The questions seemed to hang there, leaving Ella caught, splayed, exposed. Trapped bare and shameful in those damning words, that truth, those eyes — and far too late she snatched for her still-damp, still-bunched skirts, shoving them down with tingling, shaky hands. A movement that Natt only watched in stilted, agonizing silence, his mouth gone tight and thin, his long claws suddenly looking sharp and black and deadly against the faded upholstery of the couch.
“Natt,” Ella heard her voice say, sounding reproachful, or perhaps even pleading. “You know I — I can’t. I have my mother to think about. My father’s legacy. His life’s work, our family’s lands, our home. He worked so hard to make me a real lady, and keep me our home, it was his final wish, and I — Ipromisedhim, Natt.”
And Natt would know how much Ella had loved her father, how much she loved her home, surely he would understand that, at least — but there was a sudden, bitter twitch on his mouth. “Ach, lass,” he said. “You should have had these noble reasons, and these fine excuses. You would have chosen to keep your pampered life, and all your unearned riches. You should never have chosen me, over this.”
Ella’s mouth opened, but nothing else came out, and Natt’s eyes seemed to harden, glinting in the moonlight. And then they dropped, looking toward where his hand had found hers, lifting it up. Tilting her fingers with slow, stilted care, making her engagement-ring sparkle in the moonlight.
“And now I know,” he said, frowning toward it, “that you have changed. That beyond your own pleasure, mayhap you shall never wish for true justice for a man such as this one. A man who would freely betray his ownbetrothed, before they have yetwed.”
The bitterness on his voice was stark, painfully thin, and in a jerky movement he dropped Ella’s hand and rose to his feet, towering tall and powerful over her. “Instead, woman,” he continued, his voice deepening, “you yet wish towedthis foul man. You yet wish to freely grant him the richest hoard in therealm. And have youonceasked this man, have youonceused your voice against him, to learn what he seeks to do with all your riches?!”
Ella was scarcely following this now, blinking up at his looming, twitching form. Had she asked. No, no she hadn’t, the few times she’d dared to mention it Alfred had laughed it off, waved it away. That’s all to discuss later, darling, he’d said, once things are properly settled.
An odd, shivery chill had coursed down Ella’s back, and she stared at Natt’s face, at his glittering black eyes. “Doyouknow what Alfred plans to do?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Do you, Natt?”
Natt gave another hard, brittle laugh, with no mirth in it. “Ach, yes, I know,” he said. “Do you wish me to tell you?”
The words sounded almost taunting, almost like he was playing a game with her, like Ella was too stupid to be believed. Like what he’d just done, that unfathomable pleasure he’d just given her, had been entirely negligible, when weighed against this, whatever the hell this was.
Ella still hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved, and suddenly Natt turned away from her, striding across the small room. Reaching down for his sword-belt, still lying innocuously on the floor, and as he strapped it on with deft fingers, it was almost as though he was arming himself against Ella. Against this, againstthem.
“Natt,” Ella heard her voice say, snapping those black eyes back toward her — but then she couldn’t seem to find the rest of the words, or the way out of this. And as Natt waited, she could see his lip curling, the contempt rising, he’d never been angry with her like this before, this wasn’t at all how it was supposed to be —
“Natt,” Ella said again, helpless, lost. “Look, I — I’m sorry. If things were different, I would come with you. I swear. Okay?”
But Natt was shaking his head, hard enough to swing his long black braid back and forth behind him. “No, lass,” he said, clipped. “You would not. You have changed. You now only care for these riches, and the wishes and regard of others. Otherhumans. Not me.Neverme.”
Never him. Suddenly Ella felt dangerously, desperately close to sobbing, and she lurched to her feet, standing on shaky legs. “No,” she shot back, the word choked in her throat. “I loved you, Natt. Ilovedyou. And then youleft, and I never saw youagain.”
There was only stillness from him now, only a caught arrested strangeness in his eyes, and Ella gulped for air, for reason. “You didn’t ask,” she gasped. “You didn’t even give me a chance to speak. You justleft. Of course I can’t trust you. I can’t trustanybodyanymore. I need to be in this formyself.”
But Natt had only raised a mocking black eyebrow, his mouth twisting into a harsh, bitter smile. “And thus,” he said, “you shall now leave me, after I have given you such joy, and instead you shall wed a foul piddlingwarmonger, who scorns a true prize like you, and betrays you with another, at your own party. In your ownhome.”
Ella could almostfeelthe rage, reverberating from his voice, from his eyes, from every corded muscle in his huge looming body. Looking powerful and suddenly, shockingly terrifying, his clawed hand gripped tight to his sword-hilt. And as Ella blinked up and down his massive armed form, she recalled, far too late, that he was anorc. A vicious, brutal, deadly orc, who killed for sport, who’d wanted to killAlfred, and what would he do next, trap her, force her, make her stay —
But — no. He stepped backwards, abruptly, and somehow he had Ella’s mud-caked slippers in his hand. And he was — holding them out toward her. Giving them to her.
“Farewell, woman,” he said. “I hope that you shall find some joy in this fate you choose. And I hope, beyond hope, that this man shall be kinder to you” — his eyes closed — “than he has been to me.”
What? Ella should have stopped him there, asked what in the gods’ names he meant — but everything was too tangled, too close, too horrible to be spoken aloud. And instead, she felt herself swallow, her shaky hand reaching out for her slippers.
“Right,” her hoarse voice said, through her too-tight throat. “Goodbye, Natt.”
And when she grasped for the door-latch, he still only stood there, and didn’t stop her. And Ella choked down the inexplicable rising misery as she turned her back to him, and staggered away into the darkness, and ran.
6
Ella couldn’t sleep that night.
It was as though the night’s events had snapped something, broken something, that had been pieced so carefully together. As though they had shoved those pieces entirely away, and shown what was hidden and trembling beneath.
And beneath had been a fearful, uneasy woman who’d crept back into her house, fastidiously washed herself all over, and sharply ordered her maid to help her re-dress. And when she’d gone back down to the party, she’d smiled and smiled until her face ached, even at Alfred — who, of course, had been the very epitome of gentlemanly manners. As though he were the type of man who would never dream of fondling another woman in his fiancé’s front drawing-room, on the night of their engagement-party.
And as Ella and Alfred had danced together, and spoken lightly of this and that, Ella hadn’t once asked the questions now screaming in her thoughts. Why would you disrespect me like that. Do you care about me at all. What do you mean to do with my father’s money. What are you doing with the orcs.What have you done to Natt.
And that, perhaps, was the worst of them all. Natt had been clear that Alfred had donesomething— hadn’t he? — and while Ella knew, intellectually, that lords had to direct armies and make difficult decisions and deal with problems like orcs, it somehow hadn’t occurred to her that Alfred might do that. Or that her father’s money mighthelpAlfred do that. And Alfred’s ownfatherhad signed that peace treaty, along with Sakkin Province’s well-respected new ruler Lord Otto — so why would Alfred be doinganythingagainst the orcs now?
It all swirled louder and faster through Ella’s thoughts as the night plodded endlessly on — until it was finally, finally late enough that she could safely claim exhaustion, and say her farewells, and make her escape.
