It was another blessing that found him stumbling blindly into the nearly collapsed shell of a factory. Barely visible on a scorched brick wall were the wordsWestern Beetsugar.
All in all, it looked entirely unfit for habitation from the outside, which was probably why it’d been overlooked by scavengers and others seeking shelter. When Henrik took his hammer to a heavy metal door on the undamaged side of the building, he was astonished to find a nearly untouched office.
It appeared that the main manufacturing zone had been the hardest hit, but the administrative center had been untouched — including what he could only assume was the boss’s office.
As the wind began to howl outside, he deposited his mate onto the tile floor as gently as he could. Henrik resealed the metal door and barricaded it with several heavy desks before he prowled around the rooms, hammer in hand. When no threats appeared and now armed with the knowledge that a mostly intact washroom was just down the hall, he returned to his mate.
She didn’t stir as he hastily barricaded the office door, too. The single high window had already been boarded up, probably by the owners of the factory shortly after war broke out, so he was able to relax a little.
It was by no means a satisfactory nest, but it would do for now.
Henrik’s kohl-darkened hands trembled as he unclipped his sleeping mat from his pack and laid it out on the dusty floor. She felt as delicate as spun glass in his clumsy hands as he arranged his mate on it.
“You’re safe now,” he assured her, falling onto his haunches. Twining their fingers together, he leaned his aching back against the cold wall and finally let out a slow exhale of relief.
She couldn’t hear him, but he still promised her, “I’ll build us a fire in a moment, my blessing.” A soft laugh escaped his rough throat. “It’ll be our first Burden’s Moon bonfire.”
He rested his head against the wall. A smile pulled at his lips. As soft as a breath, he whispered, “What a gift.”
The Darkest Night: Sugar and Snow 2
Mabel cameto consciousness to the sound of a crackling fire and a deep voice singing an old, sad song.
It’d been a long time since she dreamed, so she didn’t dare move a muscle for fear that the softness of it would dissolve under her fingers like candy floss. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been truly warm, but it didn’t matter because she was toasty down to the thick wool socks she’d been assigned when she was conscripted. That sort of thing only happened in dreams.
Small comforts like warmth and a soft bed were foreign to her now. They were as intangible as memories of home or the taste of sweet things, and she did her best not to think of them. It only made the day to day of her work harder.
Life was hard enough as an entire battalion’s only healer.
No, don’t think of that,she sternly instructed herself.The dream will end and then you’ll be back in the guts and piss and misery.
She forced herself to relax her muscles one by one and listen to that deep bass voice. The crackle of flame was a soothing accompaniment to what sounded like a knife skimming wood.It was a familiar rhythm her father practiced every night as he whittled all sorts of things for her mother. Theschwickandthwitof a knife carving wood had been her lullaby until her father’s arthritis slowly put a stop to it.
But in the dream he was still carving, apparently.
Mabel let out a sigh of contentment. She didn’t want to wake up in her threadbare cot and triage more men. Death clung to her in long trailing ribbons, making every new day and every tiny movement more laborious. One day she was fairly certain she’d simply stop functioning altogether as the weight of all those ribbons bore down on her.
Maybe this is it,she mused.Maybe I’ve died and this is what Grim’s riverbank really looks like.
It wouldn’t be so bad if that were the case. She was awfully tired of war, and if she got to rest?—
The sounds of carving stopped. So did the sad song. Before she could begin to find that odd, a massive hand settled on her brow. It was heavily callused and warm as it stroked the fine hair back from her forehead. Magic lurched from the deep, burning core of her soul to meet that hand in an explosion her flesh barely contained.
“Easy, my blessing,” an impossibly deep voice rumbled. “All’s well.”
Mabel’s eyes shot open.
Hovering over her, limned by golden firelight, was the most terrifying orc she’d ever seen. He was nearly twice her size in every possible measurement. Dressed in a battleworn Orclind Iron Chain uniform, she could’ve identified his rank from across a battlefield.
Between bruises and lacerations, the orc’s skin was a pale slate gray. His hair, long around his ears and swept back, was a slightly darker stone color streaked with silver. His size andcoloring were striking, but in the firelight all she saw was his eyes.
They were a stunning hazel. Deep forest green flecked with chocolate brown stared down at her from behind a thick fringe of black lashes. The fire glittered in them, giving his eyes a gem-like quality she’d never beheld in another being before. Not even the shifters, whose eyesdidchange color, managed to look so… ethereal.
She’d never been so close to an orc before — except, of course, when they were trying to kill her.
All at once, the situation presented itself to her as it truly was. This was no dream. She wasn’t back in her family home, laid out on the chaise while her father carved a new spoon for her mother.
They’d been ambushed. Her triage tent had been blown apart just as she was assessing a cougar’s amputated leg while another man groaned in the final throes of a gangrenous infection beside him. There was smoke and death and freezing mud and?—
