Chapter 1 #2
My groom said something to the orcs, and they burst out in heated discussion.
Arms were flying, chests and shoulders struck, growling words.
Was this whole deal a plan to assassinate the baron?
But if he'd been here surely the orcs knew they would be outnumbered; he would not come without a decent guard.
Khal roared something, and the rest quieted.
He turned back to the minister. "We are ready to begin. "
The priest began the ancient chants. Thea had taught me enough of the old tongue to follow.
It was a plea for blessing on the covenant that was wrought, for notice on the righteous intent of the participants.
We shared the chalice, repeated oaths. Khal was stoic, his companions visibly angry.
We knelt, oil dabbed on our foreheads. The priest hesitated, just a moment, before touching Khal's brow.
"A room has been prepared for you." The baron's minister was already trying to retreat. "On the morrow, provisions will be provided so you and your coterie can leave."
The orc's words dripped acid. "Many thanks."
I hadn't been in this wing of the baron's castle before. There was a great deal of debate and some grandstanding because they tried to separate off the rest of the orcs to stay in the courtyard, and the whole group seemed certain this was an attempted murder.
"You will not siphon us off within your walls, fish-skin!" was the line I'd remember, one of the orc guard screaming it at the minister, almost in my face.
Finally a compromise was reached, and a room was procured that was inside a sitting room, so the rest of the orcs could camp directly outside on the tables and couches.
They made a circle, sitting on tables and the floor alike, and one started handing out rations from a bag. They would not eat our food.
I wondered who had been chased out of these rooms to allow for this sight. Whatever sniveling devotee it was, I did not pity them.
"Is this acceptable then?" The minister gritted it through his teeth.
Khal traded a few words with one of his men. "It's acceptable."
"Then I will leave you, hopefully, for the last time."
Our soldiers were exiting. A foolish bubble of panic rose in my chest to be left alone, as if they would have helped me. As if they weren't the ones trapping me here. The door closed, and I felt my knees go weak.
My groom was speaking to the orc with the bag, took a packet from him wrapped in oil cloth. "Are you hungry?"
It took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me. "What?"
"Are you hungry?"
I hadn't eaten since a breakfast stolen the day before, before they'd caught me again. My body had stopped asking. "...yes."
"You don't eat crickets?"
My brain stumbled.
He repeated. "Crickets. You're human. You don't eat crickets?"
Was this a test? Was this some kind of joke before other things happened? "I have…never eaten a cricket, no."
He unwrapped the packet and separated out a square of some speckled bread, held out a strip of dried meat. I took it.
It was heavily salted, and a little greasier than I expected. I fought not to gobble it down like a starved wolf.
"Careful," one of the orcs circled called out. "It's human."
I choked.
And then they were all yelling again, Khal was yelling, and I was doing my best to retch the meat back up.
"It's not human! It's not human." Khal had crouched in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders, thought better of it and let go. "Krashal was joking. I wouldn't give you human."
"But you do eat human," I got out.
He hesitated, and my stomach rolled.
"Only when they deserve it!" a younger one called out. Someone laughed.
Khal snapped, "Tyralk, do you tire of living?"
The young one and the one with the bag and I think another started having some argument, heated. Khal turned back to me. "The Drashik do not eat humans. Not anymore. It has been…a long time."
What was a "long time?" A year? A few weeks?
"Our food will be safe for you. No one is going to harm you. I promise."
I looked at the meat where I'd dropped it. If I didn't touch it, would he grow angry again? I couldn't make myself pick it up.
He sighed and stood, retrieving the jerky.
I steeled myself. The orcs were murmuring back and forth, their language like quiet growls.
Would I live long enough to understand this?
No. If I survived to get out of the keep, I'd find a way to run away.
