She melted into him.
He kissed her. “Do not let anyone else touch you, please, Aerhril? Wait for me. Wait until I find some way to win you?”
“To earn me,” she said, touching his face.
He furrowed his brow.
“Something Flaihir said,” she breathed. “She understands men.”
“When do you earn me?” he said, searching her gaze. “Hmm? When does that happen?”
17
NOW, THE ORCarmy was leaving.
Dathor was standing up on the turret of Foxglove Peak, watching them leave and march towards the south, leaving him here.
How often had he fantasized of being the steward of this place himself? How often had he dreamed of being a man who could order others around, the sort who had to have his bidding done? Here he was, everything he’d ever wanted right in his lap, and he was second-guessing everything.
Why had he done all this?
Was it only to come home?
He did care about the orc cause, that was the truth of it. How could he not, when he had been treated the way he’d been treated for his entire life?
But when it came down to it, he could not care about it in the way the others did.
Was it because he was half elf?
Not because he sympathized with the elves, but simply because he was outside everything. He was not accepted anywhere, which meant he was not on the orcs’ side and that he was also not on the elves’s side.
So, he could see it differently, and he was wondering what exactly he’d had a hand in wreaking on the entire country?
It would have happened without me,he told himself, and thiswas likely true. He had assisted, but he had not caused it all to come about.
Even so, at one point, he’d had the ear of the High Chieftain, and he hadn’t fought to keep it.
Because of her.
The orcs could not be allowed to simply destroy all of Lothnehil, however, and he did not know how to stop that.
The problem, truly, was High King Findas, notallof the elves.
That was when it came to him.
An alliance.
With the fair elves who already hated Findas, and he knew there were a number of them. All the academics. All the tradesman. Anyone who cared about progress, in other words. Those people did not want Findas dragging them back kicking and screaming into some dark age of yesteryear.
And he knew just how to bring an alliance like that about, too, from his dealings with Aerhril.
The Valaedor had an inherent sense of superiority, but they also felt guilty about it. One of the ways to play upon this was to convince them that they could use their superiority for the good of everyone. If the orcs came to them, asking for help, playing upon their nobility, saying that ending Findas would be good for the entire country, they could be convinced.
If they positioned the nae Oir as the civilized and intelligent side, moving against the idiocy of Findas and the silvans, the backward and uneducated silvans, well, it would go through easily.
The orcs did not need to capture the south, they needed to get the south on their side. The fair elves would take the capitalforthem.
Then, on the other side of the war, the fair elves would be convinced to make all manner of laws to protect the orcs, as long as it was predicated on their progressive tendencies, their superior rationality, their noble natures.
