14. Lily
We emerge from the forest into the bustling heart of Thornhall village, and for a moment, I”m struck dumb by the sheer familiarity of it all. The thatched roofs and whitewashed walls, the winding dirt paths and ancient trees. The smithy”s ringing anvil, the bakers” shops redolent with the scent of fresh bread.
It”s all exactly as I remember, exactly as I left it...and yet, somehow, it feels different. Foreign. Like a painting I once loved, now viewed through a distorted lens.
Or maybe, that sly voice whispers, it”s not the village that”s changed. Maybe it”s you. Maybe you”ve seen too much, done too much, to ever truly come home again...
I shove the thought down as Thane leads me towards the great hall where the elders and war council await my report. I feel the weight of eyes on me as we pass, curious and cautious, wary and wondering.
The Red Blade, they murmur. She”s back. But where has she been all these months? What secrets does she carry from her time in the monster”s den, the beast”s foul bed?
I flinch at the suspicion, even as a part of me rails at the unfairness of it. I am no traitor. I am Thornhall to the marrow of my bones. Everything I endured at Grok”s hands was for them. For the cause, to bring an end to ogre tyranny.
Liar, that hateful voice hisses. You didn”t suffer in Grok”s arms, in his bed. You reveled. You came alive, in ways you never dreamed...
And now you would betray him, abandon him.
I swallow hard, tasting shame and self-loathing. No, I didn”t betray him. I saved him from his own worst impulses.
I saved him...from himself.
But even as the desperate thought echoes, we”re passing into the smoky shadows of the great hall. I blink, my eyes adjusting to the dimness, so different from the soaring stone and firelight of Grok”s war room, his throne.
Focus, I castigate myself, shaking off the comparison with a surge of irritation. This is what matters now. This room, these people...not some fevered dream of forbidden lust.
You are Lily Thornwood, the Red Blade. Act like it.
Squaring my shoulders, I step into the circle of elders and councilors, feeling the weight of their expectations settling like a yoke across my shoulders, my soul.
”I have returned,” I say formally, my voice steady despite the hammering of my heart. ”I have seen and learned, and now I come to share what I know. To offer up the secrets of our enemy, the keys to their defeat, and the salvation of all we hold dear.”
There”s a charged silence, and then the questions start, fast and furious.
”What did you see, Red Blade? What weaknesses did you uncover?”
”How did you escape after so long in captivity?”
”What of their warlord, this Grok who so boldly claimed you? Is he as fierce as they say, or just another brute to be put down?”
I flinch at that last, a visceral recoil I can”t suppress. The image of Grok flashes through my mind, proud and powerful, magnificent in his strength and savagery...but also strangely vulnerable, yearning, in the moments when he let his guard down.
The moments when he was just...Grok. My Grok, with his quick wit and quiet wisdom, his fierce devotion to his people, his purpose.
The Grok who held me close and called me mate, mine...and made me believe, if only for a scorching instant, that I could belong to him, body and soul.
Fool, I rail at myself, even as I feel the surge of emotion at the back of my throat. He was never yours, never true…it was all a lie o distract you, disarm you, until he could strike at the heart of all you love.
Just like he did with those human children...slaughtered in their beds for the crime of being born on the wrong side of a blood feud.
I close my eyes, feeling nausea roil in my gut. How could I have been so blind, so naive? How could I have let myself believe, even for a moment, that Grok was different, better, than the tales of his kind?
He”s a monster. A murderer soaked in the blood of innocents. And I...I slept with him. I let him touch me, take me, fill me, until I was drunk on the bliss of his passion.
I let him make me his...even as he plotted to destroy everything I”ve ever held dear.
No more, I vow savagely. No more weakness, no more wavering. I will bury this shame, this stain on my soul...by burying him, and all his foul, festering kind.
Drawing a shaky breath, I open my eyes and face the council once more, my resolve hardening to a diamond point in my core.
”Grok is fierce, yes,” I say steadily. ”Fierce and fearless and ferocious in battle. But he is not invincible. Not invulnerable.”
