Without another word, I turn and walk from their tent. The night air hits my face like a physical relief, washing away the cloying scent of ceremonial oils and barely contained violence. My legs feel unsteady beneath me, but I force each step to remain measured, controlled.
The walk back to my tent passes in a blur of shadows and dying campfires. Conversations drift from other pavilions—laughter, arguments, the clink of drinking horns against tusks.Normal sounds of a festival winding down, as if the world hasn't just tilted sideways beneath my feet.
I duck through my tent flap and sink onto the thin bedroll that serves as my only furniture. The fabric walls feel impossibly fragile around me, like they might dissolve at the first strong wind.
Leave.
The word echoes in my mind with all the weight of an execution order. Leave the only life I've ever known and venture into a world where picking the wrong direction could land me as a slave to some other clan. A plaything for an orc's pleasure. Or simply dead from the pure hatred most orcs hold for my kind.
How could Rytha ask such a thing? Was she truly so threatened by some strange vines and inexplicable fire that she'd cast me into the wilderness like refuse?
But even as the indignant thought forms, I know the answer. These markings may be strange, but they aren't nothing. They won't be overlooked or explained away with clever words and political maneuvering. A goddess who abandoned the orcs has marked a human—and that transgression is more dangerous than anything else.
14
GALTHAN
The training dummy explodes under my war axe, straw and burlap scattering across the packed earth like battlefield debris. Splinters of wood embed themselves in the ground where the practice post once stood, and I'm already turning toward the next target before the wreckage settles.
"Again," I growl, hefting the double-bladed weapon that feels too light in my hands tonight. Everything feels wrong—the weight distribution, the grip, the way my muscles coil and release with each strike.
Jorak, one of the younger warriors, steps up with his shield raised. Smart lad. Not smart enough.
I feint left, then bring the axe around in a brutal overhead arc that should stop inches from his guard. Should. Instead, the blade crashes through his wooden shield like it's made of parchment, splitting it down to the iron boss. The impact sends vibrations up my arms, but I barely feel them.
"Blood and bone!" Jorak stumbles backward, clutching his forearm where splinters have drawn crimson lines across green skin. "What's gotten into you tonight?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. My mind keeps drifting to moonlit corridors and desperate kisses, to the way Thalia's voice cracked when she called me a coward. The memory makes my grip tighten until my knuckles strain against the leather wrapping.
"Pair off," I bark at the others. "Work your footwork. And keep your guards up unless you fancy matching Jorak's new scars."
The warriors scatter across the training ground, wooden weapons clacking together in practiced rhythms. But even their mock combat sounds hollow compared to the real thing—no desperation, no stakes beyond bruised pride and wounded ego.
I select a pair of training blades, their edges dulled but still capable of drawing blood if wielded with enough force. The familiar weight settles into my palms like old friends returning home, and I launch into the flowing patterns that have kept me alive through a dozen border conflicts.
Strike, parry, riposte. Each movement flows into the next with deadly precision, muscle memory carved deep by years of necessity. But tonight the patterns feel like chains, binding me to a destiny I never chose. The blades whistle through the air as I increase the tempo, pushing my body harder, faster, seeking some release from the tension coiled in my chest.
Sweat beads across my shoulders despite the evening chill. My braids whip around my face as I spin through a complex series of attacks, each one designed to overwhelm an opponent's defenses through sheer aggression. It's the style that made me famous along the borderlands—brutal, efficient, unstoppable.
A memory surfaces unbidden: Thalia's hands on my wounds, gentle and sure. The way her breathing changed when I touched her hair. How small she felt beneath me, yet how fierce her responses were when she forgot to be afraid.
My left blade snaps against a training post with enough force to send the broken half spinning into the dirt. The sharp crack cuts through the evening air like a whipcrack, drawing startled glances from the other warriors.
"That's enough for tonight," Tarnuk's voice cuts across the training ground with the authority of someone who's pulled me back from the edge before. "Everyone else, clean your gear and get some food. We've got ceremony preparations tomorrow."
The warriors drift away in small groups, their conversations already turning to the upcoming festivities. But Tarnuk remains, his broken tusk catching the last rays of sunlight as he approaches with careful steps.
"You're not acting like a male about to rule," he says without preamble, settling onto a supply crate with the ease of someone who's shared too many campfires to bother with formality.
I wipe sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, tasting salt and frustration. "I never wanted to rule."
Tarnuk's laugh is dry as autumn leaves. "Everyone wants power, Galthan. The smart ones just pretend otherwise until they're ready to take it."
"This kind of power isn't freedom." I drive the remaining blade point-first into the earth between us, watching it quiver from the force. "It's a cage."
Before Tarnuk can respond, footsteps approach from behind. I turn to find a nervous-looking human male, his clothes marking him as one of the Vaskyr servants. He clutches a folded piece of parchment like it might bite him.
"Forgive the interruption, lord," he stammers, extending the note with shaking fingers. "I was instructed to give this to you."
