Chapter 7 Seris
SERIS
The soup warms me from the inside out, each spoonful spreading heat through my chest and down into my limbs. Rich broth with chunks of meat I can't identify—probably better not to ask. The bowl feels substantial in my hands, carved from some dark wood that's been worn smooth by countless meals.
I take my time with each bite, savoring the salt and herbs that dance across my tongue. My stomach, cramped with hunger for so long, finally begins to unclench. The baby shifts inside me, settling into a more comfortable position as warmth spreads through my body.
When the last drop disappears, I set the bowl aside and eye the rickety rocking chair positioned near the brazier.
Its wooden frame looks like it survived the same architectural collision as the rest of Azhgar—human craftsmanship with orc modifications.
Someone welded iron reinforcements to the joints and replaced the original seat with thick leather stretched taut across the frame.
I lower myself into it carefully, testing its stability before trusting it with my full weight. The chair holds, creaking softly as I settle back. My hand finds its familiar place on my swollen stomach, fingers tracing the curve that houses my child.
The brazier crackles beside me, flames dancing across coals that glow like tiny suns. Heat radiates against my face and arms, chasing away the last of the cold that's lived in my bones since I left the human territories. For the first time in weeks, I'm truly warm.
My thumb brushes across my belly in slow circles, and the baby responds with a gentle flutter. Not the sharp kicks that sometimes steal my breath, just a soft movement that feels like greeting.
"Hello to you too," I whisper.
The melody comes without conscious thought, rising from some deep place where childhood memories live.
My mother's voice echoes in my mind as I begin to hum—soft, wordless notes that flow together like water over stones.
The same lullaby she sang when fever kept me awake, when storms rattled our windows, when the world felt too big and frightening for a small girl to bear.
Hmm-mm-mm-hmm, hmm-mm-mm-hmm...
The tune drifts through the stone chamber, bouncing off walls that have heard countless secrets. My voice wavers slightly—I haven't sung in months, haven't had reason to. But the melody finds its rhythm, and my throat remembers how to shape the notes.
The baby stills completely, listening. I can feel the attention in the way the movements pause, the way my belly seems to tighten slightly as if straining to hear better.
My fingers trace slow circles on my belly, and the warmth of the brazier seems to pull memories from the depths where I've buried them. The heat against my face becomes another fire, in another place, months ago.
His fingers had found mine during the first negotiation, when Chief Gorak was bellowing about territorial boundaries and I was scribbling translations as fast as my hand could move.
A simple brush of knuckles against my wrist as Vargath passed me a corrected map.
Nothing more than an accident, except for how his touch lingered a heartbeat too long.
The second time, he'd reached beneath the table during a particularly heated exchange about trade routes. His palm settled against my knee—warm, steady, grounding me when voices rose to near-shouting around us. I should have pulled away. Instead, I'd pressed my leg against his hand.
By the third day, we'd developed a language of glances and careful touches. His thumb tracing my knuckles when he handed me documents. My fingers brushing his when I returned them. Small rebellions against the formal distance our positions demanded.
"You translate more than words," he'd said after that final session, when the tent had emptied and we were alone with dying firelight.
"And you see more than most warriors choose to."
"Perhaps that's why we understand each other."
The memory shifts, deepens. My hand stills on my belly as I remember how his touch had mapped every inch of my skin like he was learning a new language.
The negotiation tent had emptied hours before, leaving only scattered parchments and the dying embers of the central fire. I should have returned to my quarters, should have followed protocol. Instead, I lingered, pretending to organize documents that needed no organizing.
Vargath emerged from the shadows near the tent's edge, his armor discarded somewhere behind him. Firelight caught the ritual scars that traced his forearms—precise lines burned into dark olive skin, each mark earned through trials I could only imagine.
"You stayed."
His voice carried surprise, as if he hadn't expected me to be there despite the glances we'd shared across the negotiation table all day.
Those moments when his fingers would brush mine as we passed documents, when his knee would press against my thigh under the table during heated exchanges between our peoples.
"I stayed."
He moved closer, and I could see how the firelight painted every ridge of muscle across his chest, every old wound that had healed into silver lines. His tusks caught the glow when he smiled—not the diplomatic expression he wore during formal meetings, but something genuine and uncertain.
"I've been thinking about you." His hand reached toward my face, then hesitated. "Is that permitted?"
I caught his wrist, guided his palm to my cheek. "Since when do warriors ask permission?"
"Since they care about the answer."
The admission hung between us like a bridge neither of us had expected to build. His thumb traced my cheekbone, and I realized no one had ever touched me like that—as if I might disappear, as if I were something precious rather than useful.
"You see me." The words slipped out before I could stop them.
"How could I not?" His other hand found my waist, drew me closer until I could feel the heat radiating from his skin. "You argue with chieftains like they're children. You translate not just words but intent, emotion, the things people don't say. You're magnificent."
Magnificent. Not helpful. Not competent. Magnificent.
When he kissed me, it tasted like confession—desperate and reverent and tinged with the knowledge that dawn would steal this moment from us. His mouth moved against mine like he was memorizing the shape of my lips, the way I breathed his name between kisses.
The memory fractures, sharp edges cutting deeper than I expect. I press both hands against my belly, feeling the steady rhythm of life beneath my palms. The baby shifts, responds to my touch with a gentle roll that ripples across my stretched skin.
A sigh escapes me—long, shaky, carrying months of buried grief. It had been one night. One perfect, impossible night that shattered something fundamental inside me, broke open chambers of my heart I hadn't known existed.
Before Vargath, I'd been content with being useful. Competent. The translator who bridged worlds without belonging to either. He'd shown me what it felt like to be chosen instead of merely tolerated, to be seen as magnificent rather than simply functional.
One night. And now I carry the consequence of that revelation in my womb, a child who will inherit my displacement, my eternal position on the outside of every circle.
"You're not a mistake," I whisper to the curve of my belly, voice barely audible above the crackling brazier. My thumbs trace gentle circles over the spot where tiny feet press against my ribs. "Even if he never loves us. Even if we never belong anywhere."
The baby stills at my voice, listening with the intense focus only the unborn seem capable of. I imagine dark eyes behind closed lids, tusks that might never grow, hands that will reach for a world unprepared to embrace them.
"You're not a mistake," I repeat, stronger now. "You're proof that something beautiful can come from broken things."