I'd find a city. I'd find a guild. As long as there wasn't a child-
I was retching again. No. No, I was not falling apart already; I was no wilting, nail-biting girl. The human body could survive more than a little cannibalism. I was going to-
He held out a flat piece of bread to me, the speckled pattern across the top. "It's made with cricket meal. For strength. But it doesn't look like a person." He broke off a corner, ate it, like he was trying to show a child. He held out the rest.
I'd need strength to get away, to survive this. I could be a little less human. I took it.
"Are you delaying something, Khal?" The one speaking had a dark, old scar across his forehead, towards a heavy brow. He smirked.
"Shut up, Vrathgar." Khal didn't smile. "I'm not playing today."
I steeled myself for the first bite, and it wasn't bad, a little earthy, like dried mushrooms and roasted chestnuts pressed together. I pushed more into my mouth, moving too fast, wolfing it down. Who knew when I'd have the chance to eat again?
"For a special occasion, you're being—"
"Vrathgar. Drop it."
The orc shut his mouth.
Khal switched to the orc tongue, quieter, like water gurgling over rocks, or stones grinding. The orc glanced at me and answered him. For once I was glad not to understand them. Foreknowledge would not aid survival here.
The older orc with the bag piped up, in the common tongue, "Oh, and you think she's more comfortable here, surrounded by us brutes? Are these young idiots making the night better, Drazha's-son?"
The room fell quiet. Khal looked at me. He seemed to hesitate. "Are you tired?"
One of the orcs burst out laughing. He glared at them.
I felt like I'd run out of thoughts, like I could not follow this test or avoid the consequences. "I am your wife."
He stared at me. The room, unexpectedly, was silent. He stood. "We're turning in."
One of them hooted, and a kick from another silenced them. Khal pulled open the bedroom door, looked at me, waiting.
I wouldn't look weak now, wouldn't let them see that my legs were jelly.
I followed him, picking my way around where the orcs sat.
There were thirteen of them. Too many to escape easily.
He waited in the doorway. I steeled myself not to let my face react, walked through the opening left by his body, still trying, against my logic, to avoid brushing against him.
The room was well appointed, windows too small to crawl out of, a hooked rug on the floor.
A large bed.
He closed the door, stood a moment before turning the lock, surveying the room. "This is good," he said. "This looks good."
I shuddered, involuntary, almost convulsive.
I'd heard enough descriptions on the streets of the warren, before I'd been identified as the baron's blood.
Orcs had been mixing with our forces as mercenaries for years now, and many of the girls who'd been camp followers had stories.
No, there was no time for this weakness, this…
this sentimentality. I could cry for myself later; right now I had to think about practicalities, about escape.
If I took off the dress, he would have no reason to tear it.
If I took off the dress right now, I wouldn't be wearing only tatters leaving the castle tomorrow, and when I made my escape.
I reached behind me to the ties of Thea's too-tight dress, and pulled them loose so the overdress could shrug off onto the floor.
Khal was as yet by the door he'd locked, standing unnaturally still.
His eyes were fixed on me, but his face held no expression I could read.
Maybe this was the kind of stillness predator animals had before they leapt onto their dying meals.
Before I could think about it and lose my nerve I took a breath and shucked off the shift.
The room wasn't that cold, but every hair stood up on my legs and arms. I couldn't resist the urge to cross my arms in front of myself, what little it might do. He was still standing there.
Khal drew a breath. "Your people move fast."
Had this been a mistake? Had he wanted me to cower? Beg? "Did you want…something different?"
"No." He was still looking at me. "No, you're fine." His Adam's apple bobbed. "Right. We're married." He strode into the room. I flinched back on instinct, cursing myself in my mind, but he walked past me to the bed, sat down to take his boots off. His back was to me.
Did he maybe not like me? Had he expected something different, someone more like Thea?
If I didn't please him, would that mean more safety? Or more cruelty in that frustration?
"I don't know your name," he said, his back still to me.
"Rowena."
"Rowena," he repeated. "We both have our reasons for this marriage.
And I believe we can make this work, even if those reasons have little to do with each other.
