Chapter 6 #2
My feet were bare here, and I almost slipped. “I don’t care,” I croaked out.
“You don’t care? He’s your father and you don’t care?”
“I don’t care.” My voice was shaking. The others were moving away from me, but still there wasn’t room to get away, to run. And should I? Didn’t I deserve this?
“Why? Did he give us the fake medicine with a fake bride? Why don’t you care?”
“He sold me to orcs!” I’d screamed it. I’d screamed it, and my hands pulsed with heat, with power I’d never wanted and couldn’t use.
“He sold me. You think people sell a daughter they love? He betrayed you? He betrayed me!” Colors rioted behind my eyes, and I squeezed them shut.
I didn’t want to see his body heat, see the flare of white that was Tyralk, cooking from the inside.
I didn’t want to see the hatred or the pity in their eyes.
“Cut out his heart. Eat it like the beast you want to be; I don’t care! ”
“You argued for it,” Vrathgar said. His voice was so cold, so sure. “You’re the one that pushed, when we came to council.”
I clawed my hands into my hair. What did it matter? What did any of it matter, if they killed me, at least this would be over. They wouldn’t make the trip to give me back. I’d never go back. “I have a sister,” I said. “It was me or her.”
“The baron only had one daughter,” Vrathgar needled. “You lie.”
I wasn’t going back. Whether this orc wanted me here was immaterial.
It didn’t matter. No matter what, I wasn’t going back.
I let the tension roll back into my body, blocked the power building up in my hands, my head so I could open my eyes to the blackness.
My voice came out in a strangled snarl. “One legitimate daughter,” I spat.
“You bought your fake bride with your fake potions. Kill me if you want. But don’t pretend I had more choice than the bottles did. ”
A lamp flared, blinding me for a second.
“Well,” Vrathgar looked past me, cold certainty in his eyes. “That settles that, then.”
I turned and looked into Khal’s face.
Was it possible for someone with green skin to look ashen? Because I’d never seen him so pale, so frozen as in that moment. I couldn’t read him, started to take a step back before remembering that his compatriot behind me wanted my blood.
Vrathgar’s voice cut the air. “So what are we doing now, brave leader?”
Khal swallowed. “Tyralk needs a potion. Is that right?” There were knives of ice in that voice. God, I was right. Now Khal hated me.
“He’s dying.” The muscles in Vrathgar’s jaw twitched.
“Then we get it for him.”
“How?” Another spoke up. “We received no pay. What are we supposed to buy with?”
Krashal shouted, “That was supposed to be two months wages a piece!”
“They’re cheaper when they’re stolen.” My voice had slipped out. I hated that it was so quiet, so squeaking. I was speaking where I was hated. But Tyralk lay in the room beyond, slowly dying.
“We don’t steal, princess,” one of them growled.
“Not by you. By someone else. They’re cheaper when you buy them fenced.” My throat was raw.
“And you know where to find that?” A sardonic growl.
“Yes. In Rowton. The warrens by the lower wall, next to the pleasure district.” I looked back to Khal. “Before the baron caught me, I sold things there.”
Vrathgar muttered, “A whore?”
My voice snapped, “A thief.” What did I have to fear? I looked back at him. “But the whores I’ve known were braver than you.”
“This fight is pointless.” Khal had spoken. He was moving to the doorframe. “Rowena knows the way. The two of us will get the potion for Tyralk.”
“And pay with what?”
“I still have my pay from the last campaign.”
They started speaking Orcish. Of course.
They didn't need to include me anymore. I turned off my ears, focused on what needed to be done.
This was over. Khal knew. Now I would help him get the medicine for his friend, and bid him goodbye.
There was no way he could find me in the city, and he would be pressed for time.
I'd give him this last apology, endure his contempt for a day and a half, and disappear.
This escape was the best of all worlds: I had protection on the road, and he had a thief to guide him to his goal. My entire chest ached.
Khal paused beside me, still not looking at me. "I'll grab my effects. We can leave as the sun rises."
An hour ago I would have followed him into the room we'd shared. Now I stayed in this hall full of hostile eyes, and I waited.
Khal rejoined, his effects strapped to his body, boots on his feet. His gaze slowed over me, looked away. “We need to leave.”
I reached for his neck. He froze.
