“Here,” she said again, her voice a croak. “Should I leave now? Or maybe tomorrow, is it day, or night, I don’t even —”
And good gods, she wassobbingagain, the tears streaking freely down her face. Absurdity,hysteria, an orc didn’t want her and was sending her away and she wasn’t supposed to care, it didn’t matter, itdidn’t…
Simon’s gaze had finally dropped to the contract in her shaking hand, and the look on his pale face was almost like…revulsion. Like the contract was something poisonous, odious,alive.
His huge body lurched abruptly back, away from the contract, as though he couldn’t bear to touch it — and his eyes on Maria were wide again, stunned, unblinking.
“You wish,” he said, his voice more uncertain than she’d ever heard it, “togo?”
And in those eyes, for the briefest of instants, there might have been…fear. And Maria wasn’t at all following anymore, could scarcely stand upright at this point, and she watched her hand with the contract drop again, as though it was someone else’s, somewhere far away.
“N-no,” she began, and she gulped for more breath, for truth. “B-but you really don’t w-wantme. You only bought me to replacethem, and you just want to keep me prisoner and use my holes and despoil me and leave meb-broken—”
She couldn’t seem to finish it, her head shaking back and forth, her arms clutching over her shuddery chest. While Simon kept staring at her, his hands heavy at his sides, his head tilted, his brow creasing deep.
“Maria,” he said, hoarse. “Whospokeall this to you?”
He sounded bewildered, almost pleading, and why was it so hard to breathe, to think. “Ulfarr,” she whispered, “and the others. They didn’t mean to, I know, they only thought it was a good joke, but I —”
Her eyes were on the floor now, on Simon’s massive boots, which were streaked with mud, and perhaps blood, too. “I know I’m not really…desirable,” she continued, wretched, with a sound that might have been a laugh. “Not likethem. I know I’m only a body you bought, and I’m overwrought and hysterical and annoying to you, and we don’t evenlikeeach other. But I thought, I was starting to think, maybe you… maybe we…”
And she couldn’t even say it, gods why had she been about to, surely she hadn’t eventhoughtsuch a thing. Hadn’t once thought about sneezy pointy-eared babies, about punching his neck in a room full of orcs, about a huge powerful body holding her close and safe while she slept.My pretty one, he’d called her, what now felt like an age long past.I wish you to seek new ways with me.
“Maria,” Simon said, and suddenly there was a warm hand on her face, tilting it up, making her meet his eyes. His wide, wild eyes, reflecting the tension in his fingers on her skin, the heavy gust of his breath.
“You ken,” he said, slow, rasping, “I wish forwho?”
Maria blinked blankly toward him, her mouth opening, closing, opening. “Tristan,” she choked, “and Kesst. You were apparently evengoodfor Kesst, but withme—”
She was babbling, incoherent, her hand waving frantically toward the bed, toward what they’d just done. How he’d just taken her, vicious and brutal and foreboding with danger, with rage.
“And this —Enforcing,” she continued, somehow, waving toward the door this time. “This killing. And Iwantto understand you, Simon, Iwantto give you the benefit of the doubt, and learn your ways — but you only growl at me, and order me to know my place, as if I have no right to evenask? As if I really am” — she gulped for more air — “just a purchase to you. Just your property. Just a tool to get you a son, and make a fuckingpointto your kin, and help you play your fuckinggames.”
The words seemed to echo oddly through the too-small room, shifting through Simon’s staring eyes — and she could see his throat convulse, once, and then again. His shoulders rising and falling, his breath shuddering and deep.
“I — killed a brother today,” he said, the words quick, blank, a monotone. “I no wished for this, but his sins” — Simon’s chest hollowed — “were too grave to stand, ach? I could no leave this. No with Ulfarr so ready to forgive this, should he take my place.”
Oh. Maria’s breath felt locked in her lungs, her eyes wide on Simon’s face. On the… regret. Thegrief.
“And you couldn’t,” she heard her distant voice say, “have imprisoned this orc, instead? Or exiled him? Or” — she winced — “maimed him, like you just —”
She couldn’t even finish the sentence, her stomach churning — but the sharp shake of Simon’s head was immediate, vehement. “No,” he said, heavy. “For a Skai, to be held in chains is worse than death. And if I maim him, or send him away, there is naught to keep him from this same darkness again, ach? Most of all if I am gone?”
His voice had tilted at the end, his eyes grim on Maria’s, and she felt herself swallow over the lump in her throat. “But what,” she said, almost pleading, “were his sins?”
Simon’s eyes briefly closed, his breath exhaling harsh. “He has a son,” he said, quiet, pained. “A sweet, pretty son, ach? Bjorn, of Clan Skai. Half-grown. Who was kept alone in this camp, far from our mountain, so we would no smell —”
He didn’t finish, his lips pressing tight together, his jaw grinding in his cheek — but the comprehension had already swarmed Maria with sickening, horrifying force. Clapping her hands to her mouth, while the contract she’d been holding fell away, fluttering off somewhere else, forgotten.
“And Ulfarr isfinewith such things?!” she demanded, incredulous. “He would justforgivesuch things, if he took your place?!”
“Mayhap,” Simon said, and suddenly he looked and sounded worn, weary, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Our clan yet weakens and splinters with each passing day, and when I kill one of our own, I only draw nearer our doom, ach?”
Maria stared at Simon for a long instant, her heart lurching — and without at all meaning to, she threw herself back toward him. Squeezing her arms tight around his waist, burying her head in his chest.
“Howhorriblefor you, Simon,” she whispered. “What an awful decision for you to have to make. I’m so,sosorry.”
Simon’s body felt rock-hard against her, his heartbeat thundering in her ear — but then she could feel the tension slowly releasing, his bulk sagging into her touch. And then his arms slowly, carefully circled around her too, his head resting against the top of hers, his heavy breaths rustling her hair.
