Eft was giving a regretful-looking grimace, but didn’t reply, and Kesst again glanced around the room, at the silent sleeping orcs in their beds. “Or maybe you can just fuck with their brains,” he said, his voice wavering. “Or ruin their lungs, or destroy their eyesight, or…”
And suddenly there was the horrifying vision of Kesst’s own words, his own tale, the words he’d spat into Skald’s blank eyes.Boils that oozed and festered. Spasms that weakened his hands and feet. Darkness that clouded his sight…
Cold, brittle terror was clawing up Kesst’s back — had he seen that, had heknown— and with it was more awareness, more certainty, striking him like a blow straight across the face.
Thiswas why Grimarr had brought Eft here.Thiswas the secret plan. Eft hadn’t come to heal the orcs. He’d come to weaken them. Tokillthem.
I have searched, Grimarr had told Kesst,for a human assassin to hire. This healer may alter all. It is only now that I…
And gods, how had Kesst possibly missed it, with hints as obvious as those? How had he never put it together? Never thought to ask?
And of course he knew Grimarr was a paranoid secretive bastard, he’d accepted that fact long ago… but Eft? Eft had never said. Never hinted. Not once.
Suddenly Kesst felt dizzy and sick all over, and nearly about to vomit, right here on this dank little room’s floor. Of course Eft hadn’t told him such a crucial plan. Kesst was tainted, weak, compromised.Ruined. And Eft knew that, Eft had always known that — and yes, he might still fool around with Kesst, take his pleasure with a pretty, willing tart, like any orc would. But he was never going to actually confide in Kesst, or see him as an equal. Not after everything Kesst had done.
And far too late, Kesst realized that both Grimarr and Eft were looking at him, and that was because — he dragged his palm against his eye — because he was almost fucking weeping. He was standing here and weeping, because gods, he’d thought Eft — he’d thought — he’d —
And that was pity, oh gods, pity and regret in their eyes, all over their scents. Because they knew how pathetic Kesst was, how he’d do anything for some kind words and a nice cock, when in truth they saw him just like Skald did, just like Ofnir had. A needy, greedy, silly, foolish wench. A waste.
“Hey,” Eft was saying now, his voice so thin, his mouth contorting. “Kesst. We need to talk, all right? I would still — if you still want to run, you should, and maybe we could —”
But Kesst was already shaking his head, and stumbling backwards, away, away. “No need to bother,” he managed, “thinking about me, or what I might want, hmmm? Why don’t you two just continue plotting, making all your secret plans, with all your secret skills. And I’ll take myself well out of your way, and wait for Skald to come find me, like the ruined coward I am!”
Eft’s eyes had widened, his mouth again twisting, his head shaking — but Kesst knew the truth now, he did, he did. This was it. This was the fate he’d made for himself. Weak. Used. Destroyed. Drowning in his sins.
And without waiting for a reply, he whirled around and dashed away, alone, deep into the mountain’s deadly darkness.
16
Kesst ended up in yet another tiny room, in another dank corner of Ka-esh hell.
It was a room that was far too familiar, a room that had consumed far too many of his formative years. A room that had long ago been set up like a human’s, with a dusty human bed, a faded human tapestry, and even a small, rocking human cradle.
Kesst had never known how his mother had found this room, or how she’d become so attached to it — but it had somehow become her refuge, her escape. A place well out of the way, a place where Ash-Kai like his father — and like Kaugir — wouldn’t often come. The air too thick, the scents too turgid, for the Ash-Kai who were accustomed to living and ruling at the very top of the mountain.
But being human, Kesst’s mother had never noticed the scents, or the thickness of the air. So Kesst had borne it, choked on it, so he could stay here with her, and tell her the tales she’d loved. Tales of lords and princesses, of love known and won, of happy endings, of peace.
And if she’d wept while Kesst had told her his tales, he’d learned to never falter, to never show pity or grief. To keep the smile pasted to his face, to keep his voice easy and light. To be the escape she’d wanted, the relief she’d so desperately craved.
But in this moment, this dark suffocating emptiness, there was no way to cover the grief, or the shame. No way to stop the sobs from escaping, and tearing out of his clogged, miserable throat, as he buried his face in the musty old bed.
Gods, how had he done this, again? How had he thrown all his hope, all his desperate loneliness, onto one stubborn impossible orc? Why had he ever thought he’d deserved even a glimmer of peace or happiness, after all he’d done?
And he’d done so damned much. Not only with Eft — not only throwing that target upon him when he hadn’t deserved it — but with all these years of placating, of ingratiating, of lying. Of craving the safety, and yes, maybe even the power and status, too. Wanting to be desired, and valued, and protected. Cared for.
But in that, what had he become? What had it made him, when he’d again and again made that choice to smile, to beg, to step closer? To freely flaunt his body and his hunger? To make himself into the needy, greedy minion his oppressors had wanted? To become yet another means of displaying their strength, their superiority, their cruelty?
He was a coward. He was. And of course Eft had seen it, and known it, and called it exactly what it was. And of course a brilliant, upstanding orc like Eft didn’t want any part of that. He’d seen Kesst’s sins. He’d known.
But gods, it had been good. So good. Better than Grimarr, better than any of the dozens — or likely hundreds — of orcs Kesst had taken his pleasures with. And it was still so damned strong, that scent still here on his cock and his mouth, still swarming his breath. Almost as if — as if —
“Hey,” said a voice, a too-familiar, too-painful voice — and when Kesst flailed around on the bed to look, his heart thundering in his chest, it was —
Eft. Eft, here, in this room, reaching out his hand, and then pulling it back again. Like he was… reluctant. Regretful.
And it was too much, too much, and Kesst frantically flopped back onto the bed, burying his face back into his arm. “You don’t need to bother,” he gulped. “You can just go back to your grand plans, and your artery-ripping, and whatever the hell else you haven’t told me. And” — he dragged in another breath — “don’t worry, I’ll still get myself out of your way, once I’ve got my cowardly rubbish dealt with. And you won’t need to — you don’t need to —”
Think of me again, he was supposed to say, but instead the words choked into something thick and shameful, something too much like a sob. And gods, he was lying here like the weak waste he was, weeping into a bed that still scented of his mother, when she’d been dead for half his damned life.
