“No, Simon,” Maria said, and though her voice wavered, she was saying it, she was. “You didn’t tell me how much danger I’m now in, thanks to yourjob. You didn’t tell me how much danger oursonwill be in. You didn’t tell me you spend your days being drugged and beaten to apulp. You didn’t even tell me I waspregnantwith yourchild!”
Simon’s mouth had gone very tight, his jaw grinding in his cheek — but he didn’t speak, didn’t even try to explain or deny any of this, so Maria stepped closer, her teeth gritted, her hands clenched. “I deserved to know,” she hissed at him. “I have tried my very best to honour you, and keep my word to you, and learn and respect your clan’s ways. And in return, this is how you treat me? You lie to me about my own safety? My own body? My ownson?”
Simon’s eyes were glittering on hers, his lip curling, his arms flexing against his chest. “I nolie,” he said flatly. “I only no yet speak of this. I never say I tell you all I think!”
But he was doing it again, bending the truth to suit him again, and Maria shook her head, took a sharp step closer. “More bullshit, Simon,” she snarled. “That’s called hiding the truth. That’s called playing a fuckinggame!”
The fury flashed across Simon’s glinting eyes, the anger kindling through the room, and he stepped closer too, towering over Maria, a forbidding wall of strength and disapproval andthreat. “Ach, and you hold no fault in this, woman?” he snapped at her. “You no hide truth? You play no game withme?”
There was something new in his voice, something that caught oddly in Maria’s belly, but she kept her glare steady on his, her body straight and stiff. “Of course not,” she retorted. “I came here and told you what I wanted, and youagreedto it! And here I am” — she gave a frantic, forceful wave toward her waist — “holding up my end of the bargain, and giving youexactlywhat you wanted!”
The darkness seemed to flare deeper in Simon’s eyes, and suddenly helaughed, cold and harsh and mocking. “Ach, and you ken I should havechosenthis?” he sneered at her. “You ken I wish to father son thus? Upon woman whoweepwhen she learn of his life? Woman who never stoplyingto me?!”
What?What? It was like the world had juddered, pitching sharp and sideways, and Maria felt herself flinching backwards, her eyes snapping wide. Had he just said — he’d just said — wait —
“You — you,” she began, and then shook her head, hard, as though to thrust out his words — but they were still there, burrowing deep and deadly and devastating.You ken I should have chosen this. You ken I wish to father son thus.
Simon hadn’t —wantedthis? Her, or his — his son?
Maria’s body was abruptly shivering, a cold chill racing down her back. And her arms were skittering to her waist, circling tight against it, and she couldn’t breathe, why couldn’t she breathe…
“Simon,” said a low voice, urgent, reproachful — and when Maria’s flickering, hazy gaze searched for it, it was Baldr. Still standing there, his face very pale, his eyes intent and surprisingly angry on Simon’s face.
“No, brother,” Simon’s flat voice hissed. “She wish no game, she stop playing game with me. Ach, woman?”
Maria’s blurry eyes had whipped back to Simon again, and the panic was suddenly rising, rattling, raging. But the words didn’t seem to register, to ring true.She wish no game, she stop playing…
“Y-you didn’t w-want me?” was all her mouth would seem to say, her arms clutching tighter at her waist. “T-truly, Simon?”
Simon’s eyes briefly closed, his hand rubbing against his face — and it was like something was flashing behind Maria’s eyes, bright and dizzying and disastrous. All those times he’d asked if she’d truly wanted it, all those times he’d touched her, taken her,cleansedher. Gods, just this morning — had it just been this morning? — when he’d said,You please me, you are a great gift to me…
“Simon,” Baldr hissed again, sharper this time, but Simon still didn’t speak, didn’t open his eyes. And Maria’s panic was wailing now, rioting against her ribs, because what was happening, what had she done. Good gods, was Simon truly saying she’d somehow forced him, she hadn’t stopped lying to him, she stopplaying?! And what the hell could he possibly mean, what kind of power could she possibly have over him, he was perhaps the deadliest orc in therealm, and she was…
Oh. Ohhhhhh.
And it was as though a door had slammed, like a punch had landed, like a bell had rung deep inside Maria’s skull.
He was right. She’d lied. She’d played a game. And now, once again, she was defeated. Worse than defeated. Destroyed.
“Oh,” she whispered, very quiet. “Yes. It’s true. I am Anita-Maria Bassala, the second Duchess of Warmisham.”
28
Maria’s words fell into empty, abject silence. Into the horrible, awful truth of two orcs staring blankly toward her, witnessing her utter devastation.
And in this desolate moment, somehow, Maria was still done with hiding. With lying. With… games. With whatever the hell kind of game she’d been playing, without even realizing it.
She’d deceived them. She had to make it stop. Make it — truth.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she said to the floor, her voice a whisper. “I didn’t think you would accept my offer if you knew. I was desperate, you see, I’d just been impoverished by my husband, and I was beginning to fear” — she swallowed hard, she could say this, face this — “for my health, and perhaps my life.”
Her voice was beginning to fray, to scatter, but she gulped in air, wrung her hands together. “I wasn’t — thinking of you,” she said, “or how this might affect you. I had very strong ideas of what orcs were, at the time, and I” — she swallowed again, squeezed her eyes shut — “I know better now. I’m sorry.”
There was only more silence before her, and Maria desperately fought to raise her eyes, to find Simon’s face. His blank, entirely unreadable face, his eyes black hollows within it.
You ken I should have chosen this, he’d said.Woman who never stop lying to me.
“And I truly regret,” she gulped, “if by my falsehood I somehow” — she grimaced, say it,sayit — “if I took your choice away from you. Or if I misread signals I ought to have caught. I would never,everhave wanted to — to —”
