Svein was already — nodding. Nodding, and even bouncing up and down. And his expression was pure relief, and joy, and sheer contagious excitement, sparkling in his eyes, drawing his stunning grin across his mouth.
“You will?” he asked Gaelfr, his voice a squeak. “You’ll really stay, and help us?”
Gaelfr betrayed a glance up toward Raye’s face, but then set his jaw and nodded, his hand still over his heart. “Ach, my son,” he said, so low and heavy it rumbled through Raye’s chest. “I shall help you, and guard you, with all my strength, until Kalfr returns. I swear this to you, before the goddess.”
It again dragged Raye’s memories back to that long-ago moment when Kalfr had knelt before her, and made that vow to their goddess. As if the vow was something precious, something sacred, that could never be undone.
But Raye still should have refused it. She should have shouted at Gaelfr, and told him he had no damned right to invade her house, and make vows to her son. And Svein washerson, not Gaelfr’s, Gaelfr hadn’t been here a single day in Svein’slife—
Maybe Gaelfr had caught Raye’s disapproval, whether in her face or her scent, because he rose to his feet again, and bowed his head toward her. “I shall now go hunt some game for our supper,” he told her. “Bar the door whilst I am gone, and start a fire, also.”
Raye bristled beneath the order — Gaelfr wasnotin charge here, and did he really think she had to be told to bar the door? While beside her, Svein cast a worried look toward the fireplace, which was currently devoid of a single stick of kindling, and Gaelfr followed Svein’s gaze, his jaw spasming in his cheek.
“I shall fetch firewood first, then,” he said, with an unreadable glance toward Raye. “Wait here, and I will return soon.”
With that, he rustled his hand against Svein’s hair, and strode out the cottage door without a single look back. Leaving Raye to first stare blankly at the closed door behind him, and then to belatedly stagger over to secure it — just as he’d ordered her, gods curse him.
“Is it true, Mama?” came Svein’s quiet voice, as Raye turned back around, and sagged against the closed door. “That orc is my Papa, too?”
Raye took a deep, dragging breath, pressing her palms to her closed eyes. “I… I know it’s true that he’s Kalfr’s bond-brother,” she replied, her voice dull. “The rest of it…”
She couldn’t finish, couldn’t begin to find a way through this mess, and Svein’s head tilted, his nostrils sniffing at the empty air before him. “Hesmellsright,” he said, though his voice was uncertain. “Like… likeme.”
Raye couldn’t hide her grimace, or her harsh exhale. “He’s from the same clan as Kalfr,” she replied, with more certainty than she felt. “The Bautul. I’m sure that would affect such things.”
Svein didn’t look convinced, his nostrils still flaring, and in truth, Raye wasn’t convinced, either. Because what had Gaelfr said, that horrible long-ago night?This woman shall now always reek of me. Of us.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Svein asked, his voice small. “How I had another Papa?”
Raye’s eyes briefly closed, and she fought down the overwhelming urge to start shouting, to curse Gaelfr to hell and back. To tell Svein that this enraging orc wasn’t his father, hewasn’t…
But — that hopefulness, still shimmering in Svein’s eyes. The relief. The joy. And he’d gone hungry because of her, he’d been trying to protect her, and what the hell was she supposed to do now?
“I… never knew Gaelfr,” Raye finally replied, through gritted teeth. “I didn’t know he…”
Considered himself your father, she might well have said, as more bitter awareness struck through her thoughts. Because maybe shehadknown that, after that awful night in the garden — but she’d only ever seen it as a threat, hadn’t she? As a waiting horrifying loss, forever hanging over her head. It truly had never once occurred to her that it could mean something like this.I shall stay. I shall help you, with all my strength.
But — no. Surely it was all still a ruse, a plot. Gaelfr was probably already planning to kidnap Svein, or to run off to meet his fellow warriors, to attack. She needed to pull herself together, needed to lock Gaelfr out of the cottage forever, and…
“Oh, he’s back!” Svein exclaimed, scampering excitedly toward the side window. And once he’d lifted the paper withhis claws, Raye could see that Gaelfr had indeed reappeared. Striding out from the nearby forest carrying a huge armload of wood, and dragging what appeared to be a small fallentreebehind him.
Raye drifted closer to the window too, watching as Gaelfr dropped all the wood beside her usual chopping block, and then slung off his fur cloak, and set it aside. Revealing the sudden, alarming sight of his broad bare back and shoulders, criss-crossed by the thick leather straps that held his huge, gleaming axe.
Raye’s throat convulsed, and she cast an uneasy glance down at Svein beside her, who was still watching with rapt interest. “He’s going to chop the wood for us, Mama,” he said, in a far-too-loud whisper. “Look!”
But Raye was already looking again, watching as Gaelfr stood up multiple large pieces of wood on the block, and drew the massive axe off his back. And with a swift, impossibly graceful motion, the axe flashed down through the air, and splintered the wood apart.
“Wow!” Svein breathed, and Raye fought back the curses jostling in her throat, and the whispering shame, too. Yes, she could chop wood herself, but she’d never found it an easy job, and splitting multiple pieces at once like this would have been a distant laughable fantasy. And now this infuriating invasive orc was just —doingit, stacking the cut wood neatly on the ground beside him, and piling up more on the block.
Again, Raye should have stopped it. Should have rushed out there, and ordered Gaelfr to go away, and never come back. She should have at least pulled Svein away from the window, and clung to her dignity and her pride.
But instead, she just stood there. Watching as Gaelfr’s huge axe swung down again and again, the muscles shifting in his back, his rich grey skin now gleaming with a sheen of sweat.Raye could see the multiple scars across his back, now, too, lines and gouges marked in light and dark, rippling with every strike of his axe. And she fought not to think of how they’d gotten there, how many battles he’d fought in, how many men he’d killed during that war. He was dangerous.Deadly.
Gaelfr didn’t stop until he’d cut up every last piece of wood, and chopped up some kindling, too. Only then did he glance toward the window, catching Raye’s gaze — and her stomach churned with the awareness that he’d known they were watching him all that time, gods damn him.
But he didn’t speak, or come back to the cottage. Instead, he jerked a purposeful nod toward the pile of wood and kindling, and swung the axe onto his shoulder. And without another look back, he strode off into the forest again, leaving the wood behind him.
It was as good as another order, shouted back toward them, but suddenly Raye felt so tired, so empty and defeated. What Gaelfr had just done would have taken her an entire afternoon, and she couldn’t be so proud and foolish as to refuse to make a fire to feed her precious son. Could she?
