1
Zorvut
Leaving Aefraya in the cold of the early morning felt entirely different to Zorvut compared to the last time he had left the elven capital. Last time, he and Taegan had left together in the warm light of the sunset. Though they had been uncertain and anxious as they had set out that first time, there had been a sense of hope in their resolve that was conspicuously lacking now. Now, he was alone—or, at least, he would be traveling alone. King Ruven was seeing him off, like last time, though his expression was much more dark now compared to how it had been then. It had not been so long ago, but it may as well have been in another life for how distant it all felt.
“They’ll only be about an hour behind you, for the most part,” the king was saying as Zorvut looked out at the road in the cold morning light, bringing his attention back to the task at hand. “But as you get closer, let them catch up. If you’re too far ahead, it won’t work.”
“Yes, I remember,” Zorvut said with a nod, finally looking back to meet the king’s gaze. The elf was standing about five feet away from him, dressed in his usual finery with his hands clasped in front of him. His expression was carefully neutral, as if they were not discussing rescuing his only son, his sole heir. “I’ve spoken with the captain again, and we’ve agreed on a series of signals. So we should be able to communicate effectively from a distance even before we arrive at Drol Kuggradh, and I can signal when I’m waiting for them.”
“Good,” Ruven said, then sighed. His eyes flicked away, for once breaking his emotionless mask and briefly looking as weary and worn as Zorvut felt. “I am entrusting you fully with this, Zorvut. The balance of war and the fate of our kingdom is largely in your hands now.”
Zorvut wished he could respond confidently that the king had no need for concern, that he knew exactly how to bring Taegan home safely and end the conflict in one fell swoop. But even if he had truly believed it, he couldn’t find the words to say it. Instead, he replied faintly, “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Travel safely,” the king said with a decisive, final nod. He turned and started walking back toward the castle, so Zorvut did not reply, instead turning to face his horse. Graksh’t had been standing silently behind him, but he could see the tall stallion’s eyes following the king as he left. Though they had been with the elves for many months now and even traveled into human lands, Graksh’t still seemed uncertain of what to make of the smaller figures.
He checked his saddlebags one last time, though he had packed them himself and checked them once before earlier in the morning. He was traveling light, bringing only his weapons and the barest camping gear he would need for the sixteen days of travel it would take him to reach Drol Kuggradh, where the warlord Hrul Bonebreaker was certainly keeping his husband captive. If he were to push himself and his horse he could probably reach it in half that time, but he had to travel at a pace that the battalion of elves marching behind him could maintain. If he pulled too far ahead, their whole plan would fall apart. Much as it frustrated him to have to slow himself down, it was their greatest hope of success.
Even that left him feeling conflicted. The surest way of ending the conflict was to take out the warlord permanently. But Hrul Bonebreaker had raised him as his father, hadbeenhis father up until Kelvhan’s betrayal had revealed the truth. The thought of killing, if not his own father, the man he’d considered his father for the vast majority of his life—while his rational mind could recognize it as a necessity, his heart recoiled at even considering it. Even if it were not truly patricide, it felt close enough for him to balk at the thought.
Zorvut shook himself from his thoughts as Graksh’t whickered, a low and nervous sound as he had been standing motionless for several minutes now, staring vacantly out onto the horizon. He could spend the next two weeks mulling it over as he traveled, he told himself before mounting the horse. Turning back, he took one last look at Castle Aefraya, its high towers of gleaming white stone and the drooping branches of the tree-temple behind it. For all the trepidation he had felt the first time he laid eyes upon the elven city, even then he had thought it was strikingly beautiful. Now, though he hoped it was not, it may very well be the last time he ever looked upon it.
With a commanding shout he dug his heels into Graksh’t’s sides, and the horse broke into a gallop past the castle gates and through the main boulevard. A few shouts followed him as he raced out of the city; not shouts of anger but cheers, calls of encouragement. By the king’s decision, they had not shared any information as to why Zorvut had returned and Taegan had not, aside from the captains and soldiers who would be accompanying him from a distance, but there had seemed to be some unspoken understanding amongst the layfolk that some plan was being enacted. Every elf he’d spoken to in his brief return to Aefraya—whether the elven generals and captains King Ruven had summoned, or the bartender who served him when he couldn’t bear to remain in the castle without Taegan any longer—had all seemed to encourage him, to rally around him, and even now cheered as he galloped out of the city, like some strange symbol of their fighting spirit against the orcs.
Somehow it heartened him and saddened him in equal measure, all at once. If they only knew the truth! He doubted they would be cheering for him if they knew how dire a situation their prince was in, how easily Zorvut had allowed him to be taken. He had failed Taegan and by proxy had failed all of them. Maybe they would be shouting at him for an entirely different reason, then.
But it didn’t matter, he told himself as he approached the northern gate and galloped out beyond its walls. All that mattered now was saving Taegan, bringing him home safely. Everything else was secondary—the war, his own mixed feelings about the warlord—everything.
