“I took you back because I promised my sister,” the steward would snap. “You can’t even be bothered to thank me for the kindness of feeding you!”
The steward told Dathor he had to work in the barn, and she remembered watching him with his shirt off, lifting bales of hay, and his back was this criss-cross of wounds, and he was lifting things and his muscles were moving against those scabbed-over wounds, and she felt some strange stirring within her.
Pity and desire mingled in a way that felt practically intoxicating.
He’d catch her watching him sometimes. He’d look away to his work and look back to see her there, still watching him. They’d do that, sometimes, for a long time.
3
NOW, IN THEnorth tower, Aerhril was thrown down on the cold stone floor of an empty room. There was nothing in here, just a circular room with wide open windows that overlooked the countryside.
The orcs who had been holding her arms had been talking over her on the way up here, but in their own orc language, which was all guttural sounds. She didn’t understand any of it.
She was cold. The windows up here didn’t have glass in them. Her dress was in tatters, and much of her skin was bare, and she hugged herself and backed into a wall and and then—
Her gaze got snagged on a sight outside of the window.
It was rows and rows of tents being set up in a nearby field. She gasped and went to the window, clutching it and leaning forward.
The orc army.
So many of them.
This was a real invasion, then.
The orcs behind her continued to talk to each other, but she didn’t turn around until she heardhisvoice.
He did not speak the orc language, so she understood him.
“I can hear you, you know,” he said. “And I am your commander, so whatever irregularities you’re observing,you will still follow my orders.”
“Sir,” said one of the orcs, “you know this place.”
“Yes,” he said. “I grew up here.”
“You concealed this from—”
“The high commander was aware,” he cut in. “Back downstairs now. Help the rest of the brigade with the bodies.”
She watched as the other orcs filtered around him, through the door, leaving him there alone to stare at her.
“Close the door,” he said to the retreating orcs.
The door banged closed, leaving them alone.
She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to break down in tears, to throw herself into his arms, to ask him how he could do this to her?
But she still remembered their last interaction, and how very, very angry he’d been with her.
He was still angry, obviously.
He stepped into the room. “They are all talking about the way I was with you, with Celedin, and they have never much liked the idea of being led by a half-elf.”
Celedin was dead.
She remembered that with an awful jolt.
Yes, she could see that Dathor’s hands were bloody. His uniform was probably spattered with blood, too, but the material was too dark for it to show. It was dark blue with thin gold piping stitched around the collar and the sleeves.
