Chapter 5 #2
Moving again off the road into the trees, Khal was stoic, quiet.
He was probably angry, but he didn't show any signs of using this dress for bandages, so I'd still be better off than I had been.
One of the orcs had already bartered for rags for Tyralk.
If my husband was still angry and I needed to grovel later…
I tasted bile. No, I was doing well. I was escaping. I was so close.
"Rowena."
I startled. Khal was walking next to me. I couldn't read anger in his face. "Yes? Khal?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize that among humans the standard of dress was…stricter."
"Is it different among orcs?"
"It is. It is not uncommon for our women to wear trousers if the situation requires it, or to have a skirt above the knee."
Perhaps this was the origin of some of the talk of them being unrestrained barbarians, if their people wore so little. I felt odd. Khal must have, in his life, seen a wide variety of legs, then.
"Regardless, I should have spoken with you instead of acting on my own. You are among strangers, and you…were not raised an orc." His brow was yet furrowed. A weight seemed on his shoulders, and I found myself wanting to comfort this man I'd been nauseous with fear of.
"I've endured worse," I murmured, and he flinched. "My life will not be defined by showing a few orcs my knees."
"But you should not be enduring anything from us." He hesitated. He went into the Ka Morth, and it took me a moment to catch up. "...my father keeps few secrets. My mother is one who shows her displeasure at once. It had not occurred to me that you might not be…ready to say such things to me."
I untangled that. “What do you want me to say?”
That seemed to bother him more. He looked up at me. “What you need to, Rowena.”
Up ahead, a yelp and a curse rang out. Tyralk had tripped. Khal ran to him. The younger orc was laughing, but there was pain in his eyes.
For his sake, we needed to reach the enclave faster. We? I chided myself. They needed to reach the enclave. I needed to be long gone when that happened, away from their hostility and their laughter and Khal's confusingly gentle eyes.
He slung the younger orc's pack up on his back, on top of his.
My stomach growled. What was it he'd said, that powers awakening meant needing more food? What did that even mean? I felt like I could eat a draft horse, but that could be from all this walking. I'd never walked this much in my life. But I was getting stronger. I'd be able to fend for myself.
Next time we were near the road, I needed to make a run for it.
As the sun went down, we weren't making camp. I caught up to Gnarlak where he was tucking lichen into a wide pouch, and caught my breath. "Are we not stopping?"
"We are almost to the stones." His arms swung a little freer. "We will rest on orc land."
My stomach tightened. "But I thought we were still days from your people."
"We are. But there is a resting place.” He smiled at me. “You will see it soon.”
The moon had risen when we reached a circle of standing stones. The orcs’ spirits had been high, but as we approached the clearing, some thirty feet across, all of them hushed, like they were waiting for something. Khal found my side.
“Rowena,” he said. “I’ll need you to stay close to me, so we can go through.”
“Go through?” My pulse was speeding, and it was disorienting not to know why.
His eyes were slightly avoiding mine, like something was wrong, kept looking at my hands instead. “The stones don’t know you. We will change that at the Kael. For now…”
“Khal? Why are you nervous?”
He looked up. “There is some danger. But…I need to ask your leave.”
“To what?”
He hesitated. “If I could…carry you over…”
I put my hand on his.
He nodded, and scooped me up into his arms.
This was far from the most intimate thing we had done.
And it was silly to feel self-conscious about it.
Especially when I didn’t know what the rest of this night would bring.
But as my arms automatically clung around his neck, I felt as much as saw the heat flush down his throat.
The way our bodies came in contact with each other felt agonizingly new.
The orcs were walking around the stones.
Was there a pattern? Each reached out and touched the rock, with a reverence I didn’t recognize.
Khal seemed to be keeping me from touching the stone.
He leaned as we passed each waystone, and touched it with his forehead.
I heard him whispering, muttering. Was it Orcish? Would I know?
The air was warmer here, which didn’t make sense; the breeze had been so chill.
We kept moving. Khal’s eyes were closed, as if he knew the way well.
Fear gripped me, suddenly, and I clung tighter to his neck as some energy buzzed across my skin, the colors of the world sharpening, the heat coming off of bodies.
A sudden shock of glowing runes burst across the obelisks, gilding everything in light.
I squeezed my eyes closed, clawing myself closer to him.
