4. The Wrong Orc #2
But I was exhausted, and it was warm, and in spite of myself, in the arms of this orc who could indeed do worse to me than he’d done, my consciousness slipped away.
I woke up in semi-darkness, a strange, rippling light moving across my arm in front of my face.
I sat up. I was in a bedroll, alone. Smooth, pale stone walls stretched above me, melding into pillars and worked-stone flowers and vines in that strange light. A pool. There was a pool of water sunken in the floor, glowing from inside, light and warmth and tendrils of steam.
I scooted back, away from this foreign magic, and the slap of my hand on the rock echoed, reverberating off the walls. “Oh,” I gasped, and my voice echoed, too.
And it was such a foolish thing to fix on, an otherworldly thing, that I laughed, the sound bubbling over and across the space. I wasn’t going to drink from the glowing water, but the steam eased my throat.
This place, wide like our church hall, with doorways branching off into darkness, seemed empty. The way it echoed, I was sure I’d hear someone if they approached. So I dared to sing a cadence, to listen to it echo and come back to me, like birdsong.
And then there were runes running up the columns, lit in white, and as the last notes of my song faded, my orc stood in the empty space, a brace of pheasant on his shoulder, a cord of firewood under his arm, and I was silent.
Nothing was betrayed by his face. “Singing,” he said.
I swallowed.
“Does this place make you sick? The magic?”
“No,” I croaked. “Why?”
“The sorcerer bloodlines are supposed to come from the fae, same as this place. Sometimes the journey in…it messes with people.”
“I’m not a sorcerer.” I don’t know why that point felt important.
“Same thing.” He arranged kindling, started building a fire.
It really wasn’t. Sorcerers could defend themselves. Sorcerers could burn cities to the ground. I sang lullabies that could soothe bee stings. “What is this place?” I shivered, though it wasn’t cold.
“It’s an orc way station. They’re secret, next to sacred.” The twigs made a pyramid. “We use them for travel.”
“Orcs made this?”
His mouth twisted again. “Why not? Did you think we were only barbarians?” He pulled out a flint.
“No. They were left to us, many generations ago. We guard them for the fae when they come back.” He shrugged.
“Not that they ever will.” A quick motion, and the tinder caught in his hand, the flame blooming as he tucked it into the structure of branches. “You’ve really never heard of this?”
My face flushed. “I had heard that you…hid in stones. I thought…” I didn’t want to say what I thought.
“You thought we were crawling around in caves, camping in worship of a rock.”
I didn’t deny it.
“It’s useful to us, I suppose. The way you fail to see beyond your ken.” He was setting the birds on a spit.
His water skin was within reach, and I decided I’d risk it. When I picked it up, he didn’t argue. “What about you?” I rasped. “What do the orcs say about us?”
“Barbaric. Ignorant. Violent.” He didn’t flinch. “Fixated on excessive clothing. Terrifying magics. Bad with weapons.” There was zero apology in his voice. “And voracious about sex.”
I choked, coughing water down my front. No, I’d wasted it, he was going to be—
His smirk was lit by the fire. “What? Is it not true? You’re the one who kidnapped me into your bed, wife. Answer carefully.”
I wiped my face. “N-no. I don’t think—"
He laughed, an actual, from the chest laugh, and then I watched it fade from his eyes. “That thing you do, the singing,” he said. “What is it that you can do?”
“Nothing,” I said, too quickly, and the warmth in his eyes further dimmed. “I just…it’s not very much. I can soothe minor wounds. That’s all.”
“What you did for Balnoc back in our ‘bridal chamber,’ that didn’t seem like nothing.”
“I needed to prove to the tax collector that I was useful. I was hoping…” I shook my head. “I just put on a show.”
“Can you ensorcel minds?”
“What?”
He stared at me another minute, in the silence so tense that it hurt, then looked away. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he said. “Most men are ensorcelled by their wives in some way or another. Keep your secrets.”
Ensorcelled by their wives. I recalled what Bogdanna had said, that I was supposed to control the monster with sex. Maybe ensorcelling him was my job.
Not that being charming had ever saved me before.
“Here,” he said. “Careful. It’s hot.” He held out half of a bird.
It was hot, the fat nearly burning my fingers. But it was so much better than the speckled hard bread. I tore into it like I was starving, even with the way my gut still pinched and twisted from Bogdanna’s tonic. I hadn’t eaten anything this good since solstice-tide two winters prior.
He ate much more slowly than I did, like he knew what he was doing. Like people often handed him actual meat. Maybe they did. Maybe the orcs ate better than we did.
He was cooking. He was doing the work for us, and we were married. If this was a test, and I was failing—
“I—I’m sorry,” I burst out. “That I didn't handle the food. I’ll make sure…” I lost track of what there was I could promise, the fear still on my lips.
He raised an eyebrow. “You were unconscious. I marched you into the ground.” It sounded like dismissal. He stripped the meat off a bone, and I listened in silence till he swallowed. “Do you often cook outside, on fires?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I’m a mercenary. If we can’t cook for ourselves, we don’t eat.” He snapped the bone open in his hands. “You hunt or you die. You can’t maintain strength on dried mushrooms and cricket bread.” He brought the marrow to his lips.
I didn’t know what cricket bread was, but I didn’t want to ask him. “I’ll learn,” I whispered.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And then he leapt to his feet. I was about to ask why, when I realized the pillars glowed again, the symbols I didn’t know, and there was a rush of cold in the warm air. And in the darkness where he’d come from, there were four figures.