I pause, letting the words sink in. ”He has weaknesses. Flaws and fault lines, chinks in his armor. The key is to find them, to exploit them...and to strike hard and fast and first, before he can rally, retaliate.”
”What weaknesses do you speak of?” one of the elders presses. ”What insights did you glean, in your time as the warlord”s...guest?”
There”s a suggestive glint in his gaze, and I feel my cheeks heat at the insinuation that I traded more than just words and wits with Grok. That I bartered my body, my dignity, for snatched secrets and intel.
If only you knew, I think bleakly. If only you understood the depth of what I gave him. What I surrendered, in the name of duty and destiny and a doom I never saw coming, until it was far too late.
Dimly, through the red haze of self-recrimination, I hear Thane clear his throat. ”Sister,” he murmurs. ”You don”t have to do this. You don”t have to share anything you”re not ready to. We can find another way, another path to victory...”
I shake my head jerkily, swallowing against the surge of gratitude, of grief, that rises up to choke me. Oh, Thane. My brave, steadfast brother...ever ready to be my shield, my shelter, against the storm and stress of a world, a war, that grows crueler by the day.
But you can”t save me from this. You can”t spare me the reckoning I”ve brought down on my own head, my own heart.
The price I must pay, for my folly.
”No,” I rasp, my voice raw with the effort of holding myself together. ”No, Thane. I have to do this. I have to help, in whatever way I can. It”s the only way to make it right. To make it mean something.”
He stares at me for a long, aching moment, his eyes dark with concern and a hopeless kind of understanding. Then, slowly, reluctantly...he nods, grim acceptance settling over his sharp features.
”As you say, sister,” he murmurs, his hand finding mine beneath the table, his fingers lacing tight with my own. ”I”ll stand with you, for you...no matter the cost.”
I squeeze his hand gratefully. Thank you, I mouth silently, holding his gaze. Thank you, Thane. For understanding. For not judging. Not condemning, though gods know I deserve it.
He just shakes his head minutely, his smile small and steadfast. Then, with a final press of his fingers...he lets go, leaving me to face the council, the consequences, on my own.
Drawing in a deep breath, I turn back to the elders, the eager light in their eyes, the avid set of their mouths. Vultures, I think bleakly. Carrion crows, scenting blood and breakage on the wind.
Lifting my chin, I meet the elders” gazes. ”The warlord”s greatest weakness,” I say quietly, each word a noose around my unraveling heart, ”is his pride. His arrogance in thinking he can conquer all, claim all, without consequence or cost.”
I pause, letting the words sink in. ”He underestimates us,” I continue softly, steadily. ”Dismisses us as weak chattel, cattle to be culled at his whim. He thinks we will cower, crumble, at the first red rush of his horde, the first cruel crush of his heel on our necks.”
I lean forward, my eyes blazing, my blood up...even as that traitorous voice whispers liar, liar, in the back of my head.
Because I know...I know...that Grok is many things. Proud and powerful, fierce and ferocious. But he is not a fool.
No. My Grok is clever. Canny in a way that belies his brutish bulk. He sees the world, the war, with eyes unclouded by hatred or hubris...and acts with a ruthless, pragmatic precision that chills me, even as it thrills me.
Damn him, I think savagely. Damn him to hell.
”What is this warlord planning?” One of the elders asks with narrowed eyes. ”You must tell us what he believes he can do to us, Red Blade. Tell us of his arrogance so we may end him.”
”An attack on the settlement,” I say, my voice steady despite the twisting in my gut. ”Grok was planning a raid, an assault. I overheard his warriors preparing for it. We need to fortify our defenses, to be ready...”
But even as the words leave my lips, Elder Percy is shaking his head, a grim, almost gleeful smile playing about his lips. ”A pity, then, that we”ve already struck first. That we”ve already bled them, in retribution for crimes both old and new.”
I stare at him, cold dread unfurling in my belly. ”What?” I whisper. ”What do you mean? What have you done?”
He leans forward, his gnarled hands gripping the table edge. ”What needed to be done. What has always needed doing, if we are to win this war, to end this threat.”
