The words hang between us, carrying implications I’m not ready to examine. Not just duty spoken, but something deeper. More personal.
Instead of asking her to come to my chambers again—a request that would raise eyebrows and fuel gossip among warriors who question my judgment—I make a different choice.
I step back from the doorway and plant myself against the stone wall beside her door, great-sword point down between my feet. The position is clear, unmistakable in its intent.
No one passes without going through me first.
“Sleep,” I tell her, settling against the cold stone with practiced ease. “I’ll be here.”
She hesitates, something flickering across her expression that I can’t quite read in the uncertain light. Surprise, maybe. Gratitude. Something warmer that makes my pulse quicken despite my efforts to remain detached.
“Thank you,” she says simply.
Two words that hit harder than they have any right to. Two words that acknowledge not just protection offered, but trust given in return. Trust I’m not entirely sure I deserve, given how close she came to dying under my watch.
But I’ll earn it. Whatever it takes, however long it requires, I’ll prove worthy of the faith she’s placing in me.
She retreats into the room, but doesn’t close the door immediately. For a moment, we look at each other across the threshold—warlord and seamstress, orc and human, captor and captive who have somehow become something else entirely.
Something that doesn’t have names or definitions, that exists in the space between duty and desire, protection and possession.
Then the door closes with a soft click, and I’m alone in the corridor with my sword and my thoughts and the lingering scent of herbs and warm skin.
I settle against the wall, letting the cold stone leech heat from my back while every sense remains alert for threats. The position isn’t comfortable, but comfort isn’t the point. Vigilance is. Readiness is. The promise that any who would harm her must first deal with me.
The hours crawl past with agonizing slowness. I track every shadow that moves across the stones, every whisper of sound that might herald another attack. Guards pass at regular intervals, nodding respectfully but keeping their distance when they see my expression.
But it’s not just rage keeping me wired and watchful. It’s memory.
The taste of her lips when she kissed me, soft and warm and tasting of courage. The way she didn’t flinch from my touch tonight, didn’t pull away when my fingers found her pulse. The simple “thank you” that carried weight far beyond courtesy.
My hands clench into fists before I force them to relax. She’s under my protection. My responsibility. Getting emotionally entangled with her is exactly the kind of weakness my enemies are hoping to exploit.
But knowing that doesn’t make the wanting stop. Doesn’t silence the voice in my head that whispers she’s different from every human I’ve known. Stronger. Smarter. Braver than warriors twice her size and three times her experience.
Worth protecting for reasons that have nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the way she makes me feel human again.
Near midnight, Scout Captain Rowan appears at the far end of the corridor, moving with the silent efficiency of someone trained to avoid attention. He approaches carefully, reading my mood in the set of my shoulders and the way my hand rests on my sword hilt.
“Report,” I murmur, keeping my voice low enough not to disturb Zoraya’s rest.
“Oryx’s army has made camp at Skull Vale,” he whispers back, settling into a crouch beside me. “Main force, siege engines, supply trains.”
Skull Vale. Less than five miles from Ironhold’s gates, close enough that we’ll hear their war drums when the wind is right. Close enough for a forced march to reach us before dawn if they choose to move under the cover of darkness.
The noose is tightening.
“Numbers?”
“Best estimate? Fifteen thousand. Maybe more hidden in the deep valleys where our scouts can’t reach.” Rowan’s scarred face is grim in the torchlight. “They’ve got bone mages, Warlord. I saw the banners myself—white skulls on black fields, dozens of them.”
Bone mages. Sorcerers who animate the dead, who can turn a battlefield into a nightmare of walking corpses that feel no pain and know no fear. Oryx brought them specifically for this siege, knowing they’d be most effective against defenders trapped behind walls with nowhere to retreat.
I run tactical calculations in my head. Fifteen thousand against our eight hundred. They’ll come in waves, testing our defenses, probing for weaknesses. The first assault will be brutal but manageable—designed to exhaust us and identify our strongest positions.
The second wave will target those positions specifically.
“Siege beasts?”
