Page 112 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

But the next day, Katil came out in the morning on her own and Gathren followed her.

Katil seemed to be going to one of the public pumps in the city to fill her water bucket. Gathren wanted to catch her before she got there. It would not do to be an orc standing at a well—a place where people were wont to gather—in the elvish part of town.

So, Gathren felt as if she must show herself, and she did.

Katil looked up at her, eyes wide.

“Please,” said Gathren, holding up both of her hands to show she was not going to try anything, “don’t scream. I mean you no harm.”

Katil let out a whoosh of air.

“Do you remember me?” said Gathren. “My name is—”

“How could I possibly forget?” interrupted Katil. “That day, that day we talked and I said there could be no invasion. Did you know?”

Gathren shook her head. “I did not.”

“But you wouldn’t have told me if you did.”

Gathren knew this was likely true, but the conversation was getting off on the wrong foot. “I mean you no harm, my lady.”

“I’m not a lady, as I told you,” Katil said. “I suppose this is about Iahir.”

Ah, yes, Katil thought she had been Iahir’s lover back at court. “It is.”

“You are here to rescue him?” said Katil. Then she furrowed her brow. “Wait a moment, are you the reason he did it?”

Gathren sighed heavily.

“That’s rather romantic, isn’t it?” Katil peered off into the distance.

“You did not seem happy at court,” said Gathren. “And now, you seem… well, if you would help me free him, I could help you get somewhere else. Iahir has connections in Cirlahir, I think. Maybe there is something that could be done for you.”

Katil raised her eyebrows. “Oh, by the rosy fingers of the dawn, me? Help free Iahir?”

“I know it is a lot to ask, but you can come and go freely in the house. I don’t know where he is being kept, but if you could but leave a door open for him or something of that manner?”

Katil only gaped at her.

“Perhaps you leave a door open so I can get in, and that is all,” said Gathren, recalculating everything.

“I don’t know where he’s being kept either,” said Katil. “But I can find out. Can we meet tomorrow here? I can tell you what I’ve discovered. I do not know if I can be part of a mad escape plan, but…” She laughed softly. “Perhaps.” She looked Gathren up and down. “It is rather romantic, the two of you.”

“Oh, yes, it’s abundantly romantic how often I am saving his life,” muttered Gathren.

Katil laughed. “I don’t think he deserves you.”

“He definitely doesn’t,” said Gathren.

32

IAHIR HAD HARDLY decided to pick up the pen when the door to his room opened again. He looked up, expecting Kinsahad, and said, “That was very quick.”

But it was not Kinsahad, it was a disheveled looking female servant.

“Apologies,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.”

Upon further inspection, she was not actually a servant at all. He remembered from court. She was Findas’s distant cousin or something, and he remembered rumors of her being passed around in men’s spaces late at night—no one fucked her, but they did things to her, things that had ruined her, and this was likely why she was being treated this way now.