Natt’s last finger was lingering in her mouth, his eyelashes fluttering as Ella’s tongue nudged at his fingertip, as if to search for something inside. Flaring a telltale hardness across his eyes, while a rather satisfying growl hissed from his mouth.
“Good lass,” Natt murmured. “Mayhap now you shall also welcome some sweetness, with your meat?”
His other hand had dropped to clutch brazenly to the front of his trousers, showing off that far too visible — and far too tempting — ridge beneath. And even as Ella’s betraying mouth watered, again, she couldn’t help a swift glance around, toward whatever danger might be watching from the trees.
“Ican’t, Natt,” she whispered helplessly. “What if Alfred’s mensee?!”
“I told you, they shall not,” Natt countered, his voice flat. “I shall smell when they come close.”
But that wasn’t helpful, not in the slightest — Ella couldnotrisk such a thing, not with so much at stake. Not even with that strange, almost angry look in Natt’s dark eyes.
“You do not trust that I speak truth to you?” he asked. “Or you only no longer wish for me, until you are safe as this high lady, and I am fully yourpet?”
Ella felt a sudden, jerking rebellion at the question — he was really caught on that pet thing, wasn’t he? — and she belatedly leapt to her feet and turned away from him, pulling the sheepskin tight around her shoulders.
“We really ought to get going,” she said, holding her eyes to the sight of the tall, craggy mountain up ahead, now looming much closer than it had been. “I need to make sure I get back in time. How much longer, do you think? Will we reach the mountain before nightfall?”
Natt didn’t reply, but only began walking again, limping ahead of her, his shoulders stiff and square. Leaving Ella to hurry along behind on her increasingly tired legs, while her thoughts twisted and churned. She’d said nothing wrong. She was perfectly justified, in all of this. No true lady would ever take her pleasure out in the open like that, where anyone could see. Especially with anorc, who only really wanted it for vengeance anyway. Right?
But the silence only seemed to deepen between them, Natt’s previous playfulness replaced with a stillness that felt inexplicably heavy. His limp became more pronounced as they walked, moving faster and faster, and he only used his right arm to clear the path for Ella, holding branches out of her way until she’d passed.
“So, what’s your mountain like, these days?” Ella finally made herself ask, into the taut silence. “Do all five orc clans live there now?”
Natt shot her a narrow sidelong look, but gave a curt nod, and Ella cast her thoughts back, to the tales he’d used to tell her of his people, his home. Of how the mountain had first been discovered by an ancient elf named Edom, who together with his mate, had birthed five sons, who’d then become the five clans of orcs. And even after all these years, Ella could still remember all the clans’ names: Ash-Kai, the strongest, then Bautul, the bravest, and Skai, the swiftest. Then came Ka-esh, the wisest, and last, the Grisk. The kindest. The ones who cared most for safety, and family, and home.
“Is your father at the mountain, too?” Ella heard herself ask, with another glance at Natt’s inscrutable face. “Or does he still spend most of his time outside it, in your second home, with the other Grisk?”
Because Natt’s father — Rakfarr, Ella remembered — had been some kind of leader among the Grisk, and had therefore split his time between the mountain, and a large Grisk camp to the west. Well over a day’s journey away from Ella’s home in Ashford, but the forest between them had been wild and unbroken, which was why Natt had been able to meet her there in secret so often.
“No, my father is not there,” Natt said, his eyes straight ahead. “My father is dead. For many years now.”
Oh. Ella felt herself flinch, her hands pulling her sheepskin tighter around her shoulders. The sun was close to setting, there was a marked chill in the air, her trotting legs were exhausted — and Natt’s father wasdead. And Ella knew that Natt had never met his mother — she’d died giving birth to him — but he had always adored his father, and thought him wise and strong and utterly fearless.
My father’s calling is to speak for our Grisk brothers without fear or shame, Natt had told Ella, more than once. When I am grown, this shall be my calling, also.
“I’m so sorry, Natt,” Ella said, quiet. “I know how much you loved him.”
Natt gave a jerky shrug, his head still straight ahead, and Ella kept eyeing him, dropping her gaze down to his clawed hand. To that distinctive, beautiful green-and-gold ring.
“So is that,” she said, with a grimace, “your father’s ring?”
“Ach,” Natt replied, without inflection. “My sword was his, also.”
Oh. Ella could almost taste his grief, sheknewthat grief, and she swallowed hard, her eyes studying his face. “So are you the Speaker of the Grisk now? Like you were supposed to be?”
But she already knew the answer before Natt spoke, could see it in the blankness of his eyes. “No,” he said. “I am not.”
He didn’t elaborate, but Ella could understand easily enough, and felt a pang of misery flare deep in her chest. Natt was hunted, and one couldn’t very well be a leader, or speak for one’s brothers, if one was chased and in hiding all the time, right? And it was just more that Alfred had taken away from him, more bitterness and cruelty and suffering.
“If I can — deal with Alfred, and make him stop hunting you,” Ella said, tentative, “could you still become Speaker of the Grisk, after that?”
“Mayhap,” Natt replied, his voice and eyes still distant, but he didn’t say anything more. And looking at him like this, there was the compulsive, almost irresistible urge to step closer, to touch him. To circle an arm around those stiff shoulders, perhaps, to bring the warmth back to his eyes, the smile to his mouth.
But Ella didn’t, couldn’t, and instead just kept trudging on, over ever-rougher terrain, moving faster and faster, feeling the tiredness dragging heavier and heavier as she climbed over rocks and boulders. The mountain was abominably close now, soaring high and dangerous overhead, and its smoke was streaming out to the sky, near enough to fill the air with the scent of it.
And suddenly it occurred to Ella that perhaps this — this was it. She’d escorted Natt safely home. She’d done what she’d meant to do. They’d had their day together, and now it was already over. And now what?
They came to a halt before a jagged-looking wall of stone, and finally Natt turned to look at Ella in the twilight. His eyes tired, wary, lingering on her face, and then flicking toward the trees behind them.
