Chapter 13
Kael
Iwoke to the smell of medicinal herbs and the dull, throbbing ache in my thigh.
For a moment, I was back in the mud of Grayfang Pass, my body screaming from a dozen different injuries.
But the furs beneath me were too soft, the air too clean.
I opened my eyes. I was in Korvak’s bed, in his longhouse, the morning light filtering in through the smoke-hole in the roof.
The events at the spring came rushing back—the poison, Roric’s sneer, the flash of steel, and then the roar that had shaken the very mountains. Korvak.
The memory was a blur of terror and a strange, shocking relief.
The days that followed were the most surreal of my life.
I was an invalid, a role I had never played and was horribly suited for.
Korvak and his mother, Grakka, formed an unspoken, formidable alliance with the sole purpose of keeping me in that bed.
Every time I tried to sit up, one of them was there.
Grakka would appear with a bowl of savory, steaming broth and a look on her face that dared me to refuse it.
Korvak would hover, a hulking mountain of anxiety, adjusting my furs, adding wood to the fire, his big hands clumsy and hesitant.
I had never been doted on in my life. I had never been cared for. The feeling was profoundly uncomfortable, like wearing clothes cut for a different body. I was Kael the grunt, the self-sufficient survivor. I didn’t know how to be… precious.
“I can feed myself,” I’d grumbled at Grakka on the second day as she held a spoon of broth to my lips.
“Hush, child,” she’d commanded in her thick, accented common tongue. “Wounded warriors rest. They do not argue with their healers.” It was the most she had ever said to me at one time.
The gifts continued to appear at the threshold of the longhouse.
Furs, carvings, dried meats, even a small, beautifully crafted leather pouch filled with fragrant, dried flowers.
It was tribute. Acknowledgment. Every time I looked at the growing pile, a complicated knot of pride and bewilderment tightened in my chest.
The first night was the worst. The pain in my leg kept me from sinking into a deep sleep. I was trapped in a hazy twilight of nightmares, flashes of Roric’s face twisting into a silent scream, the feel of his blade slicing my flesh. I must have cried out, because a shadow fell over me.
I jolted awake, my hand flying to where my dagger should have been, but Grakka had taken it while she treated my wound. Korvak stood beside the bed, his silhouette massive against the dying fire.
“You were dreaming,” he said, his voice a low, soft rumble.
“I’m fine,” I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs. A chill that had nothing to do with the night air washed over me.
He stared down at me for a long moment, his face lost in shadow.
“You are shivering.” He didn’t wait for my denial.
He walked away and returned with another heavy bearskin.
He laid it over me, his movements surprisingly gentle.
His hand brushed my shoulder, and an involuntary tremor went through me.
“It is not enough,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.
He hesitated, a long, deep silence stretching between us.
“I will not… touch you,” he said, the words sounding like a vow being dragged from his very soul.
“But the cold is a battle you are losing. May I lie on the furs? My warmth will aid your healing.”
It was the most absurd, formal request I had ever heard. And the most respectful. He was asking permission to get into his own bed. He was giving me all the power. I should have said no. Every instinct for self-preservation screamed at me to keep my distance, to maintain the barrier between us.
But I was so, so cold. And the memory of my nightmares was a raw, gaping wound.
“Fine,” I whispered into the darkness.
He didn’t move to lie beside me. Instead, he lay down on top of the mountain of furs covering me, a living, breathing blanket of incredible weight and warmth.
He lay on his back, a respectful distance between his body and mine, our sides not quite touching.
But it was enough. The heat that rolled off him was a palpable thing, a physical presence that seeped into my chilled bones, chasing away the cold and the fear.
The sheer solidness of him was an anchor in the storm of my own mind.
He was a mountain range at my back, a shield against the night.
With the steady, rhythmic sound of his breathing beside me, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since I had come to this place.
That became our new normal. For the next two weeks, as my leg slowly healed, he slept on the furs of the bed. We never touched, not really. But every night, I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, cocooned in his warmth and an undeniable sense of safety I had never known in my life.
During the days, the stronghold slowly opened up to me.
Grakka’s Orcish lessons continued, but they were different now.
Several other Orc females, introduced by Grakka, began to join us.
They brought weaving, or mending, or some other task, and they would sit by the fire with us.
