That was when I felt it. A pulse deep within the darkness, threading through the stone and echoing in the frozen air. A slow, steady thrum that mimicked my own heartbeat.
My hand flew instinctively to my chest, where the invisible thread pulling me pulsed so fiercely it hurt.
We moved until the tunnel grew less dark, faint torchlight licking weakly across the walls. I groped along the stone, searching for the opening that led to the cells. When I found it, an excited squeak escaped me.
“Stay here,” I told Kristan, knowing she’d have nightmares if she followed any farther.
She hesitated, then nodded. Without looking back, I squeezed into the hole. The stone scraped my knees as I crawled through the tight space, but I hardly felt it. The air there was different. Fouler. The thread in my chest vibrated like it was about to snap, and each slow, echoing beat through the mortar seemed to answer my own heart.
I emerged on the other side, hands first, bracing against the cold floor. When I lifted my head, I met a pair of dark eyes watching me from the gloom and froze.
They were large and bright, like a cat sìth’s eyes. A deep, earthy brown that reminded me of the river mud along the banks of the Idril River. They watched me with the focus of a hunterstudying its prey. My heart slammed so violently it felt ready to burst through my ribs. The thread inside me pulled with such strength I nearly lost my balance. It tugged at me, dragging me straight to the small male.
He was an orc who looked only a little older than I was, with short hair black as the night sky. Two small fangs peeked from his upper lip, and a thin line of dark green dried blood trailed from his straight nose.
He sat propped against the wall, chains fastened to his arms and legs, holding him captive. Seeing him like that tightened something in my chest and filled me with a sudden surge of displeasure.
“Hi,” I whispered, wincing when my voice came out louder than I intended. The orc’s ears twitched faintly, but he remained statue-still. “I’m Fionnuala, but you can call me Fiona.”
There was no answer, not even a twitch. He was as immobile as the prison stones. Heat flooded my face with embarrassment at being ignored like that—not something I was used to. His pointed ears, slightly longer than mine, flicked again, almost imperceptibly, just enough to tell me he could hear me.
“I… um…” I began, unsure how to even talk to an orc. I didn’t know if he could understand our language. In my studies, we learned that the orc clans all had their own dialects, very different from the Fae common tongue. “I’ve never seen one before. An orc, I mean. Like you.”
He remained motionless, though his eyes never left me. They were so intense that every hair on my body prickled, yet my feet stayed rooted to the floor.
“I know you don’t like us,” I ventured, biting my lip. “But… I didn’t come to hurt you, I swear.”
He finally blinked once, slowly. The thread inside me throbbed so sharply it hurt. I pressed my hand to my chest in a futile attempt to ease the feeling. His gaze followed the movement, and I quickly dropped my hand.
“Do you have a name?” I asked, taking an involuntary step closer.
The chain at his wrists rattled with a small shift that made my breath catch. Then he inhaled, his nose lifting slightly as his nostrils flared. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough.
“Krash’uk.”
Krash’uk.
The name carried a different rhythm, rougher than the names of the fae in Ceilte.
“What does it mean?”
His brown eyes narrowed slightly. He answered in words I didn’t understand. They meant nothing to me, which meant he didn’t speak the Common tongue of Tir na Sí—or he simply refused to speak it to me.
The realization stung.
Now that I was there, I wanted to know more about this orc my father had locked away. I wanted to ask whether the stories his people told him were the same ones they told me, or whether, in his world, we were the villains.
Before I could continue my one-sided conversation, I heard the sharp click of a lock opening.
Suddenly, Kristan’s voice rang out behind me:
“Fiona, we have to go! The guard’s here!”
My heart leaped at my friend’s voice. I turned to leave, but then I remembered the orc, and my steps faltered.
On an impulse my child’s mind couldn’t explain, I took off the ring my father had given me for my fifth birthday. It was an enchanted ring, able to change into whatever its bearer needed the most. I usually used it to help with my pranks.
I ran to Krash’uk and, not thinking clearly, tossed the ring to him. The small golden circle rolled until it reached the orc’s bare feet. Footsteps came fast in our direction. I couldn’t linger.
