10. Grath #2
The fabric strains across my chest, pulling tight over shoulders built for swinging hammers and lifting fallen timber, not for gliding through ballrooms full of champagne and string quartets.
The collar bites into my neck like a too-small muzzle.
The jacket itself feels like it's actively trying to split apart at the seams, as if it knows it wasn't meant for someone my size and is protesting every moment I keep it fastened.
The shoulders are too narrow. The sleeves stop halfway down my forearms. The pants are tight in places pants should never be tight.
I stand in front of the mirror in Renna's apartment, trying to understand how humans wear these things without suffocating.
"It's snug," Renna says. She's sitting on the arm of her couch, watching me struggle with the bow tie. "That's the point. You look sharp."
"I look ridiculous."
"You look like you're trying. That's what matters." She hops down, walks over, and takes the bow tie from my hands. "Let me. You're mangling it."
Her fingers work quickly, looping and tucking the fabric until it sits flat against my collar. It's still uncomfortable. Still feels like a noose.
But when I finally force myself to look in the mirror again, really look, not just glance at the wreckage of fabric and muscle. I see someone different staring back at me.
Not an orc hauled from village to cage. Not a gladiator with blood under his nails and a number burned into his shoulder. Not a spectacle paraded in front of crowds who screamed and bet and never saw a person inside the green skin.
Just a man. Clumsy, maybe. Trying too hard, definitely. But a man who's learning how to bow without breaking someone's nose, how to hold a glass without shattering it, how to stand beside someone fragile and brilliant without crushing her under the weight of what he is.
A man trying to do right by the woman he loves.
The thought settles in my chest, warm and terrifying. I pull at the jacket one more time, straightening the lapels even though they'll never sit quite right. My reflection doesn't look comfortable. Doesn't look natural. But maybe that's not the point.
Maybe the point is just showing up.
"Better," Renna says. She steps back, arms crossed. "Now we work on your etiquette."
Etiquette is harder than fighting.
The rules were simple here. Don't die. Make the crowd cheer. Survive another day.
Here, there are a thousand tiny rules I don't understand. Which fork to use. How to hold a wine glass. The correct way to bow without looking like I'm about to charge.
Renna walks me through each one with the patience of someone training a particularly stupid dog.
"Smaller bows," she says for the tenth time. "You're greeting aristocrats, not challenging them to a duel."
I try again. Bend at the waist, just a slight incline. My back protests. Everything in me wants to go lower, show deference the way I was taught in the pits.
"Better," Renna says. "Now the handshake. Firm but not crushing. You're not proving anything."
I practice on Tick. He yelps when I squeeze too hard, then glares at me.
"Lighter," he snaps. "I need that hand for my job."
"Sorry."
We run through the motions again and again. Greetings. Small talk. How to navigate a buffet table without knocking anything over.
It's exhausting.
Worse than training. Worse than fighting.
Because failure meant pain. Here, failure means embarrassing Maris. Ruining the plan. Losing the last chance I have to prove I'm worth keeping.
"You're overthinking it," Renna says. She hands me a glass of water. "Just be yourself. Polite, earnest, a little awkward. People will eat it up."
"I don't want people to eat anything up. I want to find the kitten and the proof and fix this."
"Then trust the plan." Her voice softens, just slightly. "We've got your back, Grath. You're not alone in this."
The words settle in my chest. Warm and unfamiliar.
I've always been alone. Even in this place, surrounded by other fighters, I was alone. You didn't make friends with people you might have to kill.
But here, these strangers are helping me. Not because they owe me anything. Not because they're afraid of me.
Because they care about Maris. And somehow, that extends to caring about me too.
"Thank you," I say.
Renna waves it off. "Save the gratitude for after we pull this off."
The rehearsal is a disaster.
We're in the alley behind the café, running through the plan one more time. Tick plays the part of a security guard. The librarians are timing entrances and exits. The tech kid is testing some kind of signal jammer.
I'm supposed to walk in, blend with the catering staff, and wait for Renna's signal.
Except I can't blend.
I knock over a prop table within thirty seconds. Trip on a cable the tech kid laid out. Accidentally elbow one of the librarians in the shoulder when I turn too fast.
"Stop moving like you're about to fight something," Renna hisses. "You're a waiter. Be invisible."
"I can't be invisible," I say, spreading my hands. "Look at me. I'm twice the size of any human waiter they'll have there. My skin is the wrong color. My teeth—" I bare them without thinking, and Tick actually takes a step back. "See? I can't just disappear into the background."
"Then don't try to disappear," Renna counters, circling me like she's sizing up a problem she needs to solve. "Be charming instead. Smile at people. Nod when they talk. Act like you should be there, like you belong in that fancy ballroom just as much as any of those pearl-clutching society types."
