“You look worried,” Varen remarked, and Korik shook his head furiously, embarrassment rising in his face. “No, I mean—what troubles you? I thought this seemed like good news, or at least nothing bad, but if you’re worried...”
Korik was silent for a long moment, trying to get the anxieties tumbling around in his mind into an understandable string of words. It was hard enough to speak his thoughts aloud normally, but having to then say them in elvish proved all the more challenging.
“I wonder if having me accompany you was a mistake,” he finally said, his voice coming out colder than he meant it to. “I will only slow you down in this.”
To his surprise, Varen laughed, shaking his head. “Slow me down? You just saved me a day. We can go forward without fear, thanks toyourscouting.”
Korik flushed. “That isn’t—it’s not the same.”
Varen shrugged. “Perhaps. But I’m not concerned about that now. If it proves to be challenging in the coming days, we’ll figure it out then. But for now, Korik, I don’t think you need to be worried about slowing me down. Scouting is rather slow business on its own, anyway.”
Korik had no idea how to respond. He had expected Varen to make some sarcastic remark, something that maybe didn’t outright put him down, but wouldn’t exactly flatter him either. But this... Varen was almost beingniceto him, and it almost felt worse than the snide remarks he’d come to expect from the elf.
Even worse, as Korik looked at him longer in confusion, Varensmiledat him. What in the hells was going on? Korik turned away, flushing in embarrassment.
“I... I see,” he stammered, trying desperately to find something to busy himself with. He heard Varen chuckle to himself, and he said nothing more on the matter, which was a relief.
They prepared their small supper, then sat around the low fire eating without conversation. When Korik risked a glance over at Varen, the elf was not looking at him, but he still looked away quickly, as if he had been caught. An uncomfortable feeling rose in his chest the longer they sat quietly across from each other, but he couldn’t find the words to break the silence, either.
When their meal was done, Varen finally turned to look at him with an inscrutable expression. Korik could meet his gaze for only a moment, but then the elf finally spoke.
“Can you use your magic to create food?” he asked. Korik blinked, taken aback by the unexpected question, and it took him a long moment to process.
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I have heard it is possible to transmute other materials into food or water, but it’s not something I could do. Well, water can be condensed out of the air, but not made out of nothing.”
“Damn,” Varen laughed. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to worry about our rations running out. Too bad. At least water won’t be a concern.”
He chattered on idly about mundane topics for a while longer, Korik giving faint one-word responses to indicate he was listening; but his mind still raced, so he was only partly paying attention. Why did it feel so different to be out here alone with Varen, compared to when they had been traveling with the group of elves, or even just them and Enriel? It was harder to tune out the elf when he was talking just to hear his own voice, sure, but... There was something different in his behavior, too. Or was there?
Maybe he was just in a good mood from being well-rested this time around. That was probably it.
When the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, leaving only the embers of their fire to illuminate their camp, Varen stood and stretched, looking out into the distance.
“I’ll keep watch for a little while,” he said. “But we should rest. I’d like to leave at first light.”
Korik nodded, stepping toward his bedroll. He wondered if Varen would still be so strangely cheerful tomorrow.
“Goodnight,” Varen added.
“Er—sleep well,” Korik stammered in response. Varen had the same little smile on his face as he walked a wide perimeter around the camp. Korik lay in his bedroll, looking up at the stars for a long moment, unable to name all the feelings in his chest, except mortification that he had told Varen tosleep wellwhen he was the one keeping watch.
Chapter Fifteen
Varen
Asendearingasitwas to have Korik stammering and flushing at half the things Varen said, it made him acutely aware of how prickly he had been with the orc in the past weeks of travel together.
In his defense, it had been a very stressful few weeks. And if he was being honest with himself, he always had a hard time keeping friends—Enriel often told him that he came across as rude and arrogant and abrasive. He was much improved from his youth, but he was also very good at his job and had no shame in behaving as such. But in his single-minded worry, first over saving his sister, then the other frightened elves so unexpectedly in his care, in retrospect, he had not always been entirely friendly with Korik.
At first, he didn’t intend to say anything about it, letting his better behavior speak for itself. But after Korik told him that he thought he would just slow Varen down, he had a hard time sleeping. He turned the conversation over in his mind again and again. He and Korik needed to be able to trust each other if they were to survive. The orc had promised not to leave him behind, but how good was that promise if he truly believed Varen was worse off in his company than he would be alone?
Some of it, he thought, was just in Korik’s nature: the orc had proved rather more timid than Varen would have expected. But some of it was probably his own doing, acting superior to Korik so often that the other man was starting to believe it was the truth. And even if he was more at home in the wilderness as a scout, it was also completely true that Korik’s abilities had allowed them to so easily track down Enriel—saving not only her, but all the elves that they had stumbled upon.
He continued to ruminate over it the next morning as they packed their belongings, buried the campfire, and rode their horses at a leisurely pace to the abandoned orc camp. Enriel had told him to be nicer to Korik before they left, which he had brushed off at the time, but now was thinking over more meticulously. He had certainly been in a better mood since they’d arrived in Castle Aefraya, but had he been so bad before that? Enriel surely seemed to think so, and she had proved time and again to have a better sense of that sort of thing than him.
Part of him bristled that his sister, so much younger than him, was irrefutably the wiser of them, at least when it came to people. But that too was some of his arrogance coming through again, wasn’t it?
Thinking of Enriel and her baby made his chest ache with worry all over again, though it was a less dire concern now. He hoped her journey home went smoothly, and that her child was delivered without complication. Yet another part of him already missed her; even though they often butted heads, her presence in Drol Kuggradh had been a source of joy and camaraderie in what was otherwise an isolating and often difficult assignment.
