Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Slaves. She leaned against Isolfur’s shoulder to steady herself. Bolthorn and the Vid-Gythja were speaking, but she couldn’t focus on the words. Vanadis had meant for her to enslave her own people? All she could hear was Asvi’s voice, dismissive and cool.
They’re just humans.

Humans, to be Persuaded into destroying themselves, like so much blackrock. But even the blackrock had more choice than a slave. Bolthorn had showed her that, when he’d failed to start his fire in the passage. If they were bound to her will, they wouldn’t even be free enough to refuse. And she had agreed to try. To be the same tool, again. And to think she had thought herself free of the king’s cruelty. How his spirit must be laughing at her, now.

Isolfur curved his neck back to reach her, his breath warm against her cheek. She rested her hand against his nose, velvet beneath her fingers. He whickered softly. The brook horse had brought Fossegrim news of Vanadis and Ingvifreyr. Surely he could do the same now? It must be important. How often had she heard Fossegrim grumble, wishing he understood what Vanadis intended? He and Bolthorn had discussed it over and over again, but neither of them had ever suggested something like this.

“Go to Fossegrim,” she said. “Tell him what Vanadis meant for me. Kick down his door if you have to.”

Isolfur tossed his head, shifting out from beneath her hand and sidestepping toward the spring.

“Pity he cannot bring us word back as easily,” Bolthorn said behind her. “Fossegrim will know how best to act in this, but your people are safe, Arianna. Vanadis cannot use you to enslave them if she cannot find you, and even if she does, we are bound now. Not even the Vid-Gothi would dare part us.”

“No Vidthursar would stand for it,” the Gythja agreed. “But I would see you marked before it comes to that, with your bond and your clan. They cannot say she is not orc once it is done.”

Bolthorn touched her arm, and she turned to face him. “Are you willing?” he asked. “I had hoped we would have time—before you accept the clan marks, you should know. My people may not take me back as Gothi, Princess. It will not be the life I had hoped to give you.”

“Has any of this been what we hoped for?”

Bolthorn’s jaw clenched, and she caressed his cheek to take the sting from her words, hoping he saw her meaning. She did not blame him for what had happened. Not even Fossegrim had understood what Vanadis wanted, how could Bolthorn have known? But it sickened her, all the same. All the things Vanadis had said, all her false sympathy when Arianna spoke of the king, and she had meant to use her in the same way, all along. No, none of this was as they had hoped it would be.

“Whether you are Gothi or not, you are still Hrimthursar. That is the life I chose, to be Hrimthursar with you. Better to have it done with all at once, and now, before Vanadis thinks to use it against us.”

“Human or orc, she will make a fine Hrim-Gythja, Bolthorn. Your people are not so rime-addled that they will not see it.”

He grunted, covering her hand with his, and turning his face to kiss her palm. “I am unworthy of such a wife.”

Arianna flushed at the warmth in his eyes and the graze of his tusks against her skin. When he released her hand, the curve of his lips promised more. She ached for it. For the distraction of his love, to wash away all thought of the rest.

“There is a cave not far from here that will shelter you,” the Gythja said. “I will take you there, and then return to the village to gather supplies. Both for the marking and a meal or two.”

“Thank you, Menja,” Bolthorn said, not taking his eyes from Arianna’s until she burned so hot she was certain the snow must melt around her feet. “Perhaps some blankets, too, if you can spare them.”

If she couldn’t, Arianna felt sure they would make do.

When Menja returned to the small cave with her tools and pigments, Arianna was still glowing, her body relaxed and her smile easy. It was not only for his pleasure or hers. Bolthorn still remembered his first marking well enough to know Arianna would need all the peace he could give her for hers. It would not take her pain away, but perhaps it would dull the start of it.

Menja was deft, but it was not a process that could be rushed. The black clan markings came first, arching over her eyebrow from the center of her forehead to her temple, then curling across her cheekbone to the bridge of her nose. Hrimthursar were marked on the right side of their faces, Vidthursar on the left, the patterns of both speaking clearly of bloodline, clan, birth order, and even accomplishments. With a glance, Bolthorn could tell a Hrimthursar warrior from a hunter from a miner simply by the marks on his face and body. The scarred and tattered tattoo over his own heart marked him as Gothi, in service to his people. One day, perhaps, Arianna would be marked as Gythja in the same manner, though he did not wish it on her.

