I crush the thought before it can take root. Purpose is a luxury for orcs who aren't lost. Honor is a word for warriors who haven't sold their axe to a worm like Privis. I am a survivor. I amThe Tusk. And I have been fed.
I turn from the doorway, my job done. I walk toward the wagons, my boots heavy in the mud, each step a confirmation of my new, hollow life. The mercenaries make way for me, their fear a small, satisfying spark in the cold void of my gut. It is not respect, but it is all I have left.
Pride.
It’s a bitter, iron taste rising from my throat.Gruk would die before he lived like this.He would spit on this ipia, on this unearned shelter. He would look at me, his loyal brother, and see nothing but a beast for hire, a butcher’s dog wallowing in Privis’s filth.
I look at my reflection in a shattered, gilt-edged mirror hanging crooked on the wall. My face is spattered with Dareksword’s blood. I don’t see a warrior. I see athing.
I have nothing.The realization is a hard, cold stone in my gut. The food, the coin, the women—it’s all a lie. A cage. The rage needs an outlet, a target. It needs tohurtsomething.
A sound breaks my thoughts. A pathetic, brokensob.
A male servant—a human boy, thin as a rail, his face streaked with tears and soot—scrambles out from under a heavy tapestry. He must have been hiding when the crew swept the hall. He sees me, his eyes going wide with a terror that eclipses everything else. He tries to flee, scuttling on his hands and knees toward a side door.
He's weak. He's pathetic. He is everything I despise in myself right now.
The displaced rage is too much. It boils over, hot and black. He stumbles as he passes me, his hand brushing my boot as he begs. "Mercy... please..."
"Quiet!" I roar. The sound is a raw, guttural explosion of my own self-loathing.
I don’t even use my blade. I swing my axe in a flat, brutal arc, smashing the heavy haft into the side of his skull. The sound isa wet, sickeningcrunch. His body spasms once, then goes limp, his head hitting the marble at an unnatural angle.
The mercenaries by the wagon, hearing the sound, let out a ragged cheer. "Got another one, Tusk!"
I don't answer. I just stare at the crumpled body. The rage doesn't fade. I just feel colder.
The heat from the burning mansion is pressing against my back like a giant, hot hand. It roars into the night, sending a column of orange sparks and black smoke toward the stars. The smell of it—burning silk, old wood, and cooked meat—clogs my throat.
I stand by the main gate, watching the last of the mercenaries load the stolen treasure onto the heavy wagons. My work is done. Dareksword is dead. His servants are dead or captured.
A rough voice barks from the lead wagon. "Dumb ass Tusk! Let's go! Privis wants his new toys before dawn!"
I turn, my boots sucking in the deep, bloody mud. I walk to the last wagon, the one filled with the captured, weeping women. I grab the tailgate and haul my massive frame up, my weight making the entire cart groan on its axles.
I sit with my back to them, facing the burning estate. The rumble of the wagon wheels vibrates through my bones, a familiar, grinding lurch. The smell in the cart is thick—straw, sweat, and the sharp, sour stench of their terror.
A small sound, a tiny whimper, makes me turn.
One of the captured human women is staring at me. She’s huddled against the wooden slats, her eyes wide and glassy with shock, her face pale in the firelight. She isn't crying, not anymore. She just looks... empty. She sees me, the monster covered in her master's blood, and a flicker of something crosses her face. A question.
"I am dead?" she whispers, her voice a dry, reedy sound.
I look at her, at her torn servant's dress and the rope burns already forming on her wrists. I feel nothing. This is the world. This is the wage I've earned. This is the grim, cold reality of what I am.
"After they fuck you, yes," I say, my voice a flat, dead rumble.
I turn back around to watch the mansion burn, the monster’s work is done.
2
AURORA
The lye soap burns the raw skin of my knuckles. I keep scrubbing the silver goblet, my gaze fixed on the polished surface, but I see nothing. The entire estate is suffocating in a fog of silence, broken only by the frantic whispers of the other maids.
She’s dead. He actually did it.
The thought is an icy, smooth stone in my stomach. Lady Lamas is dead. I heard two of the kitchen girls whispering by the larder this morning, their voices high and terrified. “A tragic accident,” one said. “Slipped in the bathhouse.”
