Chapter 8
Melelea
It is early morning when I enter the courtyard, ready to leave.
My ladies-in-waiting fussed over me last night and tried to pack trunks full of things for me to take, but I firmly made them pack only one small bag.
We need to pack lightly for a trip such as this and we will not be taking any wagons with us, so where would the trunks even go?
My ladies-in-waiting were horrified by the lack of luxuries I was taking with me, but they are young and sheltered.
I have done with far less than my satchel in the past. My mind briefly casts back to the night that my husband gave the order for me to be killed.
How I barely had time to grab my pouch of runestones and deck of oracle cards before fleeing into the night.
The desperation, the fear. How I had to stick to the wilds and live off the land until I reached Adrik and was taken in by Adalind.
I went to bed with my stomach empty more than once and lived caked in mud to hide my scent.
That was a lack of luxuries. At least now I have a full satchel with a change of clothing and trail rations.
I banish the thoughts of my flight so long ago.
It does not do to dwell on that night. Or any of the nights before it spent with my abuser husband.
I cannot change them, and even if I could I would not because they gave me Rognar.
My son. My spark of good in an evil world.
Dwelling on the past only gives it the power to hurt me in the present, gives Guruk the power to hurt me in the present.
And I will not allow him that power anymore.
The courtyard is busy, even so early. This is not surprising.
Though I am generally not awake this early, it is well-known that the Horde runs drills in the hour before sunrise.
As I look on from the top of the castle steps, I see members of the Horde train to one side, Rognar is with them, while Adalind looks on, a little further down the steps from me.
As if sensing my presence, she turns. Her lavender eyes catch mine and she makes her way up to me as I descend the steps.
I give my daughter-in-law a welcoming embrace as we meet. “Rognar is still doing training maneuvers at dawn?”
Adalind gives me a shrewd look. “He thought it best to continue business as usual. The Horde may have to be ready to move any day now if the demon attacks continue. But, truly, I think he just needed a distraction.”
I feel the sting of her subtle rebuke in the words. I shake my head sadly. “I cannot protect his feelings in this. If we are to save the future of Anar’i, Grazrath must be found and destroyed.”
Adalind gives me a sad smile in return. “He knows that. As do I. It does not make it any less painful.”
“You speak as if something bad is sure to happen to me,” I chide lightly. “I will be careful, and I have three of your best warriors coming with me. It will be all right.”
My daughter-in-law inclines her head briefly. “It is true that Zera, Gunag, and Wodred are some of our best. I still wish that you would allow a larger cohort to go with you . . .”
I shake my head, “A larger cohort would take longer to move and would attract more notice. A smaller group allows for speed and stealth.”
“So you said,” Adalind replies, her gaze tracking out over the training Horde and finding Rognar.
I wonder if she realizes just how often her eyes are searching to find him, attracted to him like metal to a lodestone.
When she sees him, her shoulders relax a fraction, like having him in her sight eases her.
“But, speaking as your friend and not your queen, I wish you weren’t leaving at all, Melelea.
Especially with the baby on the way. I will need you, as I always have. ”
My heart twinges at the thought of possibly being away long enough that I miss the coming of my grandchild.
I want to meet that baby with all my soul, and I want to promise Adalind that I will definitely be back in time for the birth.
We are still five months away from a healthy arrival, after all, but pragmatism stills my tongue.
I cannot make such promises, especially with such uncertainty.
Instead, I say, “You will have Rognar, who will bring you an army of healers, I’m sure. You and the babe will be fine.”
Adalind just gives me that same sad smile, her eyes still on Rognar. “They will not be you, though, Melelea. My oldest and dearest friend.”
Seeking to break the tension, I thread my arm through Adalind’s, taking on a chiding tone. “Did you just call me old?”
That surprises a laugh from my daughter-in-law. “I would not dare dream of it. You are still young, Melelea. In the prime of life for a trolless.”
She speaks true. Trolls often live until one hundred fifty summers, and I am only forty-nine.
I married Guruk when I was barely an adult and had Rognar only a few years later.
