“You’re right,” she gasped. “I don’t know what I’ve gotten into, or what I’ve done. I’ll try to do better, I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, I’m so sorry that any of this ever happened to you. You should be the Speaker, you should always have been, you’re brilliant and you deserve it and I wish I could havehelpedyou. I wish I could have been there for you. I love you, Natt. Iloveyou.”
There was no reply behind her, only the heavy sounds of Natt’s thick, ragged breaths. And then, oh, the feeling of his huge, hot, sticky body, finally sinking its weight down against her, pressing her close into the flat softness below.
“Ach,” Natt’s voice whispered, finally, and there was the sound of his throat swallowing, another breath coming out thick against her ear. “Ach, my lass. I have drawn your blood, this time.”
His voice was choked, flat, bitter — but he was here, he was himself again, he was Natt. And the relief was almost alive, something Ella could taste under her skin, and she blinked back the wetness in her eyes, and nudged her head against his.
“Well, it’s not like I’m surprised,” she said, the words coming out hoarse, but true. “You’ve been threatening to do so for days now. You dreadful orcs.”
It was like she’d plucked at a taut string, and deflated his hard, brittle body all at once — and he made a sound that might have been a laugh, or something else. “I am sorry,” he whispered, so quiet. “Are you in pain.”
Perhaps it was just this relief, having Natt’s warm body sunk heavy against her, his warm voice in her ear — but Ella shook her head, and wriggled herself a bit further beneath his protective weight. “Not — like that,” she heard herself say. “But — I’m sorry too, Natt. I should have asked you all this, and sought your truth, from the start.”
She could feel his chest fill and empty against her, harsh and powerful, and she drew in her own breath, her courage. “Will you tell me, then?” she whispered. “The rest of it? What happened to you? Please?”
Natt gave a low, heavy-sounding groan, but she could feel his nod, his silken hair rubbing against her cheek. “The day it began,” he said, hoarse, “I was with you. We laughed and ran, and I caught you a rat to eat. But you would not eat this, so I did instead. And you groused at me for this, but you yet smiled at me, and teased me with your eyes. And when I went to leave, you kissed my cheek, and I wished to kiss you, but I did not.”
The images were swirling through Ella’s memories too, almost staggering in their vividness. He’d been so absurdly compelling that day, even as he’d eaten an actualrat, and his eyes on hers had been so dark, watchful, glinting with a meaning that Ella had so desperately wanted to follow. And she could still see the regret in those eyes, could still almost taste it, when he’d said he was late for his father, and had to go.
Afterwards, she’d wondered if it had been on purpose, that farewell. The way he’d drawn away after she’d kissed his warm cheek, his eyes held intently elsewhere, his usually easy body gone tight and tense. All hinting that perhaps he’d meant to leave, that day, and never come back.
But the familiar, twisting pain of that memory had shifted, somehow, and Ella swallowed, and reached to find his hand in the darkness, curling her fingers over the taut fist of it. “And then?”
There was a heavy exhale of that body over her, the feel of his head ducking against her shoulder. “And then I went home,” he said, without inflection. “And found all my kin either dying, or dead. My brothers, their mates, their babes, both small and half-grown. And then, my father, with his sword yet in his hand, and his head gone.”
There was a choked noise in Ella’s throat, another heavy sigh from Natt above her. “One orc lived long enough to warn me,” he said. “This saved my life. I took my father’s sword and ring, and I ran. It took me five days and nights to escape them, and find a way back to the mountain.”
Ella’s eyes squeezed shut, her trembly hand finding the heavy ring on his fist, and covering it with her fingers. “And then what?” she made herself say. “Surely that awful Captain wasn’t pleased to see you?”
“He was not,” Natt said, “but he could not yet kill me, and betray himself, not with the whole mountain grieving this loss, and seeking vengeance. For some weeks I sought to escape his eyes, hiding in the tunnels beneath the mountain, and running into the forest when the risk became too great — but this only called more death upon my head, from all sides. And it was” — he sighed — “Grimarr, who saw my doom, and sent me away to the Bautul deep in the south, where his father and the men could not follow. The southern Bautul were not allied to the mountain then, but enemies.”
“And they — made you pay,” Ella whispered, remembering his words from before, the horrible hints behind them. “For your safety.”
“Ach,” Natt said, with a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I was young, I was Grisk, I was foolish and untouched and unguarded. They did all that they wished with me.”
The smooth, easy casualness of those words made the truth behind them all the more sickening, and Ella pressed her face into the softness beneath her, felt her hand gripping tighter at his fist. “But there are Bautul still here in the mountain, aren’t there?” she said. “Like — Olarr. And Silfast. All of them in that room. How can you —“
The tension was back in Natt’s body above hers, and she felt his fist flex beneath her fingers. “There are many who were not there, or who did naught to me,” he said. “And there were some among them who protected me also. But” — his body twitched, or perhaps shuddered — “there are indeed some upon whom I yet owe vengeance. Once I am Speaker, I shall make them shout aloud the truth of their sins, for all their kin to hear.”
Oh. So that was part of this too, then, part of why Natt needed to be Speaker, why he carried such bitterness. Because those who’d hurt him still walked free, while he still suffered. Hunted, wounded, alone, betrayed by both orcs and men.
Betrayed byher.
And even as Ella’s twisting thoughts rebelled at the idea, it seemed to embed itself deeper, wrapping itself in bitter, unassailable truth. She hadn’t known about any of this, when she’d agreed to marry Alfred, and for that, she could be forgiven — but now? Now that she knew all these horrible truths, all that Natt had gone through, she still wore Alfred’s ring? She would return to Alfred, and give him all he needed to kill Natt, and his people?
But no,no, she’d told Natt she would demand Alfred give up hunting him, and she’d meant that — but then again, that would mean very little if Alfred was still planning to use her money to wage war against the orcs en masse. And — Ella winced — she had wanted to keep seeing Natt, through it all. Keeping him around. Like a —pet. Like what those awful orcs had done to him. Wielding their power, their advantage, tousehim.
You shall go back to this man. You shall smile at him, and speak false to him. You shall take him into what ismine.
Suddenly it seemed abominably cruel, that Ella had proposed Natt do such a thing — and worse still, that Natt had agreed to it. He’d wanted vengeance, he’d said, and maybe cuckolding Alfred would be vengeance — but it would also be more betrayal. More injustice. More grief.
And where did this leave Ella, after this? She had to return to Alfred, and even if that didn’t happen, Alfred’s awful men were alreadyhere. And she still wore Alfred’s ring, she still had to marry in less than a month, and if she didn’t she would lose everything. Her wealth, her home, her beloved lands, her dreams of being a lady. Everything gone, lost, forever.
And above that, beyond all that — Ellastillcouldn’t trust Natt. He’d lied to her, about too many things. And — she drew in breath, bravery — perhaps he’d lied about that, too. Perhaps…
“You didn’t mean it, did you,” she whispered. “When you said we could still be — friends. After I married Alfred.”
There was more stillness above her, and then another slow sigh, thick and heavy against her ear. “No,” he said, very quiet. “I could not, lass. I could not bear to smell his foul scent upon you, warring against mine, shouting at me of each time, each place, he has touched you. And I” — she could hear his swallow, too loud in the quiet — “I shall never again be a pet, to be held and used at the whims of another. I shalldiefirst.”
