Chapter 8 #2
She holds my gaze for one more heartbeat—a silent acknowledgment that this contest isn’t finished—before turning to face him.
“The council meets tomorrow. Every noble in the Keep will be there, ostensibly to discuss the riots and the ‘security situation.’” Her lip curls around the euphemism.
“In reality, Juk wants to assess the damage. Figure out who’s loyal and who might be wavering. ”
“We use it.” I speak before Zorath can, before he can suggest something violent. “The council meeting. We reveal the evidence publicly, in front of witnesses. Noble witnesses who can’t be silenced.”
Vaela’s attention snaps back to me. “That’s…not the worst idea.”
“If we can prove King Morvak was murdered—prove it beyond any doubt—even lords who fear the Triumvirate will have to acknowledge Zorath’s claim.
” I’m pacing now, my mind racing ahead of my words.
“The evidence is overwhelming. Falsified death records, forged signatures, systematic document alteration spanning a decade. Anyone who examines it honestly will reach the same conclusion I did.”
“And if they refuse to examine it honestly?” Zorath’s question carries the weariness of someone who has watched politics corrupt justice since his father’s death.
“Then we’ll have tried.” I stop pacing, face him directly. “And whatever comes next will be on their conscience, not ours.”
The words hang in the air. A declaration of principles, or perhaps a confession of naivety. Vaela probably thinks I’m a fool for believing evidence can compete with power. Maybe she’s right.
But I’ve spent my entire career fighting for truth in systems designed to suppress it. The scholars’ guild taught me that the game is never fair, but it also taught me that sometimes the underdog wins anyway. You just have to be smarter. More stubborn. More willing to sacrifice.
Zorath studies me for a long moment. Whatever he sees in my expression seems to satisfy something—not quite agreement, but something adjacent. Acceptance, maybe. Or faith that I know what I’m proposing.
“Vaela.” He doesn’t look away from me. “Can you get us into the council chamber?”
“My house has representatives. Token presences, assumed to be harmless.” A smile plays at her lips. “The Triumvirate has underestimated House Emberclaw before. They’ll do it again.”
“Then we have a plan.” His attention finally shifts to the noblewoman. “Coordinate with Gravik. I want our people positioned throughout the Keep—not attacking, not threatening, just present. If this goes wrong, I need extraction options.”
“And if it goes right?”
“Then I claim what’s mine.” His jaw sets. “And the Triumvirate answers for what they’ve done.”
Vaela’s smile widens—genuine pleasure at the prospect of violence, or perhaps just satisfaction at finally seeing movement after years of waiting. She offers a brief bow, more acknowledgment than subservience, and withdraws toward her guards.
At the passage entrance, she pauses. Looks back at me with eyes that seem to be measuring something.
“Sleep well, archivist. Tomorrow, we find out if your truth is strong enough to reshape a kingdom.”
Then she’s gone, her guards falling into formation behind her, leaving Zorath and me alone among the tombs of dead kings.
The hours pass slowly.
Gravik returns with food—simple provisions, nothing elaborate, the kind of fare that won’t spoil quickly in the crypts’ cool air.
I eat mechanically, barely tasting the bread and cheese and dried meat he provides.
My body needs fuel; my mind is elsewhere, running through tomorrow’s presentation, anticipating objections, preparing arguments.
Zorath eats nothing. He sits against a sarcophagus wall, eyes closed, breathing measured. Resting, or pretending to rest. His wounds are bound with clean cloth now, but I can see blood seeping through in places. The price of protecting me, written on his body in red.
“You should sleep.” His voice startles me; I thought he’d drifted off. “Tomorrow will be difficult.”
“I can’t.” I set aside my half-finished meal. “My mind won’t stop working.”
“I know the feeling.” His eyes open, find mine in the lantern’s failing light. “The night before a battle, you rehearse every possible outcome. Plan for disasters that may never come. Try to outthink enemies who are doing the same thing in their own camps.”
“Is that what tomorrow is? A battle?”
“Of a kind.” He shifts, winces, finds a new position. “Different weapons. Same stakes.”
I move to sit beside him—close enough to feel his heat, far enough to maintain the pretense of propriety. The obsidian wall is cold against my back. Above us, carved into the ceiling, ancient orc script tells stories of kings and conquests I can only partially translate.
“Thank you.” My voice is quiet. “For earlier. In the archives. You could have left me. Should have, probably—I was slowing you down, making you vulnerable.”
“I could have.” He doesn’t look at me. “I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
Silence stretches between us. I watch his profile in the dim light—the strong line of his jaw, the prominent tusks, the scar that runs from eyebrow to cheekbone.
He’s beautiful in a way that shouldn’t make sense, that defies every standard I was raised with.
Orc and human, prince and scholar, violence and knowledge. We shouldn’t work.
But here we are, sitting in a crypt surrounded by dead kings, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
“When my father died,” he says finally, “I lost the last person who saw me as something other than a weapon. Years of being feared, hated, manipulated—I’d forgotten what it felt like to be valued for anything except my capacity for violence.”
His head turns. Those amber-gold eyes capture mine, hold them with an intensity that steals my breath.
“You look at me differently. Like there’s something in me worth saving.”
“There is.” The words come out fierce, certain. “There’s a prince who wants to be worthy of his crown. A man who fights for justice even when vengeance would be easier. Someone who touches my face like he’s afraid I’ll shatter and holds my hand like he’s afraid to let go.”
His breath catches. I can see it—the subtle shift in his chest, the slight parting of his lips. Something raw in his expression, vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely witnessed.
“Fable—”
“I know.” I stop him before he can say something that will make this harder. “I know this is complicated. Dangerous. Probably impossible. You’re a prince fighting for a throne, and I’m a human scholar with no political value. Vaela would be the smarter choice. The practical choice.”
