Chapter 13
A QUESTION TO ANSWER
“Rowena, you don’t need to fuss over me.”
“I’ll decide if I need to fuss over you. Sit.”
The soup Gnarlak had taught me to make was simmering over the fire, and I dished out a bowl for each of us. The dried fish cakes floated in the broth, a fragrant, mildly spicy scent on the steam.
It had been three weeks in the little house in the trees, his comrades in arms a steady presence day by day, ostensibly coming in twos and threes to socialize and check in on Khal, but I could read it in their faces, in the words that they let slip, the way one or two of them always found it too tiring to return to their own fires and decided to spend the night.
They were protecting him. Protecting us.
And while it was nerve-wracking to never get to speak to Khal without the presence of others, they were also comforting.
Piotr had made it up the steep wooden steps once, with his cane, but Khal, already recovering, urged him to stay at home and rest.
“This is good,” Khal said, bringing the spoon to his lips again. He always ate so neatly.
“I think this is better than the soup with the lichen. That one is fa-vrecht.” Orcish was getting easier, with so much time around him and his friends, so much magic constantly flowing out of me and around me.
I hadn’t built up the reserve of power I’d had before.
Maybe this continual draining did some harm to the process.
It was an awareness, always, an emptiness and an aching.
“It is fa-vrecht.” The corner of his mouth twitched.
“What is it? Did I say it wrong?”
“No. Not…not really.”
“But you’re smiling.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You are.”
There was a snort in the corner. Hagmar was napping under the window. I lowered my voice again. “You are.”
He glanced over at his sleeping friend, the closest thing we’d had to being alone since the hours before his fight with Drazha, and murmured to me, “I just like it. Hearing you speak.”
I didn’t know what to say.
A fist pounded at the door. “Khal, open this door before I break it down on your ass.” Vrathgar.
I stood on tiptoe to get the latch undone.
Khal’s friend nodded respect to me before swaggering into the cabin. “Khal,” he said. “How are you holding up?” He, for one, seemed to have no concerns about letting Hagmar sleep.
“Well.”
“Moving well?”
Their gazes locked.
“Are we moving?”
Vrathgar nodded. “There are signs the bloom will happen early, because of the extra rains. The chieftains want to be out before any of the animals risk poisoning.”
“That’s not good.” Khal frowned. “It’s still breeding season for too many of the fae beasts. We’ll be taking a risk, moving with the young ones.”
“I didn’t ask if it was a good idea, chief. I asked if you could walk out of here, or if I have to carry you.”
Khal released a breath. “I can do it.” His jaw set. It was too soon, and I knew it.
Vrathgar was still speaking. “If I have to drag you on a litter, I’ll take you with us. Don’t rip yourself open again like you’re Gernaz at the ring last year. Rowena and I will make you pay for it.”
I could be used as a threat now.
Khal shook his head. “I’ll walk. This isn’t a time to project weakness.”
I handed Vrathgar a bowl of the soup. He started scarfing it down, said, “Better to project a little weakness than to make a lot of it, eh? Doesn’t your wife roast people alive? Lean on your wife a little.” He glanced up at me. “No offense meant.”
“None taken.” I was getting used to being referred to as a weapon. While my stomach went tight at the memory of the wall, it was good if my reputation could spare Khal trouble. Even if it was only a little.
The power struggle within the Drashik was beyond my understanding, but I knew that now his brothers didn’t see me as a drain on his influence.
After Khal’s display at the circle of stones, being the warrior bound to the humans’ renegade sorceress brought a mystique with it along with the distrust. Khal had assured me that the distrust of those still wary of him was inevitable.
I would need to work to let myself believe him.
“A few of us are coming to make sure you reach the circle.” And then Vrathgar’s eyes hesitated on me.
“You can speak in front of Rowena,” Khal said.
“...There have been a few rumors, of humans searching for the sorceress. The elders will be anxious.”
My stomach went cold, but Khal’s face was calm. “They cannot deny her right. Not after I was victorious in the challenge.”
Vrathgar hesitated again, but spoke before Khal needed to urge him. “It would be a cleaner prospect if you went through the stones.”
My heart skipped. I tried to school my features, hoped nothing showed on my face, even though I wasn’t sure what I would even betray. Khal shifted in his seat by the fire, avoiding Vrathgar’s eyes. “There is no rush in that.”
