10. Grath
GRATH
The button sits in my palm. Small, brass, tarnished at the edges. One hole cracked clean through.
I found it in the dirt after my first arena fight. A child's jacket button, lost in the sand. I kept it because it reminded me that somewhere, people had ordinary lives. Lives with children and buttons and things that mattered beyond blood and roaring crowds.
Now it reminds me I'm an idiot.
I set it back in the cigar tin with the other tokens. Close the lid. The metal clicks shut with a finality that echoes in the empty rowhouse.
Empty except for me and the silence where Maris used to fill the spaces.
Not here, of course. She was never here.
But her voice was. Her laughter carried through the walls when she worked late at the café.
The smell of coffee and pastry drifted through the window.
The knowledge that she existed just a few steps away made this place feel less like a hiding spot and more like home.
Now it's just walls again.
I scrubbed the floors this morning because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. Organized the shelf where I keep the few possessions I own. Folded the blanket the kitten used to sleep on, then unfolded it because the neat edges felt wrong. Too tidy. Too much like giving up.
The kitten is still gone. Three days now.
Maris won't answer my messages. I've sent four. Each one shorter than the last because I ran out of words that didn't sound like begging.
I don't know how to beg in a language that makes sense to humans anyway.
In the arena, you fought or you died. You didn't plead. You didn't negotiate. You survived by being stronger, meaner, faster than whatever wanted to break you.
Here, I can't fight my way through this.
Can't pin Maris down and make her listen. Can't wrestle the truth from the developer's assistant. Can't intimidate the kitten into coming home.
I'm useless.
Big hands that could snap bone or carry a grown man across the battlefield.
Broad shoulders built for carrying weight, armor, weapons, burdens that would crush lesser beings.
All the strength in the world, every ounce of muscle earned through blood and survival, and I have nowhere to put it except into scrubbing floors that don't need cleaning.
Floors that were already clean yesterday. And the day before that.
I've worn a groove in the wood near the window where I pace.
The arena taught me to channel rage into action. Every blow had purpose. Every movement meant survival. Here, in this quiet room with its too-thin walls and too-gentle light, my strength is just dead weight. A tool with no task. A weapon with no enemy to strike.
I can't punch my way through loneliness.
Can't lift the silence off my chest.
A knock rattles the door. Sharp. Insistent. The kind of sound that demands attention rather than requests it.
I don't move. Whoever it is can leave. I'm not interested in pity or gossip or another well-meaning neighbor asking if I need help adjusting to human customs.
The knock comes again. Harder.
"Grath. Open the damn door."
I know that voice. Sharp, impatient, with an edge that suggests she'll kick the door down if I don't comply.
I open it.
A woman stands on the threshold. Human. Mid-twenties maybe, though I'm bad at guessing ages. Short dark hair, nose ring, leather jacket covered in pins and patches. She's holding a lute case in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
"You look like shit," she says.
"I don't know you."
"Renna. I perform at the café sometimes. Open mic nights." She pushes past me into the room without waiting for an invitation. "You're the orc everyone's gossiping about. The one who broke Maris's heart and lost the kitten."
My hands curl into fists. "I didn't break anything. She told me to leave."
"Because you let her." Renna sets the lute case down, tosses me the paper bag. It smells like cinnamon rolls. "Eat something. You're even more pathetic when you're hangry."
I don't eat. I just stare at her, trying to understand why she's here. What she wants.
"Maris is stubborn," Renna says. She drops onto the cleanest corner of my floor, cross-legged, like she owns the place. "She pushes people away when she's scared. It's what she does. But you're the big, brave hero. So stop moping and do something about it."
"She doesn't want me to do something. She wants space."
"She wants you to fight for her, idiot." Renna rolls her eyes. "Look, I don't know you. I don't particularly care about you. But Maris has been miserable for weeks, and I'm tired of watching her pretend everything's fine. So either step up or get out of the way."
The words hit harder than they should. They land like a fist to the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. Because she's right—completely, brutally right in a way that makes me feel stupid for not seeing it sooner.
