16. Serah
SERAH
I've stopped fighting him in public.
It's not forgiveness. It's not even close to forgiveness. But watching the clan whisper and stare—feeling the tension coil tighter every time I open my mouth to contradict him—has shown me that whatever pain exists between us, my antagonism makes everything worse.
For everyone.
The younger warriors have started testing boundaries. Challenging each other more aggressively during training. Two fights broke out in the mess hall last week over nothing, and I overheard Gorrak muttering about "weak leadership" and "failure to control his own home."
I hate that my actions affect Rakk's standing. Hate even more that I care about his standing when he humiliated me in front of hundreds and reduced me to breeding stock with three careless words.
But Lola has been patient with me. Gentle in ways that crack through my anger to expose the raw hurt underneath.
"He made a terrible mistake," she told me yesterday while we prepared healing salves in Zurkar's chambers. "But Serah... have you noticed he never actually hurts you? That no matter how rough it looks, you never have bruises?"
I had noticed. I've checked my skin obsessively after every public display, expecting marks that never appear. Expecting pain that fades within minutes instead of lingering for days like it should.
It doesn't make sense.
None of this makes sense—not the gentleness in private, not the desperate apologies he whispers when he thinks I'm not listening, not the way he looks at me sometimes like I'm the only thing holding him together.
Not the way my traitorous heart still wants him despite everything.
"Maybe you should talk to him," Lola suggested carefully. "Not to forgive him necessarily. But to understand. To find some kind of common ground so you're not both drowning in this misery."
I'm not ready for that conversation yet. Don't know if I'll ever be ready. But I've stopped pushing him publicly. Stopped contradicting every order and challenging every decision.
The clan's tension has eased slightly as a result. Not dissolved—the whispers and sidelong glances continue—but the immediate pressure has lessened. Warriors no longer gather to watch our interactions with the hungry anticipation of spectators awaiting violence.
Small mercy.
And Rakk has stopped with the brutal displays. For the past week, he's barely touched me at all—not in public, not in private. He moves through our shared dwelling like a ghost, giving me space I desperately needed but that somehow makes the ache in my chest worse instead of better.
I miss him.
I hate that I miss him. Hate that despite everything, some broken part of me still remembers the man who held me tenderly in that cave and made me feel safe for the first time in my entire miserable life.
The hunting festival arrives like a reprieve.
The canyon transforms overnight. Fires blaze from stone platforms carved into the cliff walls, their light dancing across red rock and turning the settlement into something almost magical.
Drums echo through the space—deep, primal rhythms that sink into bone and blood.
The air smells of roasting meat, wood smoke, and the sharp musk of nervous equu gathered for the races.
For a few hours, the clan stops whispering about the Chieftain's heir and his difficult human mate. They laugh. They drink. They celebrate the successful hunting season with the kind of abandon that comes from surviving another harsh year.
I stand near the equu pens, watching handlers prepare the beasts for racing.
The creatures are magnificent—massive and muscular, with flared nostrils and eyes that reflect firelight like polished amber.
Their coats shimmer in shades of deep forest green and sandy tan, perfectly adapted for the grasslands they roam wild.
"You're racing?"
Kaelen's voice startles me. He appears at my side with Lola tucked against him, both of them radiating the comfortable intimacy of a mated pair who actually chose each other.
The pang of jealousy hits sharp and immediate.
"Zurkar cleared me for physical activity." I keep my eyes on the equu. "And I used to ride the caravan master's horses sometimes. Before."
Before everything went to the shit. Before slavery and escape and finding myself bound to an orc who can't decide if he loves me or wants to control me.
"It's dangerous," Lola says softly. "The canyon cliffs—"
"I know." I finally look at her. "But I need this. Need to feel something other than..." I gesture vaguely, unable to articulate the suffocating tangle of hurt and longing and confusion that's been strangling me for weeks.
Understanding floods her expression. She squeezes my hand. "Be careful."
Kaelen studies me with those sharp amber eyes. "Rakk will be racing too."
"I assumed."
"Will that be a problem?"
"Everything about Rakk is a problem." The bitterness leaks through despite my best efforts. "But I'm not going to let him dictate what I can or can't do anymore. I've had enough of that for one lifetime."
Something shifts in Kaelen's face. Almost like approval. "Good."
They drift away to find seats near the racing route, and I turn back to the equu. A stable hand helps me select a mount—a lean female with intelligent eyes and a coat the color of desert sand. She snorts when I approach, testing my confidence, but settles when I stroke her neck with steady hands.
"Easy, girl. We're both doing things we're not entirely sure about."
The handler boosts me into the saddle. The equu shifts beneath me, adjusting to my weight. I grip the reins and feel something in my chest loosen slightly. Up here, away from the whispers and the weight of being Rakk's unwanted mate, I can almost breathe.
The race route follows the canyon rim for two miles, then loops back along a lower ridge. Dangerous enough to be thrilling. Stupid enough that only warriors and people with nothing to lose attempt it.
I qualify as the latter.
Other riders gather—mostly young males eager to prove themselves, but a few older warriors join, including Gorrak and several I recognize from the training yards. They eye me with varying degrees of skepticism and dismissal. A human woman racing against orc warriors? Laughable.
