My broken one for his trapped one. To restore the proud Orc warrior who is buried under Larda's curse.
It is not a tragedy. It is an atonement.
The fire took my family because I ran. I failed to sacrifice anything. I was a coward.
Joric was right. I am a fool.
But now... I can finally fix it.
I can be brave. I can stop running. I can trade my life to save his. This is my gift to him. My only gift. My true Christmas wish.
A single, hot tear escapes my eye. It is not a tear of sadness.
It is a tear of relief.
The humming in the cavern feels like a welcome.
Threk makes a low, questioning sound beside me. He doesn't understand the murals. He cannot read the words.
He only sees me.
He sees the tear. He sees the change. His red eyes narrow with confusion and worry.
I turn to him. I look up at his massive, brutish, beautiful face. The face of the monster who saved me. The face of the man I love.
I give him the brightest, saddest, most final smile I possess.
I reach up, my hand trembling just a little, and touch his rough, scarred cheek.
"It's going to be okay, Threk."
My voice is a whisper.
"It's all... it's all going to be okay."
23
THREK
Her words are a soft, final sigh in the humming air. "It's all... it's all going to be okay."
But her scent is a lie.
It is the wrong scent. Under the smell of berries and snow, under the sulfur of the spring and the clean smell of us, there is a new smell. It has a sharp, thin, terrible smell.
It is the smell of grief. A final grief. It’s an ending.
My heart, which had been full and warm, turns to a cold stone in my chest.
This is the same scent... the same feeling... I smelled it on her when she froze in the hovel, when the raider was lunging, when she had given up.
It smells like goodbye.
My hand, the one she is holding to her cheek, clenches. No.
I look where she is looking. At the wall. At the pictures in the glowing green light.
My mind is clearer now. I see.