I've been sitting here in this dim, cluttered room for days now, telling myself I'm doing the honorable thing. Respecting Maris's boundaries. Giving her the space she asked for, the distance she said she needed. Being careful. Being good. Not pushing where I wasn't wanted.
But that's not what she needs at all.
She doesn't need to be careful. She doesn't need distance or quiet or someone who takes her at her word when she's scared and lying to herself.
She needs someone who won't let her hide behind those walls she builds so carefully, brick by stubborn brick.
Someone who'll see through the lies she tells herself when things get too real, too frightening, too good to trust. Someone who'll stand next to her—solid and immovable as stone—and refuse to leave even when she digs in her heels and pushes with everything she has.
That's me. That's what I want to be.
I let out a slow breath. Then I sit down across from Renna, folding my legs beneath me. I reach for the paper bag she tossed at me, pull it open with careful fingers. The cinnamon roll inside is still warm, the sugar glaze sticky and sweet-smelling, steam rising faintly from the soft dough.
I look up at her. Meet her eyes.
"What do I do?" I ask.
"First, you stop wallowing. Second, you find that damn kitten. Third, you get proof that the developer's been sabotaging businesses." She ticks the items off on her fingers like it's a grocery list. "And fourth, you tell Maris you love her in a way that doesn't sound like a caveman wrote it."
"I don't know how to do any of that."
"Lucky for you, I do." Renna grins. It's not a kind expression. More like a predator spotting prey. "And I know some people who can help."
By noon, my rowhouse is full of strangers.
Renna brought them. A goblin named Tick who works as a courier and knows every back alley in town.
Two café regulars, both retired librarians, who apparently have experience with "light espionage" from their activist days.
And a teenage kid with bright green hair who Renna introduces as "the tech guy. "
They're all talking at once.
"The gala's in two days," one of the librarians says. She's spread blueprints across my floor, pointing at rooms and hallways with a pen. "Security will be tight, but catering staff won't be vetted as carefully."
"We can get uniforms," Tick adds. His voice is high and raspy, like gravel scraping metal. "I know a guy who does laundry for the event company. He owes me a favor."
"What about Maris?" the other librarian asks. "Does she know about this plan?"
"Not yet," Renna says. She's tuning her lute, plucking strings with casual precision. "We'll bring her in once we have the details sorted. No point worrying her until we know it'll work."
I don't like that. Feels wrong, planning behind Maris's back. But I don't know how else to reach her.
If I go to the café now, she'll shut me down. Tell me she's handling it. Build another wall between us.
This way, I can show her I'm serious. That I'll fight for her. For us. For the life we could have if we stop being afraid of it.
"So what is it you need me to do?" I ask, my voice cutting through the overlapping chatter.
The room goes quiet. Every head swivels in my direction—the librarians mid-gesture, Tick with his mouth still half-open, Renna's fingers frozen on a lute string. Even the green-haired kid glances up from whatever he's typing on his glowing screen.
I stand there, feeling too large for the space, too rough for whatever delicate plan they're weaving. But I need to know where I fit. What part I play in getting Maris back.
"You're the distraction," Renna says. "Big, intimidating, impossible to ignore. You'll draw attention while the rest of us search the office."
"I don't want to be a distraction. I want to help."
"You are helping." The green-haired kid looks up from his laptop. "Trust me, dude. You walk into that gala, everyone's going to be staring. That's exactly what we need."
I hate it. Hate the idea of being the spectacle again, the thing people gawk at, point at, whisper about behind raised glasses and polite smiles.
The thing that draws eyes not because of who I am, but because of what I am.
An orc. A curiosity. A former fighter standing in silk and pressed fabric like some kind of performing animal dressed up for a party trick.
It scrapes against the old scars. The ones that don't show on my skin.
But if it helps Maris, if it gets her café back, if it keeps her dream alive, if it means she doesn't have to face this battle alone, then I'll do it. I'll be the spectacle. I'll be the distraction. I'll be whatever they need me to be.
Because she matters more than my pride.
"Fine," I say, the word rough in my throat. "What do I have to do?"
The tuxedo doesn't fit properly.
Not even close to fitting, really. Not in any way that makes sense for a body like mine.