He will be twenty-eight soon. There is a good chance I will miss his birthday, going on this trek.
I had been looking forward to it after so many years apart.
Another small sacrifice to find Grazrath, but I feel it in my bones that I must be the one to hunt him, that only I can find him.
“You know,” Adalind continues, not waiting for me to respond. “Speaking of being in your prime, Wodred is a very handsome orc. Trollborn, isn’t he?”
I raise a skeptical brow. “Yes, he is. But how that has anything to do with me . . .”
“When you collapsed during your scrying, Wodred was the first one to you. He carried you to your room and would let no one else guard you. What do you think that means?”
I shake my head in amusement. “Wodred has always been a good friend to me these past thirty years, when I saw him, which was not often. I think you are seeing intrigue where there is none.”
“I have not gotten this far in life, nor survived the horrors of the Adrkian court, by seeing mistaken intrigue,” retorts Adalind. “Perhaps it is you who has a blind spot.”
Considering her words, I shake my head again. “Wodred is not interested in me. We have known each other for a long time. Would he not have said something if he did?”
“Wodred is quiet and honorable,” my daughter-in-law points out.
“You were married for most of the time that he knew you. He may not have said anything out of respect for you and your relationship. Then he thought you were dead for years. You have only recently reconnected. Why couldn’t he have feelings for you now that you are both unattached? ”
This conversation makes me feel nervous.
The idea of being with a male again after the torture of my relationship with Guruk is not something that I want.
I have never been tempted to seek out another male’s company in all the years since I escaped.
But someone like Wodred . . . strong and kind and quiet Wodred, with his mighty horns and broad shoulders, the light lines around his eyes that betray that he smiles more than you would think .
. . no. No. I will not even consider it.
Besides, he is not interested in me that way, so the point is moot.
I know that Adalind merely wants me to be happy, as she is with my son, but that is not in the stars for me.
Or is it? I am suddenly speared by a memory I’d nearly forgotten, when I was a giggly sixteen summers and my mother gave me a reading.
An uncommon honor, even as her daughter, since she was the king’s sasari and her gifts were supposed to be for him alone.
She had read a great love in my future, kind and unwavering.
It was with that reading in my mind that I met Guruk and thought that I had met the male my mother spoke of.
But he was anything but unwavering and almost never kind.
So I’d put my mother’s reading out of my mind and survived my marriage as best I could.
But my mother was never wrong. Could she have seen someone else in my future?
Some who wouldn’t treat me as Guruk did?
A dangerous thought. Dangerous because it makes something suspiciously like hope stir in my belly.
Hope for a true mating, one of respect and love.
I have not dreamed of something like that for a very long time.
But hope is often made to be trampled, and I am so very tired of being trod upon.
Besides, I am fifty, or nearly so. Surely that is too old to be dreaming of romance.
Love is a young person’s game. I have missed my chance by picking poorly when I was a maiden.
Clearing my throat, I reply, “Wodred has never been in a romantic relationship for all the years that I knew him. I don’t think that he is interested in such things. Not everyone is, Adalind.”
“Perhaps,” my daughter-in-law says, inclining her head as if to concede the point to me. “But you did not see his face when you collapsed. I would not have called it mere concern for a friend.”
I need this conversation to be over. It makes my feelings and thoughts jumbled, like a tangled ball of twine.
Impossible to sort through. Luckily, at that moment, Wodred and the others enter the courtyard on their mounts, the orcs on their warbeasts, and Dame Zera on her warhorse.
I do not see a mount for me, but perhaps it is being brought.
“It is time for me to go,” I say, delicately dodging the subject. Adalind would not discuss this further with me anyway, now that Wodred is in earshot. She has more manners than that. “I should meet with my party and be on my way.”
“Very well,” Adalind acknowledges, her arm still twined with mine. “There will be a break in training soon so that Rognar can give his farewell as well.”
My eyes glance over to the soldiers running drills, Rognar in the thick of it. As if Adalind’s words are a spell, Rognar gives a shrill whistle, and the drills stop.