I try. I really do. I turn toward Tick, soften my expression, and attempt what I hope is a pleasant smile, the kind I've seen Maris give her customers when they compliment her scones.
Tick's eyes widen. He actually flinches, stumbling backward like I've just snarled and lunged at him.
"Not like that," Renna groans, pressing her fingers to her temples. "Softer. Way softer. Less... predatory. You look like you're about to eat him."
I let the smile drop, jaw tightening. My shoulders hunch forward.
This is hopeless.
I'm hopeless.
I sink down onto the edge of the prop table, head in my hands. The tuxedo pulls tight across my shoulders, a reminder that I don't fit here. Never will.
"Hey." Renna sits next to me. Her voice is quieter now. Less drill sergeant, more something almost kind. "You don't have to be perfect. You just have to show up."
"What if I ruin it?"
"Then we'll improvise." She shrugs. "Plans fall apart. That's life. What matters is that you're trying."
I pull the cigar tin from my pocket. Open it. The button sits on top, catching the light.
I glance up at her. She's watching the tin, head tilted slightly, curiosity plain on her face. Not prying, just present. Waiting.
"A reminder," I say slowly, turning the tin over in my palm.
The metal is warm now, worn smooth from years of being carried close.
"That I've been through worse than this.
Survived things that should have broken me.
" I pause, fingers tracing the dented edge.
"And if I survived those... I can survive a room full of fancy humans staring at me like I'm some kind of curiosity. "
Renna nods, doesn't push. Just sits there beside me, solid and steady.
"Of what, exactly?" she asks after a moment, voice soft. "What's in there that reminds you of all that?"
I close the tin. "That I survived worse than a gala. And I'll survive this too."
The note takes me three hours to write. Maybe longer. I lose track after the first dozen drafts, each one worse than the last.
I start with something simple, something safe. Maris, I'm sorry.
I gaze at those three words until they blur.
Then I cross them out hard enough to tear the paper.
Sorry. What does sorry even mean? She already knows I'm sorry.
She knew it the moment I walked away from her in the café, saw it written all over my face.
That's not what she needs to hear from me now.
Sorry is what you say when you've broken a plate or stepped on someone's foot.
This is bigger than that. This cuts deeper.
I try again, forcing my hand steady as I form the letters. Maris, I love you.
Better. The words feel truer, heavier. But I sit back and look at them, and they still feel hollow somehow.
Still not right. Still not enough to cut through those walls she's built around herself, brick by careful brick.
She'll read it and think it's just words.
Just me trying to fix things the easy way, with a confession that costs me nothing.
I crumple the paper in my fist. The sound of it is loud in the quiet room. I toss it toward the corner where the other failed attempts are piling up like evidence of my incompetence.
Start over.
Maris,
I don't know how to write this. I'm better with my hands than words. Better at fixing things than explaining them.
But I need you to know something.
I'm terrified.
Terrified that I'm not good enough. That I'll mess this up. That I'll fail you the way I failed everyone in the arena who counted on me and didn't make it out.
Terrified that if I let myself love you the way I want to, something will take you away. Because that's what happens. Good things get ripped apart. People get hurt. And I can't protect you from everything, no matter how hard I try.
But I'm more terrified of losing you.
So I'm going to fight. For you. For the café. For the kitten. For the life we could have if we're brave enough to take it.
I'm going to the gala. I'm going to find proof. I'm going to fix this.
And when it's over, I'm going to ask you to forgive me.
Not because I deserve it. But because I love you. And I think maybe you love me too, even if you're too scared to say it.
Wait for me.
Grath
I fold the note carefully, creasing each edge with deliberate precision as though the sharpness of the paper might somehow lend weight to the inadequate words I've scratched across it.
My hands—these blunt, scarred things that have broken bones and torn flesh—tremble slightly as I tuck the letter into an envelope I bought specially for this purpose.
The paper is cream-colored, smooth, nothing like the rough scraps I'm used to.
It feels fragile between my thick fingers.
Tomorrow, before the gala begins, before I have to put on that suffocating mask of civility and pretend to be something I'm not, I'll leave it at the café.
I'll slip it under the door in the early morning dark, when the street is still empty and no one can see the way my chest aches at the thought of her finding it.
She'll discover it there when she arrives to start her day, probably with flour already dusting her apron and that determined set to her jaw that means she's ready to fight the world with nothing but coffee and spite.
And then I'll go do the thing I'm worst at, the thing that makes my skin crawl and my teeth grind together until my jaw hurts.
I'll be charming. Polite. Invisible in the way that matters,a curiosity rather than a threat, an ornament rather than a person.
I'll be whatever she needs me to be, even if it means swallowing my pride, my anger, every honest word that wants to claw its way out of my throat.
Because she's worth it. Worth every moment of discomfort, every second of playing pretend, every breath I take in that gilded cage of a gala.
She's worth everything.