HUMAN
The voices around the fire had gone quiet, the orcs' eyes on us. My mind scrambled and spun. Perhaps his jaw was a little more angular than the others, his brow less intense. Maybe he had lighter eyelashes. He was watching me, as if he expected me to say something.
"You were the first orc I'd ever seen," I whispered. "I had no comparison." My mouth was dry, and their eyes were still on us, and I wanted to break the stillness. "I just…thought you were prettier than your friends."
Silence hung. Oh God, had I mistimed this? Had I made them all-
A guffaw rang out, and they were laughing. Relief flooded my lungs, and I realized I'd been holding my breath. One of the orcs yelled something in their language. The tips of Khal's ears tinged a rosy color.
"What are you lot laughing about?" Vrathgar's voice cut the laughter. "Ah, the baron's flesh knows nothing of our people. Hilarious. Maybe she can fail at wearing shoes and almost get us killed again tomorrow. Will that give you laughter?"
I pressed my palms into the dirt.
"What would you have liked her to do?" Khal's voice was flat, some of the growl I heard that first day in the castle creeping at the edges. "Would you like her to have hunted a deer within the baron's walls, tanned it and made her own boots? Would you like her to have slit a soldier's throat and stolen his footwear? How do you see this going a different way?"
"If she'd rutting told us she was kitted out like a lunatic, we could have handled the liability better!"
Khal flooded into Orcish, and Vrathgar interrupted him. "Oh, no,Common.Didn't you say fifty times we had to speak something the deadweight would understand? Gernaz has barely spoken in three days!"
"She didn't know us," Khal hissed through his teeth. "The humans are savages; she wasn't taught to talk about pain."
"Then maybe she should woman up and learn," Vrathgar spat. "Or maybe you could pay the bare minimum attention to the liability you brought on instead of only thinking about how you were going to?—"
More of them were shouting. Orcish, Common. Khal was on his feet. I pressed my hands into the earth, feeling the dead leaves break soft under my finger tips. I didn't need them not to hate me. I was getting away. I would run soon, and this would all be pointless.
"Vrathgar," Gnarlak had spoken, still poking the fire. The others stilled. "You are out of line."
Vrathgar stalked into the trees. It stayed quiet, only murmurs and furtive glances. Khal was still standing, an island amidst the crowd.
Parts of this foreign world were starting to make sense, bits and pieces. Khal was important, but the leadership of this group was diffuse. Part of his value to the group was that he spoke Common so well, and why had I never questioned that? So many of them only spoke bits and pieces they'd gotten fromliving alongside soldiers. Even Gnarlak was rough. Khal might as well have grown up on the warren streets beside me.
No. Not on the streets. His Old Tongue was better than mine. There were ways he'd fit better beside Thea than I had.
But he wasn't beside Thea. He was here. Leading orcs. Fighting monsters. Getting support from Gnarlak, and derision from some others. Bringing back a hostage who would be useless.
And I had thought about the humiliation of being seen as a tribute to the orcs. But I had never considered that being bound to me would weaken his standing among his people. If I'd thought of how I'd appear to his clan at all it had been as a trophy of war, a possession. But…now I was a fresh challenge to his belonging, a symbol of the other side of his blood.
Losing me would be better for him, too. I thought it, and felt something odd in my gut.
Khal lowered himself back to the ground beside me. "I'm sorry about Vrathgar," he said. "He's a good friend. He's had a hard year."
I nodded my acceptance. It didn't matter anyway. Khal should still have his friend. Friends lasted. Random girls you married under deceptive circumstances generally did not.
"Relations between our people have been…not the best lately."
"I will try to forgive him. Since I am a savage."
He blinked. I smiled.
He let out an explosion of breath, switched to the Ka Morth. "I keep creating new things to apologize for."
"No. You don't. It's fine." The mood was awkward. His eyes were everywhere but me. I wanted to bring it back, that comfortable way he'd spoken before. "So how did your father learn the Old Tongue? Was he a noble?"
"Close. A tinker. He said he dealt in the magic of daily things."
"He has magic, then?"
"No." He was smiling now. "It just seems like it. He'd learned a little bit of everything. Including the Ka Morth, from a renegade cleric."