Let them laugh. I've survived worse than their mockery.
Then Rakk arrives.
He rides a massive equu, its coat pure midnight black and rippling with muscle. The beast prances and tosses its head, clearly as dominant and powerful as its rider. Rakk sits the saddle with easy confidence, his broad shoulders relaxed despite the equu's restless energy.
But when his eyes find me across the gathering riders, something cracks through his composed expression. Surprise. Then concern. Then something that looks dangerously close to pride.
I force myself to look away before that warmth in his gaze can undermine my carefully maintained walls.
The starting drums begin their countdown. Deep. Steady. Building tension until my heart matches their rhythm.
I position my equu near the middle of the pack, away from the most aggressive riders but close enough to have a fighting chance. Rakk moves to the front line with the other dominant males. He doesn't look at me again, but I feel his awareness like a physical touch.
The final drum strike hits like thunder.
We explode forward.
The canyon becomes a blur of stone and firelight. Wind whips my hair back as my equu stretches into a full gallop, her powerful legs eating distance. Hooves thunder against packed earth. Riders jostle for position, their mounts snapping and kicking at competitors who get too close.
For the first time in weeks, my mind goes blissfully quiet.
There's no room for hurt or confusion or the constant weight of watching every word and action. There's only wind and speed and the primal thrill of controlling something wild beneath me.
We round the first bend. The canyon wall rises dizzyingly high on our left while the cliff edge drops into darkness on our right. One misstep. One stumble. That's all it would take to plummet into the abyss.
I lean forward and urge my equu faster.
Ahead, Rakk pulls into the lead alongside two other warriors. His black equu moves like liquid power, barely straining despite the brutal pace. Even from here, I can see the focus in his posture, the perfect synchronization between rider and mount.
He's magnificent.
Damn him, he's magnificent, and my treacherous heart squeezes watching him dominate the race with the same effortless competence he brings to everything.
We hit the turnaround point. The route narrows as it loops back along the lower ridge. Riders bunch closer together, fighting for position. My equu pins her ears and pushes through a gap between two males who try to box me out.
The crowd's roar echoes from below. Fires blur past in streaks of orange and gold.
And for these few precious moments, I feel almost free.
But then I notice Drogath and his men.
They've positioned themselves strategically in the pack—not racing to win but riding with clear intent. Their eyes track not the finish line but specific riders. Specifically, me.
The hair on my neck rises. Prey instinct honed by years of survival screams warning.
I try to maneuver away, but we're approaching the narrowest section of the route. Canyon wall on one side. Cliff edge on the other. Nowhere to go except forward through the press of bodies and beasts.
Drogath's lieutenant—a scarred warrior named Korr—suddenly drives his mount directly at mine. The collision sends my equu stumbling sideways toward the cliff edge. I haul on the reins, barely keeping her from the drop.
"Watch it!" I shout.
He doesn't respond. Just positions his mount to block my escape while Drogath moves in from the other side.
Panic floods cold through my veins. This isn't racing strategy. This is coordinated. Deliberate.
They're trying to kill me.
Another warrior—I don't recognize him—spurs his equu hard into my mount's flank. The impact sends us careening toward the cliff edge again. My equu screams, eyes rolling white with terror.
I fight for control but there are too many of them, boxing me in, driving me toward the drop with calculated precision.
The world narrows to the thunder of hooves and my mount's panicked breathing and the sick certainty that I'm going to die on this cliff and no one will believe it was anything but an unfortunate racing accident.
Korr's mount slams into mine one final time.
My equu loses her footing. We crash sideways, tumbling in a chaos of legs and screaming and stone rushing up to meet us.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
My mount's body rolls over me, her weight crushing me into the canyon stone before she scrambles upright and bolts away from the cliff edge.
Other riders thunder past. Hooves flash inches from my face. I curl instinctively, trying to protect my head as the stampede roars over me.
Waiting for the pain. Waiting for bones to shatter and organs to rupture and the end to come in blood and trampling and darkness.
But the pain doesn't come.
I feel pressure. Weight. The impact of being crushed beneath half a ton of panicked animal. But it doesn't hurt the way it should. The agony I expect—ribs cracking, skull fracturing, internal bleeding—never arrives.
Instead, there's only a dull, distant ache. Like the pain is happening to someone else and I'm just vaguely aware of its echo.
The stampede passes. Silence crashes down except for my own ragged breathing.
I lie against the canyon stone, gasping, trying to understand why I'm still conscious when I should be dying.
Then I hear the screaming.
Not from me. Not from any of the riders who just trampled me.
From Rakk.
I force myself upright despite how my body protests. Search desperately for the source of those agonized sounds.
Farther back along the route, Rakk has fallen from his mount. He writhes on the ground, clutching his chest while blood pours from his mouth in a dark flood. His face has gone gray. His breathing comes in wet, rattling gasps that sound like drowning.
Warriors surround him, shouting. Zurkar pushes through the crowd, already moving toward the fallen heir.
And I realize with dawning, impossible horror that Rakk is injured exactly the way I should be.
Crushed ribs. Internal bleeding. Trampling damage.
Nothing touched him. He didn't fall in the stampede. His black equu stands nearby, prancing nervously but uninjured.
Yet Rakk is dying from wounds that should have killed me instead.