Lola watches me eat with quiet satisfaction, like my survival personally pleases her. The expression still confuses me. Why does she care? What does my recovery gain her?
"When you're finished," she says, "I thought we might take a short walk. Just to the central plaza and back. You need to start moving before your muscles forget how."
Every instinct screams against leaving this room. Against exposing myself to unknown spaces and unfamiliar faces. But staying ignorant of the settlement's layout is more dangerous than risking a short exploration.
"Alright," I agree.
The canyon isharsh and beautiful in equal measure.
Lola helps me dress in clean clothes—simple leather pants and a loose tunic that doesn't press against my healing wound—before leading me out into afternoon sunlight so bright it makes my eyes water. We move slowly, her hand hovering near my elbow without actually touching, ready to catch me if I stumble.
The settlement spreads across multiple levels carved into rust-colored rock. Narrow paths wind between structures built from timber and stone, connecting different elevations through a network of stairs and ramps. Smoke rises from cooking fires. Voices drift through the air in the orcish language I still don't understand beyond scattered words.
It's alive in ways I didn't expect. Children race past us shrieking with laughter, chasing each other around corners and over low walls. An older orc sits in a doorway carving something from wood, shavings collecting at his feet. Warriors move through training exercises in an open yard, their practice weapons cracking together in rhythmic patterns.
"That's the Circle of Honor," Lola explains, gesturing toward a large plaza paved with flat stones. "Where ceremonies happen. Challenges, mating rituals, seasonal celebrations."
Mating rituals. The phrase makes my stomach tighten. Of course they have mating rituals. Every culture does, usually involving women being traded or claimed or bound without much say in their own futures.
We continue walking, passing structures that Lola identifies in calm tones. The mess hall where communal meals happen. The healing chambers where I spent my recovery. The training grounds where warriors practice. Lower pens where massive cattle-like creatures crowd together, their curved horns gleaming in sunlight.
"Those are taura," Lola says when she catches me staring. "We keep them for milk and meat. They're stubborn but hardy."
Beyond the pens, riders disappear into crimson dust trails along the canyon ridges, mounted on creatures that look vaguely horse-like but wrong in subtle ways. Extra nostrils. Too many teeth visible even when their mouths are closed.
"Equus," Lola supplies before I can ask. "Fast mounts. Mean too. Takes skill to break them for riding."
I file away every detail, mapping the settlement in my mind even as exhaustion starts pulling at my limbs. The walk is short but feels endless, each step requiring deliberate effort. By the time we make it back to the healing chambers, my legs are trembling and my side throbs with renewed intensity.
Lola helps me settle back onto the sleeping platform, her expression concerned. "Too much?"
"I'm fine."
"You're pale as bone and shaking." She tucks furs around me with practiced efficiency. "Rest now. Tomorrow we'll try again, maybe go a bit further."
Tomorrow. As if there will be countless tomorrows stretching ahead, as if I'm meant to stay here indefinitely instead of disappearing at the first opportunity.
But I don't argue. Just close my eyes and let exhaustion drag me under while Lola moves around the chamber doing whatever healers do when patients sleep.
The days blurtogether after that first walk.
Lola takes me out every afternoon, extending our routes gradually as my strength returns. We visit different parts of the settlement. She introduces me to people whose names I immediately forget, who look at me with varying degrees of curiosity and suspicion. Some ignore me entirely. Others stare like I'm an oddity worth examining.
No one threatens me directly. But I feel the weight of their attention, the calculations happening behind expressions I can't quite read.
Zurkar continues treating my wound with herbs and poultices that smell terrible but work. The infection fades completely. New tissue knits together slowly, itching as it heals.Within a week, I can move without sharp pain stabbing through my ribs.
Within two weeks, I can walk the settlement alone.
Lola seems pleased by this development, though she insists I check in with her morning and evening so she knows I haven't collapsed somewhere remote. I agree because arguing seems pointless, and because some part of me—the part I hate—appreciates that someone bothers checking.
Rakk still comes around in the afternoons.
He never announces himself, just appears in doorways or along paths like he's been there all along. Sometimes he brings supplies—fresh water, cleaned bandages, herbs Zurkar requested. Sometimes he just stands there watching me with those dark eyes that see too much, making my skin prickle with awareness I don't want to examine.
Around Lola, he's different. More relaxed. He teases her about her herb organization methods or makes dry observations about Kaelen's overprotectiveness that make her laugh. There's genuine warmth between them, the kind of easy affection that comes from years of friendship.
I hate that I notice. Hate that some traitorous part of my brain catalogs his expressions, measures the difference between the serious warrior who trains in the yard and the playful friend who makes Lola smile.
