Chapter 20 Galthan
GALTHAN
Ipace the length of my tent like a caged beast, my boots wearing a path in the rough canvas floor. The walls feel too close, the air too thin. Every muscle in my body coils tighter with each passing moment.
She's with Rytha. Right now, as I stand here doing nothing, that cruel bitch has her claws in the one person who—
I slam my fist into the tent pole, making the whole structure shudder. The sharp crack of bone against wood does nothing to ease the rage burning in my chest.
What is this? This relentless, consuming need that claws at my insides like a living thing? I've bedded females before. Taken what I wanted, given what was expected, moved on without a backward glance. War makes simple creatures of us all.
But this... this is different. This is madness.
I think of her hands, torn and bleeding from scrubbing stone with nothing but her shirt.
I think of her kneeling in the dirt while Rytha sneers down at her like she's something foul.
I think of those golden eyes, wide with terror when the goddess marked her, and the way she whispered my name in the darkness like a prayer.
The tent walls close in further. I need air. I need space. I need to stop thinking about how she felt beneath my hands, how she tasted, how she looked at me like I was something more than a weapon forged for killing.
I shove through the entrance flap and stride into the pre-dawn gloom. The camp sleeps around me, snores drifting from a dozen tents, cook fires reduced to glowing embers. My breath mists in the cold air, but the chill does nothing to cool the fire in my blood.
My feet carry me without conscious thought through the winding paths between pavilions, past sleeping guards and hobbled horses. The festival grounds stretch before me, abandoned and ghostly in the weak starlight.
And there, at the center of it all, burns the pyre.
It shouldn't still be burning. Days have passed since the goddess first lit those flames, and despite bucket after bucket of water thrown on the wood, despite every attempt to douse it, the fire burns as bright as ever.
Golden tongues of flame dance against the darkness, casting shifting shadows across the empty square.
I stop before it, tilting my head back to stare into those impossible flames. Heat washes over my face, but it's nothing compared to the heat that's been building inside me since the moment I saw Thalia's arm burst into golden light.
"Goddess." My voice sounds rough, foreign to my own ears. I've never been one for prayer, never believed much in divine intervention. Orcs make their own fate with steel and blood.
But here I stand, talking to a fire that won't die.
"Is this your will? Your truth?" The flames flicker higher, as if responding to my words, but that could be nothing more than wind. "Guide me, Goddess, if this is you, real and showing me my path."
Silence answers me. The fire crackles and pops, wood shifting in the eternal heat, but no divine voice whispers wisdom in my ear. No golden light descends to illuminate my choices.
Just flame. Just heat. Just the endless burning that started when Thalia knelt before me with her offering.
I laugh, short and bitter. "Of course. Leave me to figure it out myself."
The irony tastes like ash on my tongue. Here I am, a warrior who's spent his life following orders, making simple choices between life and death, victory and defeat. Now I'm begging a silent fire for answers to questions I don't even know how to ask.
What I want is to give in. To stop fighting this need that tears at me like claws. To follow her scent through the camp, tear down Rytha's tent, and claim what my body screams is mine.
But duty chains me here. Honor. The weight of two clans' expectations. The betrothal that will bring peace and prosperity to both our peoples.
All of it crumbling to ash because of one small human who healed my wounds and looked at me like I mattered and the Goddess agreed.
The crunch of footsteps on frost-hardened ground breaks my reverie. I don't turn—I know that measured gait, the way each step carries the weight of decades.
"Restless nights breed restless thoughts."
Elder Thorgrim emerges from the shadows, his weathered face catching the firelight. Deep lines map a lifetime of battles across his features, and his gray braids hang heavy with bone charms that click softly as he moves.
"Elder." I incline my head, but my eyes remain fixed on the flames.
"You stand before the goddess's fire like a supplicant." He settles beside me with the careful movements of age, joints protesting the cold. "What is it you seek, young warrior?"
The question hangs between us, simple yet impossible to answer. I could lie. Tell him I'm merely restless, that the approaching ceremony weighs on my mind. But something in his ancient eyes suggests he'd see through any deception.
"A sign." The words scrape from my throat like rusted metal. "That I'm not losing my mind."
Thorgrim's laugh rumbles deep in his chest, a sound like distant thunder. "Ah, the eternal question of warriors who find themselves caught between duty and desire."
"The goddess marked her." I finally turn to meet his gaze. "In front of both clans. That fire hasn't died since."
"And you wonder if divine will trumps political necessity."
"I wonder if I'm a fool for believing any of it could be true."
The elder's eyes crinkle with something that might be amusement. "The Harvest Goddess gives no easy signs, boy. She's not the War God, demanding blood and glory. Her truths come wrapped in riddles, her blessings disguised as curses."
I bark out a harsh laugh. "Then she's succeeded. This feels like both."
"Tell me, what do you see when you look into those flames?"
The question catches me off guard. I turn back to the pyre, expecting to see nothing but dancing tongues of fire and glowing embers. But as I stare deeper, the flames seem to shift and swirl, taking on new patterns.
And there, in the heart of the burning wood, I see her.
Thalia's face forms in the golden light—not as she appeared today, bruised and exhausted from Rytha's cruelty, but as she was that first night in her tent. Determined. Unafraid. Her hands steady as she tended my wounds, her eyes bright with something I couldn't name then but recognize now.
The vision shifts. I see her kneeling in the dirt while Rytha sneers down at her. I see her small hands bleeding as she scrubs stone. I see the way she flinched when the goddess's mark blazed down her arm, terrified not of divine attention but of what it would cost her.
My fists clench at my sides. The fire burns hotter, responding to something I don't understand.
"Nothing," I whisper, my voice rough with emotion I can't contain.
"Hm. Most definitely," he says before turning and walking away.
The flames dance higher, casting wild shadows across the empty festival grounds. In their light, I see not just Thalia's face but her future—the one that awaits if I do nothing. If I let duty and honor chain me to a path that leads away from her.
"I'll protect her." The vow falls from my lips like a stone into still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I knew about myself. "Even if I have to burn the world to do it."