Chapter 11
TALK
Stew trembled into my bowl.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Khal’s grandmother didn’t smile. Drazha sat across the fire from Khal and I, her glare searing over us.
I had more than enough practice being in a place I was unwanted.
I had existed at Belnor keep as a failure and a gutter rat in the eyes of everyone but Thea; I could bear up under her gaze next to Khal.
I ignored the roiling in my gut and ate my stew.
Drazha broke the silence first. “Terzha will be disappointed that you broke the agreement.”
Khal lowered his bowl. “I doubt that.”
“She was going on one more rotation to the North before hand-fasting.”
“Terzha is a capable woman. She will easily find someone she likes much better.”
“She had put off taking a man from among the Il-Draz because of your offer!”
“Your offer.”
They stared at each other.
His eyebrows were raised high. “Do you want me to send some apology? No gifts have been exchanged.”
She spat. “This is not about gifts. It’s about the honor of your words.”
“I gave her no word.”
“Lies! I remember—"
“I can ask Terzha to stand witness for me. We barely spoke these past two years, and I most certainly gave her no oath.”
I spooned another bit of meat into my mouth. There was some carrot in here, sweet.
“But I’m glad you value my word so highly. Because I’ve given it to Rowena.”
“What is a Rowena?”
“This. My wife.”
“And what is she? A daughter of their fetid baron’s blood? Sent with a dowry of lies and colored water—"
“My wife.”
Her voice rose. “You are not married until—"
“Darling.” Piotr had taken her bowl, was filling it again. “Let’s let the boy talk, hm? There’s no harm in talking.” He rested his hand on hers.
Her nostrils flared, but she wasn’t yelling, which was an improvement. She asked, instead, in an even tone, “Why this one?”
Khal didn’t flinch. “We suit each other.”
“You have clearly chosen her only to defy me.”
“No. I chose her to forge more strength for our people. Safety and trade and peace.”
“And has your reckless rebellion attained this?”
“No. But she is a capable partner.”
Drazha snorted.
Khal’s visage stayed calm. “You chose Father because he was pleasing to you.”
“That was different.”
“Pray tell me how.”
“It was different because I was not being selfish on the edge of war!”
“So if the Val Drak were marshaling then, you’d have been right to reject the call of your heart? You’d have been right to walk away from my Father?”
“Yes!”
“Then you have raised a more selfish warrior than you were. Because I am doing as you did.”
“I will throw her out!”
“Then I will leave with her.”
“You do not know what you’re saying.”
“Do you? Have you thought through banishing me? Mother?”
Her nostrils flared again. Her knuckles were white on her bowl.
His voice softened. “You raised me to keep my word. If I am foolish, I am foolish. But I have given it.”
She made a sound like disgust was phlegm in her throat. “Their ceremonies mean nothing.”
Piotr chuckled, soothing, “Well that can be easily remedied, my love. They can take the orc rites—"
“It’s already done,” Khal snapped, and he flinched.
Now even Piotr was staring.
“...it's not necessary,” he amended, quieter.
“You want to keep the enemy's daughter at your side, but you can't be bothered to take her as an orc?” Drazha glared.
“It has been done. To fulfill their customs.”
“But not for ours.”
“It's the same.”
She bared her teeth. “It is not.”
“Can someone tell me?” I asked. “What this means?”
And Khal was not meeting my eyes.
“Well, my dear,” Piotr said, a forced jollity. “There are promises, a bit of ceremony, gifts are exchanged—"
Drazha cut him off, icy. “Why explain it to her when my son is unwilling to make oaths in the orc way?” Her voice rose again. “You want this sorceress. You want me to recognize her as your wife. But you won’t even wed her?”
“That,” Khal hissed, “is none of your concern.”
She bared her teeth. “It is not. Already, you want a sorceress. You claim something like this, it will open you to challenge.”
“I’m ready to face a challenge.”
“This is foolishness.”
“Not to me.”
She stood. She was not the tallest orc. Drazha and her parents seemed rather small, compared to the others.
But as she stood over us, the fire lighting her eyes from below, I could see the war chief that made Khal’s band mutter oaths.
“You wish so much to step into the circle. You wish to give your challengers their cut. Fine. But you will not embarrass your people by dwelling with a chit you have made no oath to. You want to keep her? You’ll go through the stones. ”
He didn’t answer.
