Any other killing, she meant. And it was a sign, perhaps, of just how easy things had become between them, that Simon didn’t tense up, or even frown toward her. “No,” he said, arching his head sideways, giving her shaving-knife better access to his throat. “I shall no need to, I ken, before this battle with Ulfarr comes. I have gained nearly all I wished to fulfill amongst my kin.”
Right. That. They were now down to six short days — Maria had been counting very carefully — and she tried for a smile as she drew the knife against his jaw. “I’m glad,” she said, and she meant it. “But where do you keep getting all these injuries, then? Are you still out there —maiming, then? Or fighting?”
Simon shrugged, perhaps a little too casually. “A bit, mayhap,” he said. “There is always something, ach? And some sparring, also.”
Oh. The heaviness in Maria’s belly plunged deeper, and she held her eyes very intently on her work. On the very slight skitter of the knife against Simon’s neck, echoing the scraping shouts in her thoughts.
So she truly hadn’t gained his trust yet. Not if he still couldn’t even tell her the truth of what he was doing each day, while she was kept trapped here alone. And she was trying so hard, she was striving with everything she had to make this work, and it still wasn’t good enough? Still?
“Do you think,” she ventured, squaring her shoulders, “that I might be able to come with you, while you work today? Even for a while?”
There was an instant’s stillness before her, and then the bitter, abrupt truth of Simon standing up and lurching away from her, his back turned. And suddenly there was the ridiculous, irrational urge to weep, and good gods, that was hysteria, she wasn’t supposed tocare—
But then Maria bit her lip, hard, and somehow bit down on that awful trail of thought, too. Because she did care. However it had happened, she did care about Simon, about these orcs, about this mountain. It wasn’t hysteria. Itwasn’t.
“Is there — something I could improve?” she asked toward his back, as steadily as she could. “Some way I haven’t pleased you? I know we haven’t gone back to the Skai common-room yet, but perhaps we could, if you like? Or perhaps you don’t really like what I’ve done to your room after all, and there’s some way I could better arrange it to your liking? Or have I accidentally betrayed your confidence somehow, or underperformed at my lessons, or” — she swallowed hard — “is it something I could do better in bed?”
Simon had been strapping on another weapon, his hand catching on his belt, his shoulders square and stiff. And when he finally turned to face Maria again, he just looked tired, his mouth tight, the shadows heavy under his eyes.
“Peace, Maria,” he said, with a sigh. “I am most pleased with you, and all you have done. Ach?”
Maria blinked blankly toward him, her eyes still prickling, her mouth quavering — and in two quick strides, Simon was back before her again. Settling both his hands firmly on her shoulders, fixing her with the truth in his weary, glinting eyes.
“You please me, woman,” he said, deeper this time. “You must no think any other. You are so ripe, and warm, and eager, and sweet. You are a great gift to me.”
Oh. A trickle of heat flicked through Maria’s belly, but she couldn’t stop searching his face, couldn’t stop herself from speaking. “Then why isn’t it enough?” her wavering voice asked. “Why haven’t I yet earned your trust? Why do I still need to stay trapped here every day without you?”
She winced even as she heard it, because gods, it sounded so plaintive, so pathetic. As if she’d been here pining after Simon for weeks, as if she’d somehow changed all his deeply held preconceptions about humans in a matter of days. And as if he needed to deal with her drama right now, while he was still desperately preparing for his clan’s future, and staring down an impending fight to thedeathagainst his greatest enemy. Sixdays.
“Actually, never mind,” she said, with her best attempt at a smile. “I know you’re so busy, and you have so much to think about at the moment. You surely don’t need me grousing at you on top of everything else. So please, forget I said all this, and go have a productive day. Hopefully without needing to permanently injure anyone.”
Her smile twisted into something that felt truer at the end, and she even leaned up, and pressed a quick kiss to his freshly shaved neck. Feeling, oddly, an unexpected tension within it — and then a sudden, swift grasp of his big hand to the back of her head. Holding her there against him, her body snapped still, her breath caught in her lungs.
“Your scent, it —” he said, unusually stilted, and she could hear him swallow, his breath exhaling. “Ach.Ach. You are so — sweet, my pretty one.”
His voice sounded so strange, his hand curling slack against Maria’s neck, and she eased away a little, enough to see his eyes. Enough to study him, to wait for him to speak. To watch, and listen.
“Ach, mayhap I shall bring you, for a spell,” he continued finally, heavily. “But I ken this may vex you, ach? This may alter” — he gave a fluid wave between them — “all.”
Oh. He was worried about —upsettingher? Scaring her, maybe, with all his bone-breaking, and his fighting, and his Enforcing. And suddenly it was such a damnedrelief, rolling bright and giddy through Maria’s thoughts, because surely, after everything she’d faced here so far, seeing Simon’s work would be the easy part. As long as he was still with her. As long as he truly wanted her there.
“But if you truly want me to know you,” Maria answered, her voice smooth, assured, “you’d want me to see your work, too, right? You’d want to give me the chance to watch and listen and learn? To be a true Skai?”
Simon had again stilled before her, his gaze almost arrested on hers — and then his hand rose to her face, and caressed it. So soft, so gentle, and his mouth had twitched up too, into a slow, crooked little smile. Wry, resigned,approving.
“Then come with me, wilful woman,” he said, “and you shall learn all my truth.”
26
Simon’s truth, at least at first, proved to be far more mundane than Maria had expected. Consisting mostly of him walking through the Skai wing’s maze of twisty black corridors, and…talkingto people.
“How is your mate, Igull?” he asked one heavily scarred orc, who’d been lounging in a large, unfamiliar room with a group of other orcs. “You have sent the Ka-esh medics to the camp to see her, ach?”
The orc shook his head, his eyes wary. “No wish to send Ka-esh,” he grunted back. “Pretty orcs maystealsweet mate.”
Simon’s growl felt like it rumbled the stone all around, his hands clutched to fists. “You no give your mate care, you no deserve to keep her,” he hissed back. “You send Ka-eshtoday, or I send hungry Skai brother tomorrow.”
The orc visibly paled, and mumbled some kind of uneasy-sounding reply in black-tongue. To which Simon only scoffed, and nudged Maria away, back out into the corridor. Past where Drafli was taking his pleasure with a random orc’s mouth, blatant enough that even Simon elbowed him on the way by, before pulling Maria toward another nearby door.