They would speak slowly, patiently, helping me form the clumsy, guttural words.
They would ask me questions about human customs, their curiosity genuine.
They thanked me, each in their own way, for what I had done at the spring.
They started to teach me their own history, their songs of loss and resilience.
I was learning about them. And they were learning about me. I was no longer an alien. I was becoming… a part of the tapestry of their lives. And it felt good. Terrifyingly, seductively good. It felt like coming home to a place I’d never been.
When Zogga, the Healer, finally declared my leg fully mended, a strange sort of panic seized me.
The excuse of my injury was gone. The chaste, comfortable routine I had fallen into with Korvak would have to end.
The unspoken question of our future now stood between us, a cliff edge we had been walking toward this whole time.
He must have felt it, too. That afternoon, he asked me to walk with him.
We left the stronghold, climbing a winding path to a high ledge that overlooked the entire valley, the sprawling Orcish town a collection of toys below us.
To the south, beyond the jagged peaks, lay the hazy, scarred lands of the human kingdoms. My old world.
We stood in silence for a long time, the wind whipping my red hair around my face. Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet, serious.
“You are healed, Kael.”
“I am,” I said, my voice tight.
He turned to face me, and the look in his eyes was one I had never seen before. The General was gone. The awkward suitor was gone. This was just Korvak, and his expression was filled with a deep, aching vulnerability.
“I made a Decree,” he said. “I claimed you before my people and yours. But that was a claim made in the heat of victory, on a woman I did not know. I know you now.” He took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into icy water.
“And so I give you a choice. One that is real. One that is yours alone to make.”
He gestured south, toward the distant human lands.
“The snows have not yet closed the high passes. I will escort you myself to Bard’s Crossing.
It is a neutral town, an armpit of a place, but it is free.
I will give you a new name, a horse, and enough gold to start a new life and never have to look back.
No one will ever know who you were or where you came from.
You can have the freedom you fought so hard for. ”
Freedom. The word hit me like a physical blow.
It was the thing I had dreamed of, bled for, lied for, for five long years.
A life where I didn't have to bind my chest, or lower my voice, or answer to any man.
A life that was completely and utterly my own.
It was everything I had ever wanted. He was offering it to me on a silver platter.
“That is the first choice,” he said, his voice strained.
He turned his gaze back to the stronghold nestled in the valley below.
“The second… is that you stay.” He finally met my eyes, and the raw, unshielded longing I saw there stole the breath from my lungs.
“You stay. Not as my captive. Not as a prize of war. But as my mate. Truly. Willingly. You would be bound to me, to my clan. You would be my wife.”
He swallowed hard. “I will not force you, Kael. The choice must be yours. A life of freedom, alone. Or a life here… with me.”
I looked south, toward the promise of my oldest dream.
I pictured it. A small room in a tavern in some forgettable town.
A new name, a new lie. A life spent looking over my shoulder, forever hiding from my past, from both humans and Orcs who might recognize me.
It would be safe. It would be my own. And it would be so, so lonely.
The cold that washed over me at the thought was more profound than any mountain winter.
My entire life, “safe” and “alone” had been the same thing. To be alone was the only way to be safe from the Valeriuses and Rorics of the world, from the uncles who would sell you like cattle.
Then I looked at Korvak.
The freedom he was offering was the freedom to be alone. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be here. I wanted the sound of his laughter echoing in the longhouse.
I wanted him.
The realization was as terrifying and as undeniable as a mountain falling into the sea. I had run from one cage my whole life, only to find that the freedom I was looking for wasn't a place. It was a person.
I turned to him, and the choice was not a choice at all. It was the only answer my heart knew how to give.
“I’ll stay,” I said, the words a quiet promise in the wind.
His massive frame went rigid with shock. He stared at me, his dark eyes wide, searching my face for the truth of my words.
And for the first time, I was the one who closed the distance between us. I reached out and laid my hand on his arm. His muscles were like steel beneath his leather tunic, but I felt a fine tremor run through him at my touch.
“I will stay,” I repeated, my voice stronger now. “With you.”
A look of such profound, unguarded relief and joy washed over his face that it was like watching the sun break through the clouds after a long, hard winter. He didn't speak. He just covered my hand with his own.