She took a deep breath, like she fought to stay reasonable. “If you want her alive to keep your duty but don’t care if you stay married, we could find a way to trade her into the North. Far enough she couldn’t come back to betray us—"
“Mother.”
She snapped her jaw shut. “Fine. You want a collar on your throat? You want a heathen nursing my grandchildren? You are Orc, now. Go fight with blades for nothing to prove how grown you are.”
“Thank you,” he said evenly, “for your blessing.”
She made a sound of hate.
Khal handed me his bowl, almost untouched.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I don’t fight on a full stomach.”
Icy silence covered the room.
“So,” Piotr said. “How did you meet?”
The door burst open. There was a child there, messy hair over their face. “It’s almost moonrise. They’re gathering in the field.” She stared in with huge, eager eyes.
Khal finished off his mug, put it down and stood. “I’ll be right there.”
The child stared at me, stared and stared. Was I the first person who looked like me she’d ever met? Khal held out his hand, to help me to my feet.
Piotr clapped him on the shoulder. “We believe in you, my boy. We’re proud of you.” His voice was hearty. His eyes were wet.
He hugged his father. “I'll see you there.”
The path was slippery with dead leaves and overgrown with roots, and I fell behind quickly as he ate up the distance with long strides.
“Khal?” I said. “You're walking very fast.”
He stopped for me, realized we needed to move again, started walking a little slower. Nervous energy showed in the slight bounce on the balls of his feet, the way his head swiveled at every sound.
“Do you want me to be quiet, so you can think?” I slid on the leaves.
“No. No, that's fine. I'd rather not be thinking.” He caught my elbow to help me over a mossy rise. “Did you need something?” His Adam's apple bobbed.
I wanted to ask him what the orc ceremony was. I wanted to know why he reacted so vehemently. But he was about to do something hard. He shouldn't have to think about me.
It was probably a very different act, making promises to someone when you knew they were fake versus when you didn't. I was the only one of us two who'd acted in bad faith, before. Maybe to me another wedding seemed like more of the same, but to him…
“I'm sorry,” I said, “that they keep pressuring you about marrying me again.”
He swallowed. “You don't need to worry about that.”
“If…if you're holding back on my account, you don't need to.
I don't…I don't mind. If you wanted to play-act it so she'd forgive you.” I stumbled over myself trying to justify, “Not that you have to.
You shouldn't have to do anything you don't want to.
I don't want you to…feel shame? About a promise that isn't real.
I don't think it would count, since I'd know.”
He sighed, and raked his fingers through his hair, his eyes scanning the trees. “It’s not like that.”
Apologies kept tumbling out of me. “It’s your people’s ceremony. Of course it would mean more—"
“No. I meant what I promised the first time. And I still mean it. I don't have some grudge about saying it again.” He took my hands to pull me up beside him on a crest, slid down himself and then turned to grasp my waist.
“Then why?” I blurted it out, right as I realized that while he was lifting me down- while I was in his arms, looking into his face- was a terrible moment to ask this.
He stopped, not letting go of me, like we were locked in this moment with his hands on me, his eyes boring into mine. He didn't speak, didn't move, and maybe I was a little fool, because I didn't want to make a sound and break the spell.
He released me, suddenly, and pulled away. “I'd have to lie with you.” His voice was gruff. “And I already dragged you through one wedding night.”
“...oh,” I whispered.
He turned around, kept walking. I tripped after him.
“I like to think I learn from my mistakes,” he muttered. “And perjury is not on my list of favorite crimes, so.”
I grabbed a branch to steady myself. “Do you have a list of favorite crimes?”
He laughed quietly, brokenly. “Do you?”
“I liked picking pockets.” I tried to keep the pain out of my voice. “I think I'm still good at it.”
His step faltered, and he paused, for a moment. “There's a lot I don't know about you.”
I climbed up beside him. “Maybe after this, we can ask each other things.”
He nodded. “That would be good. After.” He looked at me. There was stubble on his jaw. His eyes still looked pained, probing…
“Did you take a different path this time?” I blurted out. “...we're climbing this time, and I thought…”
“Oh. Yes. I took my short cut. I wasn't…” He trailed his hand through his hair. “I wasn't thinking.”
Up ahead, voices murmured. Once or twice, one rose in laughter. It didn’t sound like a gathering where Khal might die, but I knew the anger in Drazha’s face, the pain in Piotr’s eyes.
And I knew Khal. I’d known him for so short a time, but I could read him, the lines of tension in his body, the way he moved.