This was a choice of duty for me, but duty is something my clan takes seriously.
And I have a duty to you now." He had his boots off, moved to the fur capelet, swinging it off his shoulders.
There were shiny bits on his skin, lines and shapes in pink, and it took me a moment to realize they were scars.
Most peppered his shoulders or the small of his back.
I couldn't make sense of the pattern. It wasn't a whip or normal battlefield wounds, though those silvery-pink flecks on his forearm were probably from teeth.
I swallowed. Count on me to stand here undressed, counting the scars on an orc.
The answers to this lock were not on his skin, or in how his muscles moved as he pulled off his armor.
He wasn't the bulkiest in his party, but he was stronger than most of the men I had had the misfortune to meet, I could tell.
That pit of dread twisted in my stomach with the cricket meal.
He stopped moving, straightened. He was stripped to the waist, and the marks on his shoulders gleamed in the day's dying light. Maybe the sun would go down soon. Maybe it would be dark for this.
"My people need this alliance," he said.
"The Val Drak press closer in the east, and if it comes to war, we'll need to know our flank is safe.
The race of men breaks treaties with orcs, but they value their children as we do.
I have to believe that." He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes rising from, I realized, my wrists to my face.
"'Fools break what is precious to them, and ghosts seek their own hearths.
' You are your father's blood, and with you, our people are safe.
My brothers here, my cousins, my parents.
" Those golden eyes stared at me. "Your peril is the cost of their safety.
Whatever your reasons for choosing this, I do not take that lightly.
" His eyes traced back down to my wrists, but he didn't comment, looked away. "Would you like to lay down?"
I wanted to run. But where? Back into that room of his kin?
Back to my so-called father's soldiers? At least if my body was the price of my freedom, it seemed like he wasn't inclined to share.
I made it to the bed, resisted the overwhelming urge to hide under the blankets.
I perched on the side farthest from him.
I was wretchedly grateful that he still had his breeches, that we still had one piece of clothing between us.
"I don't know your custom." He was speaking again. "Is it just ritual, or do your people actually—"
I stared at him.
He stopped. "Did someone talk to you about this? The woman of your house is dead, but surely…"
"I know how it happens." The warrens were not known for their discretion.
"Ah." He nodded. "Good."
Did Thea know? My throat tightened. Would anyone tell her before she was married off to someone hopefully kinder than an orc?
Was it better to know what was coming?
"This isn't ideal, since we are not…familiar."
I counted stitches on the coverlet, closed my eyes as I heard him untying the laces on his breeches.
"Tell me if it hurts."
I was not about to give anyone that satisfaction. I focused on regulating my breathing, clearing the emotion off my face.
Fabric fell against the floor on the periphery of my consciousness, and his heat, his presence, moved to me. I leaned back, let myself fall. The light in the room was now gray, and it made a giant of him there. I couldn't see his face.
"You can pretend I'm someone else, if you want. I won't blame you."
It was such a ridiculous thing to say. I heard myself responding. "Am I not what you were looking for?"
"No." He moved over me, his shadow obscuring the ceiling, and I watched his throat swallow. "No, you're perfect."
When he entered, I didn't cry out. It hurt, like breaking, and I sealed my voice back, held the coverlet in aching fists.
Time was odd, shadows and breath. I expected the pain to lessen, I don't know why, but it got sharper, and I bit the side of my mouth so hard that it welled with blood.
I stayed still. His breathing grew louder, the shadow of him moving, the blood in my mouth, and I squeezed my eyes shut, till he pressed, and was still.
We hung like that, aching, and the dark shape, the heat of him, pulled away.
He lowered himself to the coverlet, a foot away from me. "We'll get better at this," he said. "The first time is always awkward."
I didn't answer. What promise could he want to compel from a thrall? I stayed still until perhaps his breathing evened, and curled in on myself, as far away as I could reach, to shake in silence. There was no way I'd let him hear me cry.