“Well…” He thought about it. “Let’s see. Perhaps you go in alone, and you have run all the way from the Peak to get away from me?”
“But there’s no way I could get out. There are orcs on all the doors.”
“He doesn’t know that,” said Dathor. “Let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll capture him. Or perhaps Igbar will help.”
30
AERHRIL ALWAYS THOUGHTthat one of the reasons why Elrion never told anyone about her indiscretions with Dathor was that it made him look bad. For a woman to prefer an orc to an elf, it was quite an insult. He had kept her secret to himself, and she had been grateful.
She had rarely seen him over the ensuing years, since the dissolution of their engagement, but whenever they had interacted, they had never mentioned it. So, she did not even quite know how to bring it all up, and she wasn’t running as fast as she could because she was trying to think of how to do that.
Dathor had let her off the horse further back. He told her he would give her twenty minutes and then he was starting after her.
She had protested, because twenty minutes was not nearly enough time to get Elrion to feel for her again. By the golden fingers of dawn, she might sit there waiting for him to arrive in the sitting room for twenty minutes.
But as luck would have it, Elrion was right in the hallway as she was let in by a servant. She brushed her hair out of her face and panted loudly as if she’d truly run all the way from the Peak.
“You have to hide me,” she said, going to Elrion. “He’ll be coming after me, I’m certain.”
Elrion backed away, unwilling to touch her, but he wasall solicitude. “Come into the sitting room, my lady. I will send for some tea. I’ll not call for your sister. Something tells me this is not for her ears.”
“It is not,” she said. “I am sorry to come to you, to bring his rancor down on you, Elrion. Oh, I did not know where else to go.”
He let her into the sitting room, and she was still trying to get her story straight.
“It’s Dathor, I assume?” said Elrion. “I have heard about what occurred on your wedding day. So, I suppose I can gather what has befallen you.”
She rounded on him. “He hates me.” She swallowed. “He still… he wants me, but it is a cruel want, Elrion. It is borne of a desire to wish to punish me.” This was true enough to a degree, anyway, so maybe he would believe it. “I think he always hated me in a way. I think he was drawn to me because he hated that I was higher than him, and his desire was always twisted up in it. But after my actions got Nathre and his unborn babe killed? He wishes only to hurt me.”
Elrion sat down heavily in a chair. “I had not realized that Nathre… Igbar did not say.” His face fell.
Oh, by the yellow hair of the dawn, now she was making Elrionalsohate her. She thrust both of her hands into her hair. “You, of course, must hate me as well. Why would I come here? Why would I have thought otherwise?” She started for the door. “I will leave you, sir. I cannot ask you to do anything for me at all.”
He didn’t stop her.
She got the door open and she got out into the hallway.
Well, this was not going to work, and she was very stupid, and—
Dathor was there, pushing past the servants, impossibly huge, his wide chest coming through the hallway, his black hair streaming back, the smile on his face cruel. He reached her, took her by the shoulder, and she looked at him and tried to communicate that it was not going well, and he pulled her against him. His voice was a harsh whisper at her ear. “I am going to push you and I need you to throwyourself as if I have pushed very hard.”
She barely nodded.
Dathor shoved her, not hard, but she acted as if he had.
She fell theatrically through the open door into the sitting room, falling onto the floor and letting out a cry as if he’d hurt her.
Dathor came into the room and slammed the door behind himself. “Of course she came to you, Elrion. After everything she’s done, she fancies you’ll rescue her. But I told her no one would. I told her she’s worthless and ruined, and likely carrying a bastard half-orc in her belly, and there is no one who will care what I do to her. That I am free to amuse myself with punishing her for as long as I like. I doubt you’ll contradict me.” He sneered down at her.
She swallowed, looking up at him. He was very good at this. If she had not known this was a ruse, she would have believed him. She whimpered. “Please,” she said. “Please, let me go, Dathor.”
“Let you go?” said Dathor, laughing. “Elrion isn’t going to shelter you.” He lifted his gaze to the other man’s. “Are you? You hate her worse than I do. She humiliated you, didn’t she? And you loved Nathre more than I did.”
Elrion was very quiet.
She stole a glance at him.
Elrion was sitting on the other side of the room, plastered into his chair, his lips bloodless. He shook his head, back and forth, over and over. He said nothing.
