verity's bowl, then added a second scoop without being asked. She added a thick slice of bread to the plate, followed by a portion of cured meat that could have fed three scholars.
"You have good bones, but you neglect yourself. Eat."
It was a command, not a suggestion. Verity took her overflowing plate back to her seat.
She began to eat. The porridge was rich with honey and dried fruit, the bread still warm from the ovens. Despite her chaotic schedule of the past days, she was ravenous.
"There you are."
Delia slid onto the bench beside her. Her plate was nearly as full as Verity's. Apparently Kira's feeding campaign extended to all humans within reach.
"Here I am," Verity agreed. "Eating breakfast. At a normal hour. Like a functional person."
"I'm impressed." Delia's eyes were bright with poorly concealed amusement. "I half expected to find you'd tunneled directly from your quarters to the archives to avoid surface travel entirely."
"I considered it. The stone proved uncooperative."
Delia laughed, and the sound drew glances from nearby tables. She seemed not to notice, or perhaps not to care.
The meal passed in something approaching normalcy.
Delia chatted about inconsequential things—the weather turning colder, a shipment of fabric that had arrived from the River Clan, Ralvar's ongoing campaign to teach her basic knife work despite her complete lack of aptitude.
Verity listened, responded, even laughed once or twice.
And through it all, Verity felt him watching.
Not constantly. Not obviously. But every few minutes, that weight would settle against her awareness, and she would know, without looking, that Targesh's eyes had found her again.
She wondered whether he felt the same pull she did, the same impossible awareness of another person's presence in a crowded room. Whether his breakfast tasted like anything at all, or whether he was as distracted as she was.
Probably not. He was a warchief. He had decades of practice at maintaining composure. She was a scholar who had spent two days hiding in back corridors because she could not handle the knowledge that he could smell her desire.
They were not operating at the same level of competence here.
"You should try the smoked fish," a voice said from Verity's left.
She turned to find an orc she didn't recognize settling onto the bench across from her. He was middle-aged, broad-shouldered, with a friendly face and tusks that curved gently upward. He nodded toward the serving area.
"Kira's been curing it all winter. Best in the territory."
"Thank you," Verity said. "I'll consider it."
The orc's gaze traveled over her in a way that made her want to check whether she'd spilled porridge on herself.
"You're the archivist," he said.
"Yes. Verity Dunmore."
He grinned, revealing more tusk. "Durgan. I train with the warchief most mornings." His eyes crinkled. "I saw you watching."
Verity's face went tight, her ears ringing. Beside her, Delia made a sound that might have been a cough.
"I was observing martial customs—"
"Good view from that overlook," Durgan continued, as though she hadn't spoken. "Warriors train shirtless for a reason. No point pretending otherwise."
Verity opened her mouth, closed it, and reached for her cup of water.
"You're built well," Durgan added, in the same conversational tone. "Good abundance. Strong for bearing."
The water went down the wrong way. Verity coughed, eyes watering, while Delia pounded her back with rather more force than necessary.
"I'm sorry," Verity managed, when she could speak again. "I'm built—what?"
"Abundantly." Durgan gestured vaguely at her midsection, her hips, the general territory of her body. "Plenty to hold. Softness where it matters. The warchief has good taste."
"The warchief has not—we are not—there is no—"
"Durgan." Delia's voice carried a warning note. "Perhaps Ms. Dunmore doesn't need a full assessment over breakfast."
Durgan looked genuinely confused. "I was complimenting. Humans do compliment each other, yes?"
"Not typically about—" Verity gestured helplessly at herself. "About abundance."
"Strange." Durgan shook his head, apparently genuinely baffled by human customs. "You have a body worth celebrating. Why would you not speak of it?"
Verity had no answer for this. In Valdara, her body was something to be managed, accommodated, dressed in ways that minimized rather than emphasized.
No one had ever looked at her softness and called it plenty to hold.
