2. Rakk #3
Her pain intensifies with the movement. Fresh agony spikes through my awareness—broken ribs shifting wrong, muscles tearing against damaged tissue. I taste blood in my mouth even though I haven't been hit, feel the phantom sensation of whip marks opening across my own back.
The magic surges harder, desperate to ease her suffering. My vision blurs at the edges.
"She's going to hurt herself." Zurkar moves closer, hands raised in a placating gesture. White ritual paint marks his face in patterns I've memorized over years of secret lessons. "We need to sedate her before she causes more damage."
"No!" The first word the woman's spoken. Her voice is raw, probably from screaming or crying or both, but the defiance in it is sharp as broken glass. "No more— I won't—"
She tries to stab at me this time, blade arcing toward my chest. I catch her wrist before it connects, grip firm but careful not to hurt her more than she's already hurting. Her pulse hammers against my fingers, rabbit-fast and irregular.
"Nobody's going to hurt you," I tell her, keeping my voice low and even despite the riot happening inside me. "But you need to let us treat your injuries or you're going to die. Is that what you want?"
Amber eyes lock onto mine. There's intelligence there beneath the terror, a sharp awareness that's calculating odds and outcomes. She's survived long enough to get here—wherever she came from—which means she knows how to think strategically even when everything's falling apart.
"You're orcs." She spits the word like a curse. "You'll just sell me back to them. Or keep me yourselves."
Them. Dark elves, probably. The scars on her wrists bear that out—restraint marks from iron cuffs that burned her skin over and over. I can feel the ghost of those burns through our contact, old pain layered with newer wounds.
"We're not that kind of clan," Lola says quietly. "I'm human too. See? They didn't sell me. They saved me."
The woman's gaze flicks to Lola, taking in the clean clothes, the healthy flush to her skin, the obvious lack of restraints. Something in her expression shifts—not trust, but maybe a crack in the certainty that everyone here wants to hurt her.
"I don't believe you." But her grip on the knife loosens fractionally.
Zurkar takes advantage of the moment, moving to stand where she can see him clearly.
"I am Zurkar, shaman of the Bone Warrior Clan.
The warrior holding your arm is Rakk, son of our Chieftain.
The woman beside you is Lola, my apprentice.
We have no interest in enslaving you or returning you to whoever hurt you.
But you are bleeding, possibly feverish, and certainly malnourished. Let us help."
His tone carries that authority that comes from decades of healing, of seeing every kind of wound and knowing exactly how to treat them. It's the voice that makes warriors twice his size sit still for stitches.
The woman stares at him for a long moment. I feel the exact instant she makes her decision—her pain shifts, fear receding just enough to let exhaustion rush in. The knife slips from her fingers, clattering onto the stone table with a sound that seems too loud in the sudden quiet.
Her eyes roll back.
She collapses against Lola's hands, unconscious before I can even think about catching her. The sudden absence of resistance nearly sends me stumbling backward. I release her wrist carefully, stepping away from the table before anyone can notice the tremor in my hands.
The magic's still raging, still demanding I do something about the suffering I just experienced. It takes everything I have to keep it contained, to force it back down into the depths where it lives when I'm not actively fighting it.
"Rakk." Zurkar's studying me with those penetrating violet eyes that see too much. "You look pale."
"I'm fine." I flex my fingers, trying to dispel the lingering sensation of her pain. "Just wasn't ready for her to fight that hard."
"Hmm." He doesn't sound convinced, but he turns his attention to the unconscious woman. "Lola, get me clean water and bandages. Fresh herbs—fyrval root and bluefrost if we have any left. Rakk, help me get her tunic off so I can assess the damage."
I should leave. Should make an excuse about needing to report to my father or check on patrol rotations or literally anything that gets me out of this chamber before Zurkar realizes what just happened.
But my feet don't move, and my hands are already reaching for the woman's torn clothing because the healer gave an order and my body responds automatically.
The tunic's more hole than fabric, stiff with dried blood and other substances I don't want to identify. We peel it away carefully, and the state of her back makes Lola gasp.
Whip scars. Dozens of them, layered over each other in a tapestry of old violence. Some are years old, faded to pale lines against skin that must have once been a few shades lighter. Others are fresh, still red and raised, a few showing signs of infection.
My hands clench into fists at my sides as phantom pain traces those same patterns across my own back.