37
THALIA
The world fractures into blood and screaming.
Rain pounds my face as I twist against the ropes, rough hemp biting into my wrists. Everything happens at once—too fast, too violent, too impossible to process. Orcs wheel in every direction, some drawing weapons, others stumbling over their own feet in confusion. The metallic scent of blood mingles with smoke and wet earth.
"What's happening?" I gasp, but my voice disappears beneath the chaos.
Dark shapes pour from the treeline like spilled ink. Orcs. But not like any orcs I've ever seen. Their faces are painted with bone-white patterns that gleam in the firelight, geometric designs that seem to move in the dancing shadows.
One leaps onto a Vaskyr warrior's back, driving a curved blade between his shoulder blades. The orc drops like felled timber. Another painted figure slides beneath a swinging war axe, hamstringing his opponent with movements that flow like water. But this one isn't an orc. They're too small, to lean.
"Impossible," someone shouts nearby. "Humans can't?—"
An arrow sprouts from the speaker's chest, cutting off his protest.
I've never seen anything like this. In Vaskyr territory, humans serve. We cook, we clean, we tend wounds, we warm beds. We don't fight. We certainly don't win.
But these painted orc and human warriors move in tandem like they were born for battle. Each strike calculated, each step purposeful. They work in pairs, covering each other's flanks, communicating through hand signals I don't recognize.
A Thorran captain charges one of the attackers, war hammer raised high. The painted human doesn't retreat—instead, he drops to one knee, letting the massive weapon whistle overhead, then drives his blade upward into the orc's exposed armpit. The captain's roar becomes a gurgle as he topples sideways.
"Galthan!" I scream, craning my neck to find him through the melee.
There—chains broken, blood streaming from his wrists, cutting through the crowd like a force of nature. His massive frame barrels through orcs too stunned to properly defend themselves. When a Vaskyr warrior tries to block his path, Galthan doesn't slow—he drives his shoulder into the smaller orc's chest, sending him flying into a group of festival-goers.
"Thalia!"
My name cuts through the din, raw and desperate. He's maybe thirty paces away, but the space between us fills with bodies—some fighting, some fleeing, some already still on the muddy ground.
I wrench against the ropes with renewed fury. The hemp digs deeper into my skin, drawing blood that makes my hands slick. But the knots were tied by orc hands, pulled tight by orc strength. My human fingers can't find purchase on the wet fibers.
"Come on," I whisper through gritted teeth, twisting my wrists until the pain makes my vision blur.
"Thalia!" Galthan's voice, closer now.
I turn toward the sound just as he tackles an orc wearing Rytha's colors, driving them both to the ground in a spray of mud and cursing. They roll, grappling for advantage, but Galthan's rage gives him strength that borders on inhuman. His hands find the other orc's throat, and the struggle ends with a wet snap.
He surges to his feet, scanning the crowd until he finds me. Our eyes lock across twenty paces of carnage, and something passes between us—recognition, relief, desperate love.
But then an orc comes out of nowhere—a massive Thorran warrior with blood streaming down his face—and crashes into Galthan's side like a battering ram. They both go down hard, rolling through the mud in a tangle of limbs and snarling fury.
"Galthan!" I scream, yanking against my restraints so violently that the post creaks behind me. The rope cuts deeper into my wrists, warm blood trickling down my forearms, but I don't care. I can't see him anymore through the press of bodies—just flashes of green skin and the glint of steel in the firelight.
When I crane my neck, searching desperately through the chaos for any sign of him, a different figure emerges from the smoke and rain. Rytha steps into view like something from a nightmare, her ash-gray skin streaked with blood that isn't her own. Her ceremonial tattoos seem to writhe in the flickering light, and her amber eyes hold a brightness that makes my stomach lurch.
She's lost her mind. I can see it in the way her lips curve into a smile that doesn't belong on any sane face, in how her fingers twitch as she bends to retrieve the torch that was dropped when the first torchbearer fell. The flames sputter and hiss in the rain,but she nurses them back to life with gentle breaths, coaxing them higher.
"Rytha." My voice cuts through the din, firm despite the terror clawing at my throat. "Don't."
She doesn't look at me right away. Instead, she tilts her head, watching the flame dance on the torch's oil-soaked head. When she finally meets my gaze, her smile widens, revealing teeth stained pink with blood.
"You know," she says conversationally, as if we're discussing the weather instead of standing in the middle of a battlefield, "I was going to make this quick. Merciful, even. A clean death for a pathetic little servant who forgot her place."
She takes a step closer, and I can smell the copper-sweet scent of blood on her, mixed with smoke and something else—something wild and broken.
"But then you had to ruin everything, didn't you? You had to steal what was mine."
