Joarr’s lips quirked, and suddenly the mirth was dancing in his eyes, too. “‘Is it raining?’” he asked, in so much the voice of that hunter from the forest that Gwyn gasped another too-loud peal of laughter, her head shaking, her hands somehow skittering to find his shoulders. His warm, powerful shoulders, so close, and his face was even closer, and if he were to just lean forward, he would…
“Look, I still don’t forgive you, asshole,” Gwyn said abruptly, but there was very little heat in her voice, and her hands were still spreading wide on his skin. “You were supposed to give mefun, remember? And instead, I’ve been dragged into your ridiculous clan drama, and all butsacrificedto some ridiculous exhibitionist deity, and there isn’t a single garden in sight. And now here I am, fruitlessly arguing with the most enraging orc in existence, all while feeling exhausted enough to collapse, and being trapped under Orc Mountain, and sitting in a gods-damnedlatrine.”
Joarr’s eyes on hers were still warm, and he was even still smiling, flashing her his sharp white teeth. “Ach, I have failed you in this, woman,” he murmured. “Should you… mayhap… sleep here this night, and then grant me one more day? And in this, we shall do all that you wish, and frolic in my garden? And only seek this fun I swore to grant you?”
And surely, it was a terrible plan. It was surely only Joarr wanting more from her, dragging this out, getting his own damned way,again. One more day, in Orc Mountain, after all Gwyn had already endured here? After all he’d already done?
But gods, his eyes. The warmth of his skin under her hands. The way he was smiling at her, tentative, rueful, uncertain.Hopeful.
“This shall be good fun,” he murmured. “Goodrain. Ach?”
And curse Gwyn’s foolish judgement, her instincts, her sheer stupidity — because she was smiling back.Smiling, slow, approving, true.
“One more day, orc,” she whispered. “And it had better bespectacular.”
17
Joarr guided Gwyn back though Orc Mountain with silent steps, one hand warm against her back, the other still carrying his lamp.
It somehow felt easier to look around this time, to drink up the maze of twisty, clever corridors. And when they passed multiple unfamiliar new orcs, all of them eyeing Gwyn with blatant curiosity, she managed to meet their eyes, and even offer a careful little smile.
Joarr nodded to the new orcs as they passed, but didn’t bother to hesitate or make introductions. Just kept walking, tall and silent beside her, until they’d reached what seemed like a dead end — but when he heaved his shoulder against it, it proved to be another exit, tilting open with a grating crunch. Flooding Gwyn with the sweet scent of fresh, cool air, and the faint sight of stars, glimmering in the black sky beyond.
“Oh,gods,” she gasped, lurching out into the open, dragging in long breaths of the beautiful clean air. While behind her, Joarr heaved the door shut again, and then doused his lamp, plunging them into deep, dark starlight.
“Come,” he said, as his hand clasped hers, guiding her further into the darkness. “We shall sleep in my garden.”
His garden,finally. However, Gwyn couldn’t see a damned thing, and she frowned up toward where she could scarcely make out his shadow beside her. “You’re not going to show it to me first?”
“No in the night,” he said, as he kept walking, leading her along what felt like a stone path beneath her feet. “You see this best in sun, ach? Until this, yourest. Youheal.”
Gwyn was apparently even more exhausted than she’d thought, because she couldn’t seem to muster even a tepid argument. And after a few more steps, Joarr halted before her, and turned to clasp both hands to her waist. Fully ignoring her squeak of protest as he plucked her up, and set her upon something soft and…swinging?
“What’s this?” she demanded, as she felt Joarr’s warm body settle close within it, stretching out long. “And why is itmoving?”
“It is my bed,” Joarr’s low voice replied, as his hand circled her waist, and tugged her down beside him. “It is hung between the trees, and thus rocks with the wind, ach?”
Oh. His bed was ahammock. And it did feel surprisingly inviting, his body smooth and warm, and Gwyn felt herself sliding down into the crook of his arm, tentatively resting her head against his shoulder. Feeling the slow, steady sway of the hammock as she drew in more fresh air, now blended with Joarr’s already-familiar scent, so close, so safe…
And instead of sleep eluding or taunting her, as it so often did, it somehow eased over her in gentle waves, twining into the night. Into the light nudges of wind, the warmth of the solid orc beneath her. The rhythmic rise and fall of his breath, the spread of strong fingers against her back…
And when Gwyn’s eyes blinked open again, there was light. Golden and dappled and stunning, peeking over that stone wall, pouring its warmth within.
She startled and sat up, making the hammock rock and judder beneath her, and she grasped at it for balance, holding herself upright. She seemed to be alone, with no hint of Joarr to be seen — but before her brain could properly belabour that point, she felt her breath catch, her eyes staring wide at the new world all around her.
It was indeed a garden. One tucked up close against what must have been Orc Mountain’s south side, its solid stone soaring sheer and deadly above, painted with long shadows from the morning sun. While the rest of the garden was closed in with massive stone walls, rising several fathoms high, and boasting a thick cover of ivy.
And within the walls, there waschaos. Beautiful, bursting green chaos, trees and shrubs and herbs and grasses and flowers all rioting together, flooding all available space with their bounty. Almost looking as though they’d been hurled there by the gods, and then entirely forgotten, and left to run rampant under the sky.
But the more Gwyn stared, her breath locked in her lungs, the more the chaos began to resolve into some kind of sense. Into trees mostly clustered along the north side, ensuring their shade didn’t cover the entire garden. Into herbs and flowers in cheerful little clearings, where the sun would be brightest. Into — she squinted downwards — what looked like a maze of narrow, stone-paved paths, meandering haphazardly through the green, in a delightfully odd echo of the twisting corridors within the nearby mountain.
And while Gwyn couldn’t make out all the plants around her, she could certainly make out some. The hammock’s thick rope ends were both tied to tall, sprawling apple trees, and the common ivy covering the walls was much prized for its anti-inflammatory properties. That cluster of green was most definitely more sage, the flowers were poppy and mugwort and feverfew, those bushes blackthorn and cranberry, those shrubs holly and silverthorn. And that — Gwyn choked an audible gasp — was surely a rare bloodroot, a prize that she’d long sought and failed to acquire.
The urge to explore felt all-consuming, and she finally turned her attention to the swinging hammock beneath her. It was made out of heavy brown leather, and it was slung high between the trees, perhaps on a level with Gwyn’s chest. There was no obvious way down, and she glanced uncertainly around, eyeing the apple trees’ twisty trunks —
When suddenly, there was Joarr. Dropping down from one of the apple trees with astonishing ease, and landing in a fluid, silent crouch below.
“Here,” he said, as he rose tall again, and tossed something toward her. And when Gwyn reflexively reached to catch it, she found herself holding not an apple, but rather a ripe, blush-brown plum.
