Page 11 of Orc’s Gallows

My body doesn’t seem to care about appropriateness. It notices the breadth of his shoulders, the controlled power in his movements, the way he holds himself with absolute certainty of his own strength. It responds to threat the way prey responds to predator—heart racing, skin flushing, every nerve ending painfully aware.

“How long have you been feeding on my executions?”

The question cuts through my inappropriate observations. I force my attention back to his face, away from the muscles shifting beneath his armor, away from the scars lacing his forearms, each one a history I don’t have the right to ask about.

“Long enough to know you enjoy them.”

The words slip out before I can stop them—defense mechanism, the sarcasm that’s kept me alive when nothing else could. Provoke them. Make them angry. Angry people make mistakes, and mistakes create opportunities.

The Gallows Warden doesn’t get angry.

He watches me, those amber irises never wavering, waiting for me to continue with the patience of a man who has conducted a thousand interrogations. Who knows exactly how to wait someone out.

“The capable ones, anyway.” I can’t seem to stop talking. The silence is worse than questions. “You get a little thrill when the neck snaps clean, don’t you? Pride in a job well done. I’ve watched you enough times to notice.”

Still nothing. Not a flicker of reaction, not a twitch of muscle. His face might as well be carved from the same stone as these walls.

“You need death to survive.”

Not a question. A statement. He already knows—saw enough in the execution square to understand what I am, what I require. The interrogation isn’t about gathering information. It’s about understanding.

“Yes.” No point lying. He’d know, and the lie would give him power over me. Better to own the truth, ugly as it is. “Without ending magic, I weaken. Wither. Die within weeks.” I manage a smile that tastes of ash and self-loathing. “Ironic, isn’t it? I need your hangings to stay alive. You need my kind dead to keep your position. We’re made for each other, Warden.”

His expression shifts. A flicker—there and gone before I can identify it. But I saw it. For a moment, his composure slipped.

He moves closer.

Close enough that I can smell him—sweat and leather and an undertone that makes my breath turn shallow despite every rational thought screaming warnings. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, the chains pulling taut as my body shifts.

“You knew what exposing yourself would cost.”

“Obviously.” I can’t seem to stop talking. “Do you have a reason for everything you do, Warden? Every decision perfectly calculated, every action weighed against consequences? Because I don’t. Sometimes I do things. Stupid things. Things that get me chained in execution halls waiting for dawn.”

“Why?”

The word is barely a breath. He’s so close now that I can sense the heat radiating from his skin, can see the individual scars crossing his forearms, can count the faint lines etched around those predator’s eyes. This isn’t interrogation technique. This is a search for understanding.

A search that makes my breath catch.

“Because you were dying.” The admission scrapes out of me, raw and honest and utterly damning. “Because that thing was going to kill you, and then it was going to kill everyone else, and I was the only one who could stop it. Because⁠—”

I cut myself off. The rest of that sentence lives in territory I’m not willing to explore. Not here. Not with him. Not when my body responds to his proximity with something that has nothing to do with fear.

“Because what?”

“Does it matter?” I force steel into my voice. “You’re going to hang me either way. Tomorrow at dawn, if I had to guess. The city needs to see that even people who save the Warden aren’t above justice.”

“Yes.”

He says it without emotion. Without hesitation. The flat acknowledgment of a man who has spent his career executing people and has no intention of stopping now.

Hate him. Feel rage, betrayal, anything other than this awareness of his body inches from mine.

Instead, respect registers. He’s not pretending. Not offering false comfort or empty promises. The truth, ugly and absolute.

“Then do it.” I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. “Do what you do best, Warden. Pull the lever, drop the floor, let the rope do its work.”

He doesn’t step back.