“No bad,” Joarr was saying to Simon, with a shockingly careless shrug. “Could have cut out eye, though.”
Simon nodded, wincing at the movement, wiping at his bloody nose with his visibly trembling hand. “Ach,” he said, his voice thick, as he shook the blood off his hand. “Shall better watch for this, next time.”
Next time. Maria’s hands were still clamped over her mouth, her heartbeat still thundering in her ears, and she realized that there was water streaking down her cheeks, betraying her distress, herterror. But truly, what the hell was she supposed to do with this, with watching the orc she — she cared about — be beaten, and stabbed, anddefeated?
And she was supposed to be watching, listening, trying to learn, to understand — but suddenly, nothing was making sense. Not the way Simon was clapping Joarr on the shoulder, just as he often did with Baldr, andthankinghim.
Joarr only shrugged, and then strode over toward Maria — to where Maria was cringing back, curling up, her eyes wide and terrified on his shadowy face. But he didn’t even seem to notice, and instead plucked up another mushroom, and tossed it over toward Simon.
“You still go healer,” Joarr told Simon. “Then again tomorrow?”
Simon swallowed the mushroom whole, and then nodded, hard, bracing, his eyes squeezed shut. “Ach,” he replied. “Again with Drafli also, ach? You both at once?”
Joarr nodded back, and then strode away, giving a casual wave over his shoulder. And now it was only Maria and Simon, Maria still frozen in place on her boulder, while Simon gulped in dragging breaths, and kept pooling blood on the floor beneath him.
“Come, woman,” he said finally, as he took a slow, limping step toward the staircase. “We are done.”
Maria’s body felt weighted with lead, but she somehow shoved off the boulder, landing on her badly trembling legs. Her eyes still blinking back the water prickling behind them, threatening to pour down her burning cheeks, to mingle with the sticky hot blood under her feet. Why. Why.Why?
But she still couldn’t seem to speak. Only followed in stilted silence as Simon climbed up the stairs with visible effort, bracing himself on the walls this time, his breaths shuddering through his huge, bloody frame. His pain feeling almost visceral, scraping against Maria’s belly, pounding into her madly beating heart.
“Can I,” she finally choked out, once they’d reached the glowing upper room again, “help,somehow? Is there something — anything — I can do?”
Simon shrugged, wincing, as he shuffled across the room. “I shall heal,” he said, his voice still laced with pain. “Efterar shall fix the worst of it.”
Efterar. The healing orc. And Maria was staring at Simon again, while multiple disparate memories seemed to twine together in her brain, folding into place. Simon had been doing…this, all these days? When he’d gone off to work?
“But — why?” she asked, helpless, pleading. “Why would youdothis to yourself, Simon?”
And surely he would explain, surely here she would understand — but he only shrugged again. “I must soon fight for the future of all I own, and all my clan, and mayhap all my mountain,” he said, hoarse. “You no ken this shall be easy? Or pretty, or fair?”
Wait. Simon was doing this because of —Ulfarr? But Ulfarr wasn’t supposed to be able to defeat Simon, surely he couldn’t, even Simon had said so…
Or had he?Defeat wears many faces, Simon had told her, and suddenly Maria remembered that he’d seemed… off, that night.Afraid.
And staring at his limping, bloody form, it occurred to Maria, perhaps for the first time, that for Simon, this was —real. That he was truly facing his death, with this fight. That this wasn’t some kind of distant, far-off boxing-match, fought fair and clean, that he was already sure to win. No. For him, this waseverything. The loss of everything he owned. The loss of his people’sfuture.
The future of orcs like Bjorn. Like Dufnall. His scouts, his friends, his Skai brothers’ mates. Himself. And…
“Simon,” Maria said, her voice a croak. “If Ulfarr defeats you, what happens to…me?”
And Simon… didn’t look at her. Kept limping. Kept dragging in those guttural, gasping breaths. While the fear began thudding, rising in Maria’s ribs, he’d said he would keep her safe, he’dpromised…
“I shall keep you safe,” he said thickly, his hazy eyes angling toward Maria, as though he’d heard her very thoughts. “Ishall.”
But that wasn’t the same as him saying he’d win this fight. It wasn’t the same as him saying Maria wasn’t supposed to become the victor’s spoils, in all this. Or that Ulfarr wouldn’t rightfully be able to claim her, if he won. Was it?
“But I thought,” Maria said, her voice high-pitched, “that I wasn’t really your mate. So I don’t —count, as yours. I’m just — someone youbought.”
And Simon wasn’t speaking again, only limping, bleeding, his jaw grinding in his cheek. And wait, wait,wait. He’d been trying to show his clan a new way, with this. He’d been trying to teach them how this could be done, without the hunt, or the rut. And if he succeeded…
And here, all at once, were the images of all the ways Simon had sought to do this. Parading Maria before his kin in a Skai loincloth. Keeping her safe and content. Showing her as eager to help and serve and please him. Giving her all those lessons. Teaching her his clan’s ways. Making her a Skai.
And of course, perhaps most powerful of all, taking her before his clan that day. Proving to them how much she wanted him. How it was… true.
With this, he’d told her,I have fulfilled all that is required of a Skai and his woman, but for the hunt or the rut. No other Skai shall dare touch you now.
The walls felt like they were spinning, suddenly, and Maria had to reach out and grip at one, fighting to drag in breaths.HadSimon succeeded in making her his mate, before his clan? Had he?
