Page 69 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“Vrathgar?” I whispered. He hummed in response. “I should have asked, before I sang to your mother. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t worry me. I know…you wouldn’t hurt her.” His breath crossed my forehead.

“I really can’t,” I whispered, “ensorcell minds.”

“I know. I figured that out.” HIs arm tightened, just a little.

“How?” I knew it shouldn’t matter, but I wanted to know.

“Because you would have at the start, when you didn’t want to sleep with me.” That knot tightened in my gut. “I knew you couldn’t ensorcell me when I realized you’d planned to kill me. Because if you’d been able to control me with song, you wouldn’t have tried with flesh.”

I curled closer, as if I could hide from this in his shoulder, in his chest.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

I fell asleep curled up under his arm, and I woke wrapped tight against him.

AN OFFER

The garlic cloves broke under the pestle.

“Nayah, just like that.” The magic brought Grezha’s voice through, encouraging and motherly as she bustled around the low table. She was sorting the gathered leaves from our haul into piles, wild mustard greens in bunches, yarrow here, a pile of violets and vervain. Nothing I was doing for her was above the skill level of an average ten-year-old, but it felt good to be here, even when so routinely I lost the ability to understand or to speak.

I tried to memorize the sequences of sounds as she said them, the names plant by plant, but it kept feeling like my tongue couldn’t actually form them, like the sounds were always changing before they could be caught.

“So this will be for pickling?” I asked, trying to ignore the slithering wrongness of my voice.

“Vinegars,” she said, and the word had more meanings behind it than mine had in the Common. “You cannot have too many vinegars put away, going into the cold times. Vinegars and honey-pastes.” She went to check again on the brew in her largest cauldron, the one that smelled of bog myrtle and barley.

“Grezha.” Another orc appeared in the doorway, obscured by the bright light, broad shoulders and a lithe figure. “I’ve come for my grandmother’s tonic.” She turned to look at me.

I was a stranger here. Grezha worked in a position of trust, as Bogdana had, and distrust was a poison. It harmed people the same way oak leaves and water, the way imaginary medicines, could cure.

“You’re helping Grezha,” the young woman said, flat. She had amber eyes in a wide, elegant face. I had seen her once before.

“Nayah, she’s a good help.” Grezha patted my hand on the pestle.

“Only in small things,” I slipped out.

“You’ll attend births?” Her eyes were unblinking. I could not tell what she thought.

“My grasp of the language is not good enough.” She still stared, and I swallowed. “The magic for understanding doesn’t last. No one is help if they cannot listen to the mother.”

“But you’ll learn? Of course you will learn?”

What did she want?

“I am trying.”

“And once you know our tongue, you will attend to our women.”

“If they welcome me. And if Grezha allows.” I looked to Grezha, as if she would explain that I’d never push myself on anyone.

Birth was sacred. It was bloody, and deadly, and sacred. And anyone who wanted to intrude into that space needed to be culled.

Grezha brushed past me. “Here, here. You stop questioning the girl.” She handed a clay jar into the young woman’s arms. “That should do for Bilha’s agues.”

The young woman bowed to Grezha, before her eyes came back to me, expressionless. My mind screamed. What was I supposed to say?