During the days, the stronghold slowly opened up to me. Grakka’s Orcish lessons continued, but they were different now. Several other Orc females, introduced by Grakka, began to join us. They brought weaving, or mending, or some other task, and they would sit by the fire with us. They would speak slowly, patiently, helping me form the clumsy, guttural words. They would ask me questions about human customs, their curiosity genuine. They thanked me, each in their own way, for what I had done at the spring. They started to teach me their own history, their songs of loss and resilience.
I was learning about them. And they were learning about me. I was no longer an alien. I was becoming… a part of the tapestry of their lives. And it felt good. Terrifyingly, seductively good. It felt like coming home to a place I’d never been.
When Zogga, the Healer, finally declared my leg fully mended, a strange sort of panic seized me. The excuse of my injury was gone. The chaste, comfortable routine I had fallen into with Korvak would have to end. The unspoken question of our future now stood between us, a cliff edge we had been walking toward this whole time.
He must have felt it, too. That afternoon, he asked me to walk with him. We left the stronghold, climbing a winding path to a high ledge that overlooked the entire valley, the sprawling Orcish town a collection of toys below us. To the south, beyond the jagged peaks, lay the hazy, scarred lands of the human kingdoms. My old world.
We stood in silence for a long time, the wind whipping my red hair around my face. Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet, serious.
“You are healed, Kael.”
“I am,” I said, my voice tight.
He turned to face me, and the look in his eyes was one I had never seen before. The General was gone. The awkward suitor was gone. This was just Korvak,and his expression was filled with a deep, aching vulnerability.
“I made a Decree,” he said. “I claimed you before my people and yours. But that was a claim made in the heat of victory, on a woman I did not know. I know you now.” He took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into icy water. “And so I give you a choice. One that is real. One that is yours alone to make.”
He gestured south, toward the distant human lands. “The snows have not yet closed the high passes. I will escort you myself to Bard’s Crossing. It is a neutral town, an armpit of a place, but it is free. I will give you a new name, a horse, and enough gold to start a new life and never have to look back. No one will ever know who you were or where you came from. You can have the freedom you fought so hard for.”
Freedom. The word hit me like a physical blow. It was the thing I had dreamed of, bled for, lied for, for five long years. A life where I didn't have to bind my chest, or lower my voice, or answer to any man. A life that was completely and utterly my own. It was everything I had ever wanted. He was offering it to me on a silver platter.
“That is the first choice,” he said, his voice strained. He turned his gaze back to the stronghold nestled in the valley below. “The second… is that you stay.” He finally met my eyes, and the raw, unshielded longing I saw there stole the breath from my lungs. “You stay. Not as my captive. Not as a prize of war. But as my mate. Truly. Willingly. You would be bound to me, to my clan. You would be my wife.”
He swallowed hard. “I will not force you, Kael. The choice must be yours. A life of freedom, alone. Or a life here… with me.”
I looked south, toward the promise of my oldest dream. I pictured it. A small room in a tavern in some forgettable town. A new name, a new lie. A life spent looking over my shoulder, forever hiding from my past, from both humans and Orcs who might recognize me. It would be safe. It would be my own. And it would be so, so lonely. The cold that washed over me at the thought was more profound than any mountain winter.
My entire life, “safe” and “alone” had been the same thing. To be alone was the only way to be safe from the Valeriuses and Rorics of the world, from the uncles who would sell you like cattle.
Then I looked at Korvak.
The freedom he was offering was the freedom to be alone. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be here. I wanted the sound of his laughter echoing in the longhouse.
I wantedhim.
The realization was as terrifying and as undeniable as a mountain falling into the sea. I had run from one cage my whole life, only to find that the freedom I was looking for wasn't a place. It was a person.
I turned to him, and the choice was not a choice at all. It was the only answer my heart knew how to give.
“I’ll stay,” I said, the words a quiet promise in the wind.
His massive frame went rigid with shock. He stared at me, his dark eyes wide, searching my face for the truth of my words.
And for the first time, I was the one who closed the distance between us. I reached out and laid my hand on his arm. His muscles were like steel beneath his leather tunic, but I felt a fine tremor run through him at my touch.
“I will stay,” I repeated, my voice stronger now. “With you.”
A look of such profound, unguarded relief and joy washed over his face that it was like watching the sun break through the clouds after a long, hard winter. He didn't speak. He just covered my hand with his own.
Chapter 14
Korvak
When she said the words—“I will stay. With you.”—the world did not just shift on its axis. It shattered and reformed around me in an instant. For a full ten seconds, I did not breathe. I could not. Her quiet declaration was a cannonball to the chest, blasting through every wall of duty, strategy, and self-preservation I had ever built. It left me exposed, breathless, and utterly undone.
I had been prepared for her to choose freedom. In my heart, in the logical, tactical part of my brain, I had expected it. I had steeled myself for the long, silent ride to Bard’s Crossing, for the moment I would have to watch her walk away and disappear from my life forever. I had told myself it was the honorable thing, the right thing. It would have been an agony beyond any wound I had ever taken, but I was prepared to endure it for her.
I was not prepared for her to chooseme.
