25 #2
He hesitated and then caught up with her. His legs were longer than hers, so it didn’t take him very long. “I don’t want to marry her, but I can’t do to her whatever happened to my mother, you know?”
She supposed, from his perspective, he felt stuck at this point, that he had no other way out, but she was furious and ill and she still wanted to cry, but no tears were forthcoming.
“Aerhril, you are going to marry him,” he said. “It will be the same. We will both be married. What did we think was going to happen anyway?”
She shook her head. “Not this.”
“So, I was supposed to sit around and be all right with you letting him take your virtue and pump his elf sons into you—”
“You were, because you knew that it wouldn’t have been real with him—”
“Wouldn’t it, though? I see the way you are about him. You will never be that way about me.”
“Not now,” she said.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I don’t even understand why I did it. I regretted it immediately. I wished it hadn’t happened. I cannot believe that she is with child just from that. I cannot believe it.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Her voice broke.
“Oh, by the shadows of the leaves, do not ask me such a question.”
“So, you did. You enjoyed it quite a bit. I suppose you’re very enamored with her huge teats and those thick thighs of hers—”
“Just, don’t,” he said.
“I hate you,” she said, matter-of-factly, no emotion.
“Don’t say that,” he gasped.
“Doesn’t matter if I say it or not. It’s still true,” she said.
She went directly back to town.
She marched right down a street she had heard of but had never actually been down. She found the door easily enough, though, because there was an elf officer there in a uniform.
“Is this the place to report orcs who are here illegally?” she said to him.
He looked her over. “It is.”
“Her name is Nathre. She is deceiving the elf who she is employed by Elrion nae Nilriane. She belongs across the pass. She needs to be sent back where she belongs.”
“All right,” said the officer. “I have a form. Write it all down. Someone will look into it.”
She had to sign her name to the form.
They showed the form to Elrion when they came to collect Nathre.
Elrion had papers for Nathre, but they didn’t care, because they never cared, and they took her.
“WHY?” ELRION SAID as they walked. It was cooler that day, winds blowing the trees in the distance, blowing the petals off the wildflowers.
Elrion had said they must walk together.
He had come to the Peak and stood outside and demanded her presence, and she had gone with him.
Elrion was usually so careful about propriety, even though they were to be married very soon.
But he didn’t say anything about a chaperone, just refused to come in and refused anything except for her to come out.
“Why what?” she said.
“Why did you go and report Nathre?”
She sucked in a breath. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” She actually had regretted it after it was done.
She had done it impulsively, and she felt guilty.
She thought about Dathor’s baby, and she knew she wanted to be able to watch it grow, to hold it.
If she could not be mother to Dathor’s children, at least she wanted to know his children.
But when she had gone to retract the form, they had told her it was impossible.
They had said they must investigate now, that they must look into every report that was made.
“I saw the form,” said Elrion, his voice hard. “I saw your signature.”
“Oh,” she said. “It was a mistake. I tried to go and take it back, but they would not allow me to. I hope that you cleared it up and that they will not trouble you anymore. I am sorry.”
She really was sorry, and she did wish she could take it back. She had been up late last night, feeling awful about it. When she thought back on doing it, she could hardly remember why she’d even done it.
It wasn’t Nathre she was truly angry with.
It was Dathor.
But somehow, it seemed easier to punish her than him. Somehow, it preserved her love for Dathor to blame that orc woman.
Even still, it was too harsh. It was the wrong thing to have done, and she knew that. But it was the way of anger. Had she not witnessed the steward saying things to Celedin he could never take back?
Sometimes, people did awful things when they were angry. She supposed she was just like all of them, no better or worse.
“I did not ‘clear it up,’” said Elrion. “They took her. There is not even a trial. You know this. You know how it works. You know that she is being kept in a pen with other orcs and that they will herd them all like cattle and shoot them if they do not do as they are told.” His voice was rising.
She had never heard him yell before. “You know and you did it anyway, and I cannot think why.”
Truthfully, she had not really known that.
