My head snaps up, the words hitting like a physical blow. End this. As if Seris and the child she carries are problems to be solved, threats to be eliminated. The suggestion sends heat racing through my veins, my hands curling into fists that could crush stone.
"You think I don't know that? You think the council feels the blood on their hands the way I do? I've buried warriors while they sat in warm chambers deciding which border to ignore next."
The words tear out of me with more force than I intended, carrying years of frustration and bitter experience. How many good orcs have died because the council preferred politics to action? How many battles have I fought while they debated the proper protocols for engaging the enemy?
Gargan's expression shifts, the mocking edge falling away to reveal something more serious beneath. He pushes off from the wall, his movements careful and deliberate.
"I'm not your enemy. I've stood beside you in worse. But this? You're risking everything."
The quiet honesty in his voice cuts deeper than any accusation could. Because he's right, and we both know it. Everything I've built, every alliance I've forged, every drop of respect I've earned through blood and steel—all of it hangs in the balance now.
I rake a hand down my face, feeling the rough texture of ritual scars beneath my palm. The marks remind me of oathssworn and prices paid, of the discipline that's kept me alive through campaigns that claimed lesser orcs.
"It was one night."
The admission tastes like ash on my tongue. One night of weakness, of allowing instinct to override judgment. One night when I forgot that desire leads to destruction, that attachment breeds vulnerability.
Gargan's damaged tusk gleams as he considers this. "One night doesn't change the world… unless it does."
The tension between us feels like a blade balanced on its edge. Because sometimes that's exactly how the world shifts—not through grand gestures or epic battles, but through single moments when everything pivots on a choice made in darkness.
"I didn't plan this."
"Exactly. And if you don't start planning something now, they will. And she won't survive it."
I exhale harshly, the sound torn from my chest like a blade dragged across stone. The weight of Gargan's words presses down on me, heavier than armor, more suffocating than smoke from a burning village.
Without another word, I storm past him toward the door. My shoulder clips his as I pass, but he doesn't move to stop me. Smart. The mood I'm in, I might put him through the wall just for the satisfaction of hearing something break.
"Where are you going?"
His voice follows me into the corridor, but I don't answer. Can't answer, because I don't know myself. My feet carry me down the stone steps, past the guard posts where warriors nod respectfully and step aside. Their eyes track my movement with the wariness of soldiers who recognize when their commander's control hangs by threads.
The cold hits like a physical blow when I step outside. Wind tears through the gaps in my armor, bites at exposed skin withteeth sharp as winter steel. Snow swirls around the courtyard in patterns that shift and dance like ghosts of the dead, and I pull my cloak tighter against the assault.
My boots crunch through packed snow as I move without conscious direction, following instincts I don't want to examine. The stronghold's ancient bones creak and groan around me—human foundations repurposed for orc needs, steel and stone married in ways the original builders never intended.
I find myself heading down toward the cracked foundation temple, that half-swallowed relic that burrows deep into Azhgar's oldest roots. The structure predates everything else here, its stones worn smooth by centuries of weather and worship. Smoke rises from its chimneys like prayers seeking gods who may have stopped listening long ago.
The entrance yawns before me, dark and welcoming as a tomb. I tell myself I'm just checking in. Just making sure she's still breathing. Just ensuring the council hasn't decided to solve their problem while I've been pacing circles in my chamber like a caged beast.
Just anything that doesn't involve admitting the truth.
Inside, braziers flicker along the walls, their flames casting dancing shadows that writhe across ancient murals. The air tastes of old incense and older secrets, thick enough to coat my tongue with the weight of forgotten rituals. My footsteps echo off stone worn smooth by generations of worshippers who believed the gods still cared about mortal struggles.
I reach her room and push open the door.
Empty.
The furs lie rumpled but cold, the brazier burned down to glowing embers. No sign of struggle, no blood on the stones—just absence where warmth should be. My chest tightens with something I refuse to name as panic.
"Where is she?"
The demand is a growl directed at Maedra's hunched figure near the far wall. The old shaman doesn't look up from the blankets she folds with methodical precision, her gnarled fingers working the fabric into neat squares. Steam rises from her skin like she's been standing too close to the fires, and the scent of herbs clings to her like a second skin.
"Where she needs to be."
Her voice carries that maddening quality all shamans seem to cultivate—cryptic as oracle bones, frustrating as riddles posed by dying enemies. She continues folding, each movement deliberate and unhurried.