I couldn’t breathe. The air was alive, it was wet, trying to pour into my throat, and I was going to-
“Rowena. Rowena!” Khal’s voice boomed over me. There was stone against my shoulder, cool under my cheek.
“That’s a reaction I haven’t seen before.” Somewhere, Gnarlak rumbled.
“Her blood is magic. I should have thought that maybe magic would affect it.” Khal sounded frantic.
He was breathing. I should be able to breathe. I made myself force an inhale, and the air wasn’t snakes in my throat anymore, only moist air. Why?
“She’ll live.” Vrathgar’s voice was contemptuous. “They always live.”
I opened my eyes.
We weren’t in the clearing. We were in some kind of cave, the rock carved smooth.
And I knew it was smooth, because every facet of the rock glimmered slick with magic in colors that shouldn’t exist, my head pounding as I picked up every wave and ripple of heat in the air as the orcs’ bodies moved and shifted, bodyheat holding in the armor pieces they pulled off, on straps of bags, leaving hazy wakes in the air.
Nausea overwhelmed me, and I pressed myself into the ground again.
Khal spoke again, commanding. “Someone light a lamp.”
A flint struck and flared, and I opened my eyes again.
A regular cave, lit dim and golden by a burning rag wick.
I could see hazy doorways beyond, some with doors carved in a dark wood I didn’t recognize, some with pieces of doors, hide hung in curtains over the gaps.
Some with only curtains. This place was the size of a long dining hall.
Patterns curved up the walls, like leaves and vines. “Where are we?” I croaked.
“We’re in a resting place.” Khal helped me up to sit.
“It’s magic,” I croaked.
“Yes. It is.”
Now that I was out of danger, the others started to disperse, breaking into fours and fives to head into some of those dark doorways. They didn’t seem bothered by the shadows.
I rubbed my eyes. They still ached slightly. “I didn’t know the orcs had magic.”
“We have it. We didn’t make it. This was left by the fae, a very long time ago. There’s just enough connection in our blood to make it safe.” He helped me to my feet. I swayed a little, and he caught me. “Easy there.” His brow was smooth, but his eyes worried.
“You said something here was dangerous,” I got out.
“Not if you’re with me.” He took off Tyralk's pack frame to hand it to someone.
“Then what was that? I heard…I saw…and it was…” I pressed my palms into my eyes. “There were colors. And heat.”
“We have never had the stone harm one of ours that we brought with us. But…we had never married in a sorcerer.” His hand tightened a little on my arm. “Maybe the surge for our entry affected your powers.”
Exactly what I needed; more of my father’s legacy complicating my life.
“Here.” He guided me forward. “Let’s get inside.”
“Inside?” I searched his face.
“We are in safety now, Rowena." He spoke slowly. "We don’t need to huddle around a banked fire and keep watch. We can take one of the rooms.”
Oh.
My heart sped up, images of that one night at the keep flashing across my mind as heat spread stinging across my skin. I had thought maybe we might avoid this until I got away, but now…
But now he was not just an orc. He was Khal. And I didn’t know if that was worse or better.
He picked up the rag lamp. “They won’t begrudge leaving us one of the lodgings with a door.” He strolled down the hall, pulling me gently with him, till one of the wood panels yielded to his touch, and warm air hit my face.
It was not what I’d imagined.
The light from our lamp sparkled on intricately carved walls, leaves and vines crawling across the surface upwards into the dark.
Black water glimmered in the center of the floor, steps down into a carved pool that might go down forever for all I knew.
But the old wasn't the only thing here. Hanging walls of hides and piles of furs divided the cave on one side.
Some kind of drying rack waited by the water, along with various clay pots and jars. The orcs had made this place their own.
"My father says the old fae must have built these places as waystations to use during travel.
" Khal latched the door behind me, and I was suddenly aware of how alone we were.
His voice echoed a little in the space. "They're usually in locations where it doesn't make logistical sense to build a village, but they're a welcome refuge when we're far from home. "
“I can see why.” The warmth coming off the water implied some sort of heat source underground. This rock that shimmered in facets was nothing like the stone our castle was built from. How far had we traveled? Were we even in the same world? “What happened? To the people who built this?”
“They left.”
“The continent?”
“Some say the world.” Khal strode to the wooden rack by the hides, started stripping off the capelet, his armor.