Had I done this wrong? I tried to read his face. He lifted me, ginger. Guarded.
He stepped through the columns. My head buzzed with that nauseous energy again, but I was able to push it back. And we were alone in the forest, surrounded by ancient stones. He set me down, not roughly. And he walked.
“Khal?” I said.
He stopped.
I swallowed. “My shoes.”
He pulled a sling off his pack, pulled them out, and bandages.
I took them without speaking. I had for so long been afraid that he would become angry with me; it was almost a relief, like a weight off my mind.
He could be angry. This was never fair to either of us.
Of course we’d hurt each other. And now he could heal, because he was angry with me.
When I finished off the bandages and pulled on, again, my ridiculous indoor shoes, he was waiting on the edge of the clearing, his back still to me. The world was so hushed, so chill.
“I’m ready,” I said.
We moved.
The sun rose. Khal kept up a punishing pace, which made sense; Tyralk was what was important right now, and he had no great urge to think of my welfare.
I kept up as best I could, and he'd pause when I got too far behind. The sun was almost at its zenith when I stopped him. “Khal.” I took the chance to lean against an oak. He didn’t turn around, just stopped, one leg up on a fallen log.
“I can’t keep up like this. We can eat while we walk, but I need to eat. ”
He pulled the pack off his back. I climbed closer through the brush, avoiding the ones that might tear this skirt. I needed the peasant’s dress to last. His hand slipped a little as he unwrapped the oil cloth around the rations, pulled out to break apart another square of cricket-meal bread.
It might be our last day together, depending on the distance to Rowton. There was a bitter sweetness in that. Maybe it was alright to still enjoy seeing his hands, even as they faltered with rage earned by me.
Of all the people I could have made angry, Khal was perhaps the gentlest. Maybe my fear was never justified. Maybe I could have made him angry sooner. “I would eat the jerky,” I said.
His movement stopped. “What?”
“I would eat the meat,” I said quietly. “I trust…that you don’t eat people.”
He hesitated, pulled free a few of the strips. I would have felt bad for eating his food, but I’d be gone soon. He wouldn’t run out, without me there. I bit into the meat, over-salted, greasy.
He was wrapping it back up.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
He finished wrapping it, shoved it back in the pack. “No. I don’t think I can right now.”
“You need to be at your best.” It was a foolish argument. None of this bludgeoning through the woods was hard for him.
“I’ve gone longer without. I won’t waste food I would throw up.”
My own stomach clenched. What would Thea say? “Did you want to talk about it?”
A breath escaped him. “We can talk later.”
There would be no later. I nodded. He pulled the pack back on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For hurting you.”
He wheeled on me. There was so much feeling in his face I almost stepped back, away. “What are you talking about?” he hissed. “Rowena, are you trying to drive home that you’re mad? Are you torturing me? What is this?”
I stepped back. There was a tree behind me. “You shouldn’t have been lied to. This happened to you, too—"
“To me too?” His voice was loathing, disgust. “I met you with rope burns on your wrists. You spoke bravely, and I never stopped to think that brave people can have knives to their backs. I wanted to believe you. I wanted you to be real. And I did not dig further.” He raked his hand through his hair, agony in his face.
“I might as well have been dragging you to my bed with a knife.”
I stood against the tree, still.
“This did not happen to both of us, because I didn’t force both of us, Rowena, I forced you."
My voice came out as a whisper. “That's not what happened. You took…what was yours."
"What was mine?" He hissed through his teeth. "You're a woman, Rowena, not a spare blade."
I pressed back against the oak trunk. "I was your wife.”
"That's not how this works." He looked so angry. “You teach a child two years old not to hurt an animal, not to take food out of someone’s hands or bite. And you think that goes away if I get stronger? We’re not animals. I’m not…supposed to be…something that hurts you.” He slid down against the tree, his head in his hands.
I wanted to move closer. I wanted to comfort him.
And maybe that only invited his scorn, but I knew Khal would not hurt me.
And I knew he deserved my courage, even when I merited his hate.
I crept forward, lowered to a crouch by his feet. “When I agreed to take Thea’s place, I knew what that entailed. I knew…that included your bed.” He was already shaking his head. I continued. “You are not the monster here. You didn’t make me—"