He pauses, his gaze sweeping the room. ”We struck at the heart of them. At their young, their vulnerable. The she-beasts and their squalling spawn, the futures they sought to build on the bones of our dead, the ashes of our homes.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. ”You...you attacked their children?” I rasp, my voice thin with horror, with revulsion. ”Their females, heavy with young? You slaughtered them like animals?”
”They are animals!” another elder snarls. ”They have raided us, ravaged us, for generations...and you would have us show mercy? When we have them at our mercy, finally, after all this time?”
”Mercy is for men,” Elder Percy agrees coldly. ”And the ogres...they are not men. They are a pestilence, a plague upon our lands. And the only cure, the only salvation...is to burn them out, root and stem and seed.”
I stare at them, feeling something sick and searing rising up in my throat. Gods, is this what we”ve become?Slaughterers of babes, of mothers heavy with new life?Butchers and brigands, no better than the monsters we claim to abhor?
No, I think desperately. No, this isn”t right. This isn”t just.We are better than this, bigger than this...or at least we should be.
We have to be...or else what are we fighting for?What are we killing for...if not to build a world where such horrors are a thing of the past?A world where peace is possible, between all peoples, all kinds...
But even as the thought forms, even as the hope kindles...I feel it guttering, failing, in the face of the cold, cruel reality before me. The glitter of zeal, of bloodlust, in the eyes of those I once trusted, once believed in.
The eyes...of monsters. Of murderers...no matter how they cloak it in righteousness.
Ogres in human skin, I think dimly. Brutes and butchers...cloaked in silk.
Gods...what have we done?What have we become in the pursuit of power over a foe we no longer even seek to understand?
Thane shifts beside me, his hand finding mine, his fingers tight and true. I cling to him, to the anchor, the alloy of his strength and love...even as I feel the world, the war, tilting around me. Shifting around me...until nothing makes sense anymore, nothing matters anymore.
Nothing...but the gnawing knowledge that we are not the heroes here.
”What do you say, Red Blade?” Elder Percy asks, his voice sly. ”You”ve been among them. You know their ways, their weaknesses. Surely you see the wisdom of striking hard and fast, before they can rally?”
I stare at him, at the eager faces around me...and feel a wave of nausea rise up to choke me. They want me to condone this. To counsel this slaughter of innocents, this massacre of a people I no longer know how to hate.
”I...I don”t know,” I murmur, each word a shackle around my aching throat. ”I don”t know what to say, what to think. This is all so sudden. So shattering of everything I thought I knew, everything I thought true...”
I trail off, feeling the weight of their stares, their scorn. Traitor, those stares say. Turncoat seduced by the enemy.
But they”re wrong. They”re wrong...and the knowledge is a blade in my breast, a brand on my brow. Because I do see the serpent, the spider...but it”s not Grok, not the ogres...
It”s us. Humans so convinced of our own righteousness that we”ve lost sight of the line between defense and destruction. Between protection and unjustifiable slaughter.
We”ve become the very thing we claim to stand against. We”ve let our fear twist us into a shape as dark and depraved as any monster.
And I don”t know how to bear it. How to breathe through this sickening awareness of how far we”ve fallen, how faithless we”ve become.
Faithless to the cause, the code, I once held so dear. The code that led me to him. To Grok...and the wrenching want he awoke in me with every touch, every taste, of his savage skin, his scarred soul.
Grok, I keen again, helplessly. Grok, my heart, my home...what do I do?How do I handle this horror, this loss of all I am, all I”ve aimed to be?
There are no answers. Only the sick certainty that nothing will ever be the same. That I will never be the same.
I”m sorry, I whisper, to him, to myself. To the girl I was, the guileless creature I can never be again. I”m sorry, Grok. Forgive me. Forget me...
For I fear I will never be free of this. Of you...and the wanting, the wildness, you”ve woken in me.
I fear I will never be whole again. Be home again...
Without you. Within you...where I belong, now and always.
I say nothing more. I trust nothing more, not even my own treacherous tongue. I simply sit there, suffer there, in silence and stillness of my own conflicted heart.
There are no mercies in this bleak and brutal place, this council of killers.
There is only the enduring, the excruciating...
Emptiness.