"Shut your mouth."
The words come out as a snarl, low and dangerous enough to make every guard take a step back. Thorgak's hand drops to his weapon, confusion flickering across his scarred features.
"Sir?"
"I said shut your mouth before I shut it for you."
I drop to one knee beside her, my gauntleted hands hovering over her still form. This close, I can see the blue tinge to her lips, the way her breathing comes in shallow, rapid puffs. She's been out here too long.
"Vargath." Gargan's voice cuts through the roaring in my ears. "What are you doing?"
What am I doing? Good question. The smart thing would be to let the guards handle this. To pretend I don't recognize her. To walk away and let politics be politics.
Instead, I strip off my gauntlets and press my fingers to her throat, searching for a pulse. It's there—weak but steady—and some tension I didn't know I was carrying releases from my shoulders.
Her skin burns with fever despite the cold, and when I brush the hair from her face, she stirs slightly. Her lips part, forming words too quiet to hear.
The child she carries could be anyone's. Should be anyone's. The timing...
The timing fits perfectly.
"I found you," I whisper, the words meant for her alone.
"Sir?" Thorgak's voice holds a note of impatience. "Should we dispose of the body? The cold will finish what?—"
I surge to my feet, and the guard stumbles backward. "Touch her again and lose the hand."
The silence stretches like a bowstring. Twenty warriors watch their warleader cradle a pregnant human woman likeshe's made of spun glass. I can practically hear their thoughts grinding away, trying to make sense of what they're witnessing.
Gargan moves closer, his voice pitched low. "Vargath, you need to think about this."
"I am thinking." I slide my arms beneath her shoulders and knees, lifting her against my chest. She weighs almost nothing, all sharp angles and hollow places where there should be curves. "I'm thinking she'll die if she stays out here."
"That's not what I?—"
"I know exactly what you mean." I turn toward my mount, Seris cradled against my armor. "And right now, I don't care."
My warhorse stands patient as stone while I figure out how to mount with my arms full. It takes some maneuvering, but I manage to settle into the saddle with Seris positioned across my lap, her head resting against my shoulder.
The gates of Azhgar loom ahead, and beyond them, a hundred complications I'm not ready to face. But her breath is warm against my neck, and for the first time in months, something that feels almost like hope stirs in my chest.
3
SERIS
Warmth seeps through my bones like honey through bread, the first real warmth I've felt in... how long? My eyelids flutter open to reveal stone walls dancing with orange light, shadows shifting across carved surfaces that smell of smoke and something herbal I can't place.
The bed beneath me cradles my body in layers of thick furs that scratch pleasantly against my skin. Real furs, not the thin wool blankets I'd grown used to in the human settlements. My fingers spread across the soft pelts, testing their reality.
Then memory crashes back like ice water. The gates. The guards. The terrible cold eating through my bones as I collapsed against?—
My hands fly to my belly, pressing against the curve that has become my constant companion. For one heart-stopping moment, I feel nothing. Then a familiar flutter kicks against my palm, strong and insistent.
"Thank god." The words escape as a shaky whisper.
But which god? And where exactly am I thanking them from?
The chamber around me looks carved from living rock, walls smooth and dark except where torchlight catches veins of somelighter stone. Orc work, definitely. The craftsmanship speaks of permanence, of a people who build to last centuries rather than seasons.
