Chapter 43 #2
“Hand her over,” Ashland repeats, this time with swaths of black mist cascading off his caped shoulders. Two shadow hounds appear at his side, growling with long strings of saliva hanging from their snarled mouths.
“If you think I’ll surrender the Queen of Alexandria to you, then you’re as mad as everyone says,” Rett shouts, his grip tightening until I struggle painfully and gasp for air. I attempt to yell out for Ashland, but everything hurts. No sound comes, no matter how hard I try.
Rett’s grip loosens for only a second. Long enough for me to hoarsely cry once more, “Let me go!”
Ashland’s gaze meets mine, and something battles over his tortured features. “Every minute here with you is time we lose,” he grits out through his teeth before pulling his stallion down the hilly embankment toward the river path, away from us, away from me.
Gone like a gale shifting course.
Confusion flickers over Rett’s face, but he moves on, his orc soldiers following closely. As Rett’s horse gallops away, I peer back, a strange sinking in my stomach.
He set me free.
Rett still holds me around my stomach, not bothering to look or speak to me as we ride.
At first, pain and resentment course through me like the force of the beast beneath us, threatening to break me—but after a while everything morphs into a numb ache.
We slow from a gallop to a trotting pace an hour or so away from the Hetaira River.
I don’t understand it. How could he just let me go… like that?
Bitter exhaustion seeps into my bones, weighing me down physically and emotionally. The onslaught of emotions drains what little resolve I have left to remain calm.
Rett’s horse comes to rest at a bubbling creek winding through an open field.
An ancient and crumbling cathedral ruin glistens in the cold sunlight that pierces the parting storm clouds.
Columns lie jagged on their sides, ivy and moss growing over the ravaged walls as birds fly in and out, nervous about our sudden appearance.
Not waiting for Rett to help me down, I jump to the ground, landing with a thud. It smells damp, like a garden that never gets a chance to dry. He throws a rein over a low-hanging tree branch that’s lost most of its leaves and affectionately pats his gray stallion’s rump.
“How could you?” I scream into the sky as clouds roll overhead on the northern wind. There’s so much hidden in that guttural noise.
His emerald features go slack. “What do you mean?” he asks, disbelief forming between his burgundy eyebrows as he inches closer.
“What do you mean? What do I mean?” I lower my voice so the other orcs can’t hear. “How could you attack us like that? You didn’t have to be so… so… extreme! You could have talked to us. Soldiers on both sides died because of your rashness!”
“Tabitha, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I just saved you.”
How could I reconcile his good intentions with the harm he caused? I should be questioning Metalla’s men with Ashland and Valora right now, not arguing in a fucking field.
“We were on a mission to help the stolen womenfolk. You do remember them, right?” I point through the open expanse of land we just traveled through. The tall grass ripples in response. “You might’ve ruined any chance we have of finding them or discovering why Metalla is doing any of this!”
He rubs his neck with one hand and looks at me with bewilderment. The horse behind him munches on the little white flowers that cover the ground.
“They’re going missing as far north as Ashland too,” I explain, my voice cracking when I remember the girl with corn-yellow hair. “We were trying to catch up with Metalla’s men.”
We.
When did I start counting myself as one of them?
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware,” he counters as realization creeps in.
His face gives a guilty twitch, and he looks at me uncertainly.
“But the Witch-King is an evil son of a bitch. There can be no cooperation with someone who practices such dark magic. So please, please tell me why you would be helping him when he was holding you against your will?”
“It’s hard to explain. I don’t need to trust him to know the difference between right and wrong. The women are innocent—that’s all that matters.”
During the battle, I lost my cloak. Without it, I shiver against the biting breeze until I clutch my arms around my torso.
“Stop and listen to yourself. You’ve been through a lot.” He wraps an armored hand around my shoulder. The red metal is even colder against my skin, but he folds me into the warmth of his cloak, and his scent brings me back to who I was on coronation night.
My anger fractures with an exhausted sigh because he’s right…
I am safer away from the Witch-King.
He helps lead me toward the fire-pit and camp meal the orc soldiers are preparing, then suggests, “Let’s get some food into you, and we can talk all about it.”
I pull away.
He misinterprets my hesitation and hedges, “If you’re worried about the orcs behaving, don’t be.”
“That’s not—”
“With the majority of magic lost across the realms, many monsters have become less vicious. They might be fearsome, but they’ll treat you with respect,” he explains without listening to my interjection. “They are as dignified as any human man, more so if given the chance.”
“I do not care that they’re orcs,” I assert, stopping him before he can continue. “I simply need a horse.”
“Well, that’s good because Thrak is eager to meet you. Wait… What did you just say?”
“I said I need a horse,” I snarl, my patience gone.
“Where do you plan on going?” he asks, but his perplexed expression freezes as he stares at my face. “And why are your eyes silver?”