Hours pass in blood-soaked silence before I hear the barn door creak. My heart leaps—could it be Thoktar, escaped somehow, returned to find me? But the footsteps are wrong, too fluid for orc boots, and when the kitchen door opens it's Nazim who enters.
His serpentine eyes take in the carnage and soften with understanding. He's seen enough violence to read the story written in blood and scattered coins—betrayal, murder, the cleanup that follows when Dark Elves tie off loose ends.
"The orc?" he asks gently.
"Taken." The word tastes like ash and failure. "They took him to the arena in Eelry. For the games."
Nazim nods grimly, unsurprised. "Gospar pays well for fresh gladiators. And orcs..." He doesn't finish the sentence, doesn't need to. Everyone knows what happens to orcs in the fighting pits.
"I have to get him back." The words surprise us both with their steel, with the absolute certainty that cuts through grief like a blade.
"Child," Nazim says carefully, "the arena is a fortress. Gospar has guards, Dark Elf magic, defenses that would challenge an army. And you're?—"
"What? A scared little slave girl who hides when danger comes calling?" I stand on unsteady legs, blood staining my hands like evidence of crimes I should have prevented. "You're right. That's exactly what I am."
I walk to the kitchen cupboard and pull out the knife Brom used for slaughtering chickens. The blade gleams in the afternoon light, sharp enough to cut through bone if necessary.
"But I'm done being that person."
Nazim studies my face, reading the determination written in blood and tears. Slowly, his expression shifts from concern to something like respect.
"The arena fights are spectacle," he says quietly. "Rich patrons pay gold to watch slaves kill each other. If we could get inside as buyers, as slavers ourselves..."
"Then we'd need a plan. And weapons. And more luck than either of us deserves." I turn the knife over in my hands, feeling its weight, its potential. "Can you do it? Can you get us inside?"
"I have... connections. From my old life. People who remember me as something other than the reformed fool who feeds stray cats." His smile is sharp as winter wind. "But this is suicide, child. Even if we succeed, even if we free him, they'll hunt us to the ends of the earth."
"Let them come."
The words ring with a finality that surprises me. The scared little slave girl who clung to safety is gone, burned away in the crucible of this blood-soaked kitchen. In her place standssomething harder, sharper. Something capable of walking into hell itself.
As we bury Talia and Brom in the garden where she grew her healing herbs, I make my own vow. Thoktar saved my life in that barn, showed me what it meant to be cherished instead of used. Now I'll save his, or die trying.
The scared little slave girl is gone. In her place stands a woman with a knife in her hand and vengeance in her heart. A woman who's learned the difference between surviving and living, between safety and cowardice.
A woman who's done letting fear make her choices.
They took my love, murdered my family, and turned my home into a slaughterhouse. But they made one crucial mistake.
They left me alive.
And I'm going to make them pay for that oversight.
11
THOKTAR
Iwake to the stench of blood, and despair.
The stone floor beneath me is slick with gods know what, and my head throbs where the Dark Elf's club found its mark. Iron shackles bite into my wrists, the metal still warm from whatever foul magic they've used to bind them. I try to flex my fingers—they respond, but sluggishly. Whatever poison they used hasn't fully worn off.
The cell is small, maybe ten feet square, with bars that gleam with the same sickly magic as my shackles. Three other prisoners huddle in the corners, and none of them look up when I stir. Smart. In a place like this, hope is probably the first thing that gets you killed.
"You're awake." The voice comes from my right—a female, human by the sound of it, but there's something else underneath. Something that makes my orc instincts prickle. "Good. Thought they might've hit you too hard."
I turn my head and immediately understand why my gut churned. The woman looks human enough—dark hair, pale skin, maybe thirty summers—but she sits too still, shows no feardespite being caged with three non-humans. Her scent carries the metallic tang of magic.
Purna. Witch.