“Practically? No. Politically? There is.” He jerked a nod at me.
“No offense. The conservative element—" Here I recognized I was using the magic again, felt the drain as the meaning in his words played out in my mind, “they are being stirred by rumors about a human bride and a human ceremony.
It'll be easier to drum up positive sentiment about you having stolen away a human wife when you are being visibly orc.” He glanced at me. “No offense.”
“None taken.” I didn’t feel stolen. Though the memory of Khal trying to honor the traditions that should have been dear to me did send warmth into my face.
Khal scraped the last of the broth onto his spoon, and I could tell he used the Orcish as he said, “There is no way on this earth I’m dragging her captive through the stones. There will be another way.”
Vrathgar shook his head. “Far be it from me to give marital advice.” He glanced out the window, as if gaging the color of the light. “I’ll come back within the hour.”
Khal responded in the affirmative. His friend- our friend- left. Hagmar snorted in sleep, next to the wall.
This was the closest we’d come to being alone since the meadow.
Khal interrupted the silence before I did. “It’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”
I spoke before the cowardice could set in, before I could tie myself in knots of second thoughts. “Is that your plan for me forever?” My words made him wince. “Just being someone you keep safe? Not needing to know what’s going on?”
His forehead creased. “I apologized about that.” His voice was a rasp.
“Yes. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
He looked down at his bowl. There was nothing in it, but he ran the spoon around the side. “I’m not thinking about the future. Just getting through this next month.”
I took his bowl in my hand. “What changes in the future?” This wasn’t a talk I should back down from, as much as I needed to ask a hundred other questions. As much as I feared to.
“We…you…you’ll know more. I won’t always be the one making the decisions. You’ll be a full member of the Drashik. You’ve…your Orcish has improved.” There was color in his neck.
“So you do plan for me to be here? With you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Do you want me to marry someone else?”
His head snapped up. “What are you talking about?” His voice was rough, almost harsh. “Has someone said this to you? Is one of them harassing—"
“No.” I cut him off. “No, no one in this house has treated me as anything but your wife. Except for you.” The pain in those words was so foolish, when this was a talk that needed so very much to happen.
“You act as if I’ll always be here, but you know I’m here only as someone they think might belong to you.
You know that to stay, I have to marry someone.
” I pulled in a breath. “But you have made it clear over and over that you don’t want to marry me. ”
“It isn’t that.” He flinched. “It isn’t. I…” He balled his fists as his sides. “I want you to have the time to make a choice.”
“What choice? Do you want me to interview your friends, see if there’s some other prospect? If you’re trying to push me off on someone you can tell me—"
“Not that kind of choice.” His voice rasped. “A choice whether you want…” He stopped. We stared at each other. “...whether you want to live with the Drashik,” he finished, looked away again. “I don’t want you to be trapped. You could…go back.”
To the city. To the place I’d burned.
“No,” I said, and I was a little surprised to find no question in it. “I don’t want to go back. I could steal for a living, but…everything I’d hoped to still find there…it burned. I burned with it.” And suddenly I couldn’t look at him.
“I promised you a place with my people,” he said. “I promised you my protection, and my strength. And my friends…they are your friends too. I hope you see that.”
I nodded.
“But you shouldn’t have to go to my bed for that, Rowena.” The emotion in his voice broke through.
And I had to say something now, because his head was in his hands again, and I was holding his bowl, just stupidly standing there with his bowl. “But that’s what husbands and wives do. You can’t…let me make decisions and bring me into your house and never touch me.”
“Nayah, I can.” His throat tightened. “That isn’t even special.
How many people don’t come together because one is injured, because the woman has had a baby or she’s bleeding, or…
or someone is ill? It’s not special to be able to hold back.
I’ve told you I’m not an animal, and I’m not.
It’s only…” He hesitated. “I can live past my error. I can do right by you and live in a home and let us be…merely friends. Friends with a debt.” His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“But to swear a lie at the stones…” He raked, again, his fingers through his hair.
“The stones,” I repeated. “The stones are sacred to you.”
He nodded. His eyes were still closed.
“And to marry me by orc standards, you have to…tell the stones that we’ll make love?”
“Something like that.” His voice was raw.
“But we have. We…we did.”