“I don’t want practical.” He catches my hand—not gentle this time, but urgent, his fingers interlacing with mine like he’s anchoring himself to something solid. “I don’t want smart. I want—”
He stops. Swallows. The great orc prince, who killed eleven men tonight without hesitation, struggling to voice what he wants from a woman half his size.
“What?” I press. “What do you want?”
“You.” The word is rough, scraped out of somewhere deep. “I want you. Your courage and your stubbornness and your infuriating certainty that truth matters more than power. I want to be worthy of the way you look at me.”
My heart pounds against my ribs. Blood rushes in my ears. This is impossible, impractical, probably suicidal given everything we’re facing. And I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it.
I lean forward. Close the distance. Press my lips to his.
The kiss is brief—too brief, barely a taste of what I want from him—but it’s enough to make his whole body go still. That startlement I’ve noticed before, the reaction of someone who has forgotten what gentle contact feels like.
“Then be worthy.” I pull back, hold his gaze. “Survive tomorrow. Take your throne. We’ll figure out what comes next.”
His hand tightens on mine. Not painful—possessive. Claiming.
The poisoning happens hours later.
I’ve moved to a smaller chamber off the main crypt—a space Gravik says was once used for preparing bodies, now empty except for a stone slab and a few scattered supplies. Privacy, of a sort. A place to sleep that isn’t surrounded by the tombs of Zorath’s ancestors.
The food is waiting when I return from checking on the document bundles I’ve hidden throughout our refuge. Fresh provisions, delivered by one of Gravik’s warriors while I was occupied. Bread. Cheese. A bowl of something warm that smells of herbs and meat.
My body needs fuel—the council meeting is hours away. But hunger isn’t what I feel. My mind is still running through tomorrow’s presentation, too busy for food.
I set the tray aside. I manage a few bites but decide to eat the rest later, after I’ve reviewed the documents one more time. A scholar’s habit—preparation soothes anxiety, and I have plenty of both to work through.
The scream reaches me twenty minutes later.
It’s distant, muffled by stone walls, but unmistakable—the high, sharp sound of someone in agony. I’m on my feet before conscious thought catches up, moving toward the main crypt, heart hammering against my ribs.
Gravik meets me at the threshold. His face is grim, his hand on my shoulder stopping my forward momentum.
“Don’t.” His voice is low. Urgent. “You don’t want to see.”
“What happened?” I can hear more sounds now—groaning, someone retching, the particular noise of a body in distress. “Who—”
“One of my warriors. Young orc, tasked with food preparation.” Gravik’s grip tightens. “He tasted the evening provisions before distribution. Standard precaution.”
My blood runs cold. “Poison.”
“Fast-acting. He’s dying. There’s nothing—” Gravik’s jaw clenches. “There’s nothing to be done.”
The food. The fresh provisions delivered to my chamber while I was checking documents. The meal I set aside because I wasn’t hungry, but took a few bites because my scholar’s habits prioritized work over sustenance.
I was supposed to eat that food.
I was supposed to die tonight.
“The Triumvirate.” My voice comes out hollow. “They found out about the evidence. About me.”
“Seems likely.” Gravik releases my shoulder. “We’re checking all provisions now. If there’s more—”
“There’s more.” I’m moving before I finish the sentence, pushing past him into the main crypt.
Zorath is there, on his feet despite his wounds, his expression a mask of controlled fury.
Warriors cluster around a figure on the ground—young, writhing, foam at his lips as the poison tears through his system.
I look away. Can’t watch another death tonight, even one I didn’t cause.
“The food in my chamber.” My voice cuts through the chaos. “I didn’t eat it. I set it aside.”
Zorath’s attention snaps to me. Something desperate flashes across his face—fear, I realize. Fear for me.
“Check it.” His command sends two warriors sprinting toward the side chamber. “Check everything. And someone find out how poisoned provisions got past our security.”
The next hour is chaos. More contaminated food is found—not just mine, but supplies throughout our refuge.
Someone has been systematically poisoning our provisions, targeting me but willing to kill anyone who got in the way.
The young warrior dies before we can do anything to save him, his body carried away by comrades whose expressions promise retribution.
Zorath doesn’t leave my side.
He stands beside me as reports come in, as the scope of the poisoning becomes clear, as we realize how close we came to disaster. His fingers lace through mine when no one is looking—that possessive grip again, holding on like I might disappear if he lets go.
“They want you dead.” His voice is quiet. Only for me. “The Triumvirate knows what you’ve found. They’re scared.”
“Good.” I’m surprised by the steel in my own voice. “They should be.”
“This changes nothing.” He pulls me slightly apart from the others, creates a bubble of privacy in the crowded crypt. “We proceed tomorrow. The council meeting, the evidence, all of it.”
“I know.” I meet his eyes. “I didn’t survive the scholars’ guild to be frightened off by poison. The Triumvirate wants me dead because I have proof that can destroy them. That means the proof matters. That means we’re winning.”
Something softens in his expression. Pride, maybe. Or that unfamiliar tenderness I’ve glimpsed before.
“Once I’m king,” he murmurs, “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Despite everything—the death, the poison, the certainty that more attempts will follow—I find myself smiling.
“Promise?”
His answer is a kiss pressed to my forehead. Brief, fierce, claiming.
“Promise.”
Tomorrow, we face the council. Tomorrow, we reveal the truth that could reshape a kingdom.
But tonight, in a crypt surrounded by dead kings and loyal warriors and the aftermath of an assassination attempt, I allow myself one moment of hope.
We’re going to win this.
We have to.