28
XYLON
His words, his promise to face this together, have settled a calm in Dina’s heart, but they have ignited a cold, calculating fire in mine. Grak’s challenge is not just an insult; it is a declaration of war for the soul of our clan, and I will not lose.
An hour later, I meet with my father in his private chambers. A great fire roars in the hearth, but the mood is grim. A map of our territories is spread on the heavy oak table between us, but we are not discussing matters of borders. We are discussing the fractures within.
“Grak has the support of the Stonehide and the Black Tusk families,” my father says, his deep voice a low rumble. He taps a finger on the map, not on a location, but on an idea. “They are traditionalists. They see your ordeal not as a trial you have overcome, but as a stain upon our lineage. They see your bond with the human as proof of this corruption.”
“They see what Grak tells them to see,” I counter, my voice tight. “He is a brutish, ambitious fool.”
“He is a brutish fool who is using the law like a club,” my father corrects, his dark eyes meeting mine. “He knows he cannot beat you in a duel, son. He would not be so foolish. Thisis not a challenge of strength. It is a challenge of spirit. He wants to prove you are still the beast, to provoke you into a rage in front of the entire clan and show them you are unfit to lead.”
His words strike me to the heart, because they are the truth. My first, deepest instinct is to find Grak in the training yard and break him. To answer his words with an axe and his challenge with blood. And that is precisely the trap he has set for me.
I cannot win this with brute force. I cannot win this as a warrior. I must win it as a chieftain.
Later, I seek out the clan shaman, Zora. Her dwelling is a yurt on the highest ledge of the stronghold, the air inside thick with the smoke of burning herbs and the weight of centuries. She is ancient, her olive skin a roadmap of wrinkles, her eyes two chips of obsidian that seem to see straight through my flesh to the scars on my soul.
She listens in silence as I explain the challenge, her eyes closed, her gnarled fingers tracing the patterns on a wolf’s skull.
When I am finished, she does not offer political advice. She offers a riddle. “A pot that is cracked is not thrown away,” she rasps, her voice like stones grinding together. “It is filled with gold, and the cracks become the most beautiful part of it. Your scars are not your weakness, son of Borin. They are your history. The question the council asks is not if you are broken, but what you have filled the cracks with.”
Her words follow me out of the yurt and into the cold mountain air.What have I filled the cracks with?
I spend the rest of the day in a state of quiet reflection, my mind a battlefield of strategy and doubt. In the evening, I find Dina. She is not in the great hall, but in the kitchens, quietly helping an old Orc woman scrub roasting pans, trying to make herself useful, trying to make herself small. Her quiet strength, her refusal to be broken by a lifetime of cruelty, is a thing of profound beauty.
I do not speak to her of the council, of Grak, of strategy. I simply sit on a nearby bench and watch her. I watch the way her hands, so small and delicate, work with a tireless resolve. I watch the quiet dignity in her posture. Grak calls her a “human pet,” a weakness. The traditionalists see her as a stain.
They are all blind.
They see a human. I see the heart of a warrior. They see fragility. I see a resilience that could shame any Orc. They see a weakness that has tainted me. I see the light that guided me out of the endless, roaring darkness. Her compassion isn’t a weakness. It is a strength this clan has forgotten, a strength that values healing over breaking, endurance over aggression.
Zora’s words come back to me.What have you filled the cracks with?
Her. I have filled the cracks with her. My ordeal did not weaken me. It hollowed me out, yes, but it was Dina’s courage, her compassion, that filled that emptiness and made me whole in a way I never was before. That is not a weakness. That is a rebirth.
And with that thought, a plan begins to crystallize in my mind. A strategy that does not run from Grak’s accusations, but embraces them. A plan that will take his prejudice and turn it back on him like a sharpened blade. I will not show them the warrior they expect. I will show them the leader I have become.
On the morning of the council, the air in the stronghold is thick with a tense, expectant silence. The great hall is being prepared. I find Dina in her quarters, staring out the window at the snow-dusted peaks. She turns as I enter, her eyes full of a quiet, fearful support that strengthens my resolve.
I walk to her, holding out my hand. In my palm rests a simple bracelet, not of gold or iron, but of twine, braided in the traditional Orcish style with three strands, a symbol of a bond—of a warrior and their shield, of a chieftain and their clan, of two mates.
Her eyes widen as she looks at it.
“Wear this,” I command steadily. I take her hand and tie the simple bracelet around her delicate wrist. “Today, they will all have their say. But they will see you as I see you.” I meet her gaze, my heart in my eyes.
“Trust me.”
29
DINA
The great hall, a place of joyous, roaring celebration only days ago, is now a silent, solemn court. The great fires in the central pits are banked low, their sullen, red glow doing little to warm the cavernous space. The long feasting tables have been pushed back, and the entire Fire Sun Clan is assembled, their faces grim and unreadable in the shadows. They sit in tiers carved from the stone, a silent jury of warriors and elders. The air demonstrates a tension so profound it feels hard to breathe.
I sit on a simple stone bench near the raised dais where Chief Borin and the clan elders preside, with Zora the shaman at their side. I feel like a specimen under glass, the focus of a thousand suspicious, hostile stares. My hands are clenched in my lap, my knuckles white. The simple, braided twine bracelet Xylon tied around my wrist this morning is a small, rough anchor in a terrifying sea of judgment. It is a secret promise.Trust me.I am trying. Gods, I am trying.
Grak stands in the hall, his massive, brutish form radiating a smug confidence. His voice, a low, condescending rumble, echoes in the unnatural quiet.