No one had ever suggested that her hips—her wide, inconvenient hips that made fitting into archive ladder spaces a constant negotiation—were strong for bearing.
She turned back to her porridge. Abundance. The word sat in her chest, taking up space she hadn't cleared for it.
"It's a cultural difference," Delia said smoothly, rescuing her. "Humans are more... private about bodies."
"Private." Durgan tested the word like it was slightly spoiled meat. "You hide them under all those layers. Cover everything. How do you know what you're getting?"
"We rely on other qualities," Verity said faintly. "Conversation. Shared interests. Intellectual compatibility."
Durgan considered this. "And that works?"
"Sometimes."
"Seems inefficient." He rose from the bench, apparently finished with the exchange. "The fish. Don't forget." He nodded to Delia, then ambled toward the serving area, leaving Verity staring after him.
"That," she said, "was unexpected."
"Welcome to Northwatch." Delia's voice was warm with suppressed laughter.
"Is it always like this?"
"Not always. But you're new, you're human, and you've been watching the warchief." Delia shrugged. "People notice. People talk. And orcs don't see any reason to be subtle about what they notice."
Verity returned her attention to her plate, but her appetite had diminished.
The porridge was still good. The bread was still warm.
But she was thinking about abundance and plenty to hold and the way Durgan had said the warchief has good taste as though his interest in her were established fact rather than speculation.
The meal wound toward its conclusion. Warriors rose from their benches, heading toward training or patrol or the dozen other duties that kept Northwatch functioning. Verity was contemplating her escape route when a shadow fell across her table.
She knew who it was before she looked up. The quality of the silence around her shifted, conversations nearby faltering. Even Delia went very still.
Verity raised her eyes.
Targesh stood at the end of their table, hands clasped behind his back, expression revealing nothing.
"Ms. Dunmore," he said. His voice carried no further than their immediate vicinity, but she suspected everyone in the hall was listening anyway. "Your first weekly report is due."
Verity's mind, which had been unhelpfully supplying images of his bare chest, scrambled to catch up with the actual words.
"Yes," she said. "I have it prepared. I can have it delivered to your—"
"No."
The word was flat. Final. She waited.
"You will present it in person," he said. "This evening. My quarters."
Verity's throat constricted. "Your quarters."
"There are matters to discuss that require privacy." His expression remained impassive, but his eyes flashed. "The report. And other things."
Other things.
"I—" Verity's voice emerged slightly strangled. She cleared her throat. "What time?"
"Seventh bell. I will have food brought."
"Food," she repeated.
"You have demonstrated an unreliable relationship with meals. I am taking precautions."
Beside her, Delia made a choked cough she poorly disguised by pressing her fist to her mouth.
Verity should refuse. She should suggest an alternate location. Somewhere public. Somewhere that did not involve his quarters and food and the two of them alone with all the things they had agreed to stop pretending about.
"Seventh bell," she said instead. "I'll be there."
Targesh inclined his head, managing to convey satisfaction without any change in his expression. Then he turned and walked out of the room.
The hall seemed to exhale around her. Conversations resumed at their normal volume. The studied casualness of the past few minutes dissolved into genuine disinterest as the warchief's business with the human archivist concluded.
Delia waited until he was fully out of earshot before leaning close.
"His quarters," she said. "For dinner."
"To discuss my report."
"And other things."
Verity pressed her palms flat against the table. "This is a professional meeting. He is the warchief. I am here under diplomatic sanction. There are protocols—"
"There are," Delia agreed. "And none of them require dinner in his private quarters." She rose from the bench, gathering her empty plate. "Wear a good dress."
"I don't have a good dress. I have traveling dresses, all of which are—"
"Then wear the less rumpled one." Delia's smile was knowing, infuriating, and entirely too delighted. "Seventh bell. His quarters. Other things."
She departed before Verity could formulate a response, leaving her alone at the table with the remnants of her breakfast and the growing certainty that she had just agreed to something far more significant than a progress report.