Perhaps she had known it, in an abstract way, but she had not really thought it all through, what would really happen to Nathre.
Sending the woman away to have the baby in Arzakh had seemed an inconvenience, not something dire.
Aerhril cringed from him. “W-well, there must be something we can do. We will go and get her back. I will sign a form saying I was wrong, that I was mistaken. We—”
“There is not,” he said. “I could go to the capital for relief, and I might get someone to send an order back to release her, but she would already be across Rathog Pass by the time I got back. And I would be told that I could go across and fetch her. But we can hardly imagine what might become of an elf in Arzakh. You have sent her away and she can never come back. Why?”
She didn’t say anything.
“We had discussions,” he said. “You and I, we spoke of orcs and you seemed to agree with my stances. But I suppose you didn’t? You simply wanted me to marry you, and then you would get rid of all of my orcs.”
“No!” she cried. “No, I do not have anything against orcs themselves, clearly.”
“Clearly?” he repeated and then let out a harsh laugh. “Clearly. But look what you have done. So, all I can think is that deep down you believe we must send them all back where they came from.”
“No.”
“Nathre has never been to Arzakh, you realize? She was born in Lothnehil, and she has never known anything else. She must be so very frightened and so very alone—”
“Oh, I repent of it!” It was agonized. “I wish I had not. I tried to go and retract it, but they would not allow that, and they said they must investigate since I had made the report. It was one moment of ugliness, that is all. If I could but take it back.”
He stopped walking. He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He regarded her.
She faced him, twisting her hands together, absolutely flooded with guilt.
“Why?” he said. “Why, a moment of ugliness? What could Nathre could possibly have done to bring it on herself? You have barely interacted with her.”
She ducked down her head, shaking it. “It was wrong, and I must find some way to make it right, that is all.”
“There is no making it right, I’m afraid.
” He sighed heavily. “I can be a forgiving man. You are young and you have lived a very difficult life. But I need to understand it, and it does not make any sense. Help me understand.” He licked his lips.
“You have latent orc prejudices, of course you would. You must have…” He sighed.
“Why did you insist on bringing Dathor, then? When you speak of him, you do not seem prejudiced.”
She bit down on her bottom lip.
“Dathor, however, well, I was going to have to have a conversation with you about him. The truth is, and I don’t mean to be indelicate, but Nathre’s situation is doubly horrifying because she is with child.”
She didn’t react. She only sucked air through her nose.
“You knew.” He furrowed his brow. “How did you know?”
“Dathor told me,” she said.
“So Dathor knows?”
“He said he would have to marry her,” she said.
“Did he.” Elrion nodded. “That is something, I suppose, not that it matters anymore.” He started to walk again. “But this only makes it worse, Aerhril, because you knowingly sent a pregnant woman across that pass, to a world she did not know, and I cannot understand why you would do such a thing.”
She walked, too. She tried to think of a lie. “She… displeased me. We had a quarrel over…”
“Quarrel?” He looked at her. “When have you had a conversation long enough to quarrel? You are never with her.”
She could not think of anything plausible, nothing at all.
Her brain was entirely blank, and she was panicked and ashamed and she did not know what to do.
If Flaihir was still there, perhaps she could have said to him that she must speak to him later and consulted the other elf, but Flaihir would have been horrified to learn that she had done this thing in a fit of jealousy over an orc.
“Here it is, then,” he said, his voice hard.
“I need to understand why if I am to marry you. Because, when we are married, you will be my responsibility, and I must bear the consequences for your actions. If I do not understand why you have done this, I do not know how to determine if I will be able to do so. I cannot have a wife who is cruel in this way. You must tell me why, or the marriage is off.”
She stopped walking. What would become of her if he did not marry her? She had broken all ties with the steward and Celedin, choosing to go with Elrion instead of with them. They would throw her out of Foxglove Peak, she thought, and she would have nowhere to go.
Dathor was going to be incredibly angry with her. He would… could she even count on his help, not that he could provide much help, anyway?