Instinctively, he felt for the spot in the back of his head where their bond resided. He knew there would be nothing there, just as there had been nothing from the moment Taegan was teleported away, but still he could not stop himself from prodding at it like a tender, painful wound.Can you hear me?he thought at it, trying to speak to Taegan the way they would communicate when they were connected.Are you there?
There was no answer, not that he truly expected one. As strange and even alien as it had been at first to feel the presence of another in his own mind, now going back to that silence, that emptiness, was unbearable if he dwelled on it for too long. It was not like the raw, bleeding feeling that had throbbed in the back of his head for days when Taegan had severed the bond, what felt like a lifetime ago. In a way it was a relief that at least he was not in that same agony, but in a different way he almost would have preferred it to the quiet emptiness he had now.
“Stop it,” he said aloud to himself, shaking his head. The more he dwelled on it, the closer to the brink of despair it brought him. He took in a deep, steadying breath, focusing on the movement of the strong horse beneath him, the sensation of the cold wind in his hair, only just starting to noticeably grow out from when he had shorn it. Had that really only been a month ago?
He focused on the road ahead of him, running over the map he would follow in his mind. The road would lead him to his husband, and when he found him, he would bring him home.
2
Taegan
Taegan was asleep when the faint whisper of Zorvut’s voice woke him.Can you hear me?
He sat bolt upright, his eyes opening quickly even though he could see nothing in the darkness.Are you there?
“I’m here,” he whispered before clamping a hand over his mouth, thinking as hard as he could at the spot in the back of his head.I’m here! I’m here!
He waited, not even daring to breathe for fear he might miss the response—but no response came. He waited for a minute, and then another. Slowly he started to slump backward before laying back down in his makeshift bed, a pile of straw with a blanket draped over it. He must have dreamed it. It had sounded soreal, but it was not the first time he’d dreamt of his husband in the time he’d been here.
Wherever here was. Though he knew he was in Drol Kuggradh, the capital of the orc-controlled territories and one of the only permanent cities maintained by the roving clans, he could not describe the prison he was in with any certainty aside from the cell he was kept in. He was not even sure quite how long he had been here. There was little to do except sleep, so he guessed it had been a few days, perhaps closer to a week. There was no light aside from the faint flicker of a torch, maybe two, far down the hallway to Taegan’s left, and even that was dim when it was visible at all. More often than not, the torches were not lit, and he was in pitch darkness.
Now that he was awake, hunger prodded at his belly. He had been fed once or maybe twice a day since his arrival, but they were meager meals of water and bread, occasionally cured meats or fruit that was over-ripe and on the verge of rotting. Before Taegan last went to sleep, food had been brought to him by a silent orc whose face he could just make out as being surly and irritated in the flickering light of the torch he had carried, but without knowing how long he’d slept, he might be fed again after another nap or not for several more hours.
He was hungry, and Zorvut’s voice in his mind had been so painfully real. Misery settled over him like a heavy weight atop the blanket he’d pulled over himself—and he was cold, too, having been given only an extra blanket against the frigid subterranean, mountain weather. The light traveling clothes and sleeping robe he’d been captured in were all he had, and were far too thin to give him any substantial protection from the elements. At night—or at least, when he assumed it was night time—a fire or a brazier was lit far off to the left where the torches were, where whatever guard watched over them was stationed. That helped a little, but the heat only just barely reached him most nights, taking the edge off the chill but never quite warming him before the faint glow dissipated and died away.
Needless to say, the situation was dire, as far as he could tell. But what could be done? He had no weapons, no armor, no way of escape—and no hope of fighting off an orc easily triple his weight and nearly two feet taller than him if not more, even if he could somehow get out of this cell. He had to believe Zorvut was coming for him, a thought he considered both with hope and with dread. Either Zorvut would save him, or they would both die. Hrul Bonebreaker had made that very clear to him in the brief conversation they’d had the night Taegan was captured. All he could do was wait, and hope, and worry.
Taegan had slept so long that now he was restless, unable to keep his eyes closed any longer. He stood and stretched, his muscles aching in protest from disuse, and paced around the cell slowly. It was small for orc standards, but he could get four paces along each wall, making the circuit around the cell over and over. His chest ached with worry and his stomach growled with hunger, but when he focused on his legs moving, the muscles stretching and contracting with each step, he could ignore both unpleasant sensations, and if he counted each step his mind was just occupied enough not to dwell on his bleak present or the uncertain future.
When he had counted one thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven steps, he could hear the loud clanging of the metal door being opened, and he paused, straining to listen. A gruff voice came faintly from far down the hall, speaking orcish. He knew very little of the language but could pick out a few words now, food and water and what he was fairly sure were a few different, formal greetings. Zorvut had tried to teach him a bit of orcish, but always joked his teeth were too small to fit around the words, and he could never get the hang of much more thanhello,how are youandmy name is Taegan. Neither of those phrases seemed like they would come in useful now.
