She considered. “No, why would I do that? I would not alert them. I hate them.”
“They… won’t think.”
Perhaps they would not. But she propelled him backwards and leaned him against the wall and went over to the bodies.
They were mostly men, but there were women, too, women who had fought too strenuously, who’d had weapons, who’d stabbed and were subdued. She pulled a long black shawl off one of the women and then a black cloak off a man.
“Around your head,” she said to Celedin. She gestured to the cloak. “And this, you wrap it around your legs, like skirts. You lean against me, and I shall say you are an old woman I must help up the stairs.”
He curled his lip.
“Either pretend to be a woman or I leave you to fend for yourself!” she said. Even in this, he was horrible. She should have run, she should have left him here. By the dawn, she should have covered his mouth and smothered him herself.
He reached out a hand, beckoning.
Together, they wound him up in the cloak and the shawl, and he was entirely disguised. He leaned into her, and she clutched him and they hobbled down the hallway together.
At the end of the hall, she stepped outside and the orc on the door looked her over. “You went in alone,” he said, his voice accusatory.
“She is old, a grandmother,” she said, wondering at herself. Should she simply give Celedin up to the orcs? What good came of keeping him alive, of saving him? She could tear off the shawl, expose him right now. This orc had a revolver, and he could shoot Celedin down, shoot him dead.
But no, she couldn’t have his blood on her hands. She hated him, yes, but it was one thing to hate a man, and it was another to bring about his death.
“She must lie down,” she continued. “She is quite overcome. Your commander says we women have freedom inside the walls, but that we cannot venture outside.”
“Nice of the commander to tell you that and not us,” said the orc. “How did he know you? Who are you to him?”
She met that orc’s gaze. He was not one of the orcs whohad witnessed anything between her and Dathor. “You gossip worse than women, I see.” She tucked that away, that anything she said would be spread amongst them quite quickly.
The orc sneered at her.
“Apologies,” she said. “I must see to this grandmother. May we go?”
The orc waved them off.
Together, she and Celedin labored up the stairs. He wheezed loudly. There was more blood. He was bleeding all over her.
Eventually, they came to the room where Dathor had once slept. They pushed the door open together, and she was struck by how very small it was. It was not a bedchamber. It was just some little cranny of the keep, too small for a person. The bed, of course, would not be long enough for Celedin to stretch out. It had only been a child-sized bed.
But Celedin collapsed on the bed, knees bent, on his side, and moaned out an oath to the shadows, giving thanks for having made it here. His eyes closed, and he did not answer when she spoke his name again.
He was breathing. She could hear his noisy breath.
She thought he might be asleep.
She did not know what to do.
She covered him with a blanket that was folded on the floor below the bed, just a small scrap of fabric. It did not entirely cover him. She looked up at the window overhead, which let in light.
She backed out of the room and shut the door.
Then she went back to her chambers to change her clothes again, because he had bled all over her.
SHE WASN’T SUREif she should tell someone about Celedin.
The truth was that, of the people at the Peak, she was closest to a maid. Though she was about to be a stewardess, she did not have her own maid, but instead shared this woman with both her sister and with the kitchen as well. Her name was Hafindel, and Aerhril had not even seen the woman since before the wedding that morning.
But Hafindel was the only person she would wish to speak to about this.
