“They will get over it,” Khal murmured. I glanced at him. His jaw was a little tight. “You don’t have to worry. They care about me, many of them. They’ll get over it.”
I wondered what it would be like, to have confidence like that.
He led me through the widened marketplace, down a path that trended downwards and narrowed, between tall trees, till we were off the path, with moss underfoot, the swaying bracken brushing the tips of our fingers.
“Why did Vrathgar tell you to take me here?”
He pushed a trailing vine out of the way, the way through getting even narrower. “He knows this place is meaningful to me. And…he wants the implication, to others. We all know it is better to emphasize your belonging here. With us.”
There were mushrooms here, small and delicate. Gnarlak hadn’t talked to me about these. “How does a place emphasize my belonging?”
He coughed, and when I looked at him, his neck was flushed again. “I…couples often go into the woods alone to…” he trailed off again.
“Oh,” I said. I should feel more about that, but maybe I’d had too much happen, had all the feeling stripped out of me. “Did you want to?”
“No,” he said, too fast, and then, “There’s no need for that. It’s just the appearance. You don’t have to do anything with me, ever again, do you understand? You’re going to be safe. You don’t owe me anything.”
And that wasn’t true. Surely if I owed anyone something it was Khal, and if he made me his wife here…there were too many pieces in play. Khal was making this too simple. But I did feel safe with him, in this random forest inside a mountain.
“Do orcs marry more than one woman?” the path widened, the fungus on the trees glowing slightly.
He was avoiding looking at me. “Only in cases of death, or abandonment.” The soft blue light illuminated the little hairs on the back of his neck.
“But you’re acting like you’re making a life for me here as your wife. You can’t be planning to live the rest of your life with a woman you don’t intend to touch, being alone like some…warrior ascetic.”
“I’m not an animal.” The vines got too thick, and he pulled the blade from his back, started to hack through. “I lived for some time without you. I can live again. And,” he tsked, “it would be a sort of fitting penance, would it not?”
“No,” I mumbled. “But…”
The way ahead had a bit of a ledge, and he climbed upwards, reached to pull me up.
I took his hand. “But you’d want children, wouldn’t you?”
He pulled me up, steadied me with his arm, before quickly dropping it to his side. “There are always other people’s children to love,” he said. His eyes still didn’t meet mine.
“This seems like a terrible deal for you.”
He laughed, the sound tight, tense. “Let’s get the woman I basically kidnapped taken care of, and then we can worry about me, alright, Rowena?” and he had the sound of someone ending a conversation.
The way ahead was a steep drop, some seven feet down. He lowered himself easily over the edge, to jump, and held out his arms. I hesitated, on the edge.
“You’ll be safe,” he said.
I jumped.
The catch was awkward, and he stepped back under the force of me, plastered against him. He set me down. Now I was the one who couldn’t look at him.
What was I doing here?
“Right through here,” he said, and pushed aside a curtain of leaves.
It wasn’t a meadow, because meadows are grassy. Meadows are hay or soft grass or waving tufts of something. But the expanse of ground in front of us, all star-moss and flickering light, ringed in by the gently undulating branches of the willow-like trees, glowed, like a field of fireflies, like a little sea of wildflowers had captured the stars.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured.
“Yes,” he said. And he didn’t say more.
I sunk down into the forest floor, running my fingers over the tiny leaf-like moss, watching the lights glow and change.