She lay on her back, her eyes shut and her hands balled into fists so tight he would not have been surprised if her palms bled. Menja knelt at her head, working carefully, every line of her body bent to the task. Bolthorn paced, feeling an echo of her pain in the marks on his face. Arianna did not so much as whimper, but tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, quickly blotted by Menja. If only she had let him ease her pain through the bond they shared, but he would not, could not deny her the right to prove her strength and courage.

It was torment to watch her suffer and do nothing, worse even than when Vanadis had stolen her, for at least then he had been able to act, to search, and he had known her safe and well. He growled and turned away.

Menja sighed. “You only make it more difficult for her by fussing this way. She twitches with every grunt and groan.”

“Forgive me,” he murmured, more to Arianna than to the Gythja.

I am orc, Bolthorn. I will survive.

His head jerked at the words, and he stared at her, lying there with her lips pressed together, her face white where it was not bleeding. Did she realize? He wasn’t certain she had before, and then he had been sure it was the quartz lending him the power to reach her. But their bond was strong. It had been so before she had made herself his wife, and even stronger now that he had returned the vow. He should have realized it was not only the quartz.

Bolthorn knelt beside her, taking her hand. “Do you remember when I painted your face?”

Her eyes opened, meeting his, and he brought her hand to his face, guiding her fingers to the same patterns Menja carved through her skin.

“You will bear the same marks now, but in black instead of umber. I painted you then as Hrimthursar.”
And as my wife.

Her eyes widened and Menja clucked her tongue, chiding whatever movement she’d betrayed.
Oh!

He chuckled and kissed her palm. “Oh, indeed.”

Perhaps it was only in these moments of strain, when naturally they would reach to one another for comfort. Finding the way blocked, their hearts had found another. He pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart.
My love.

She let out a breath, her fingers pressing hard into his skin. Her heart sped beside his, and he saw the smile in her eyes that she did not dare offer while Menja worked, tapping the needle against her skin.
I love you.

When Menja had finished, Arianna glowed again, even through her pain. Not only with love, though he recognized that too, but with pride.

“I am orc, now,” she said. “I am Hrimthursar, with you.”

Her face
hurt
. Stinging and itching and worse. She stood at the mouth of the cave and let the cold wind numb her skin, for the Gythja had forbidden her to touch it at all. Bolthorn had tipped her chin up, his gaze sweeping over her face as though he did not see her beneath it, and nodded, then taken his own place after. She bit her lip and rubbed the mark on her wrist against the rough wool of the cloak.

Arianna
, Bolthorn chided in the back of her mind. She turned to see him watching her, his lips curving. He had only to receive the marks of their binding on his neck and wrist, and when the needle touched his skin, he did not so much as blink. It was not the first time she had wondered how thick orc hide might be, for even in the cold he did not shiver in his linen tunic and leather trousers. At least he wore boots, though they did not look half so warm as her own.

She sighed and held out her wrist to the wind’s mercy as well. It helped a little, but watching the Gythja tap the black ash into Bolthorn’s skin made her own marks itch all the worse. Nobody had warned her about the itching. But maybe the orcs didn’t feel it to know.

“Will you and your bride honor my hearth, Hrim-Gothi,” the Gythja asked, “now that you are marked?”

The Gythja had moved on to his wrist, and his fingers twitched with the first prick of the needle. Arianna pressed her lips together to keep from smiling, but Bolthorn flashed his tusks, no doubt recognizing her amusement at his expense. Even if he did not see it in her face, he would have known it in his heart.

And it had been him, all that time. Not just the memory of his words, but his voice, his thoughts speaking to hers. How could she have believed him dead when he spoke to her? But she had not known it was possible, then. It hardly seemed possible now. And yet, when she already felt his heartbeat, why should she not be capable of reaching his thoughts?

“I think the cave will serve us better,” Bolthorn said. “I do not wish to tempt the Vid-Gothi or the council.”

“You cannot think of climbing the mountain before the sun rises,” the Gythja said.

“It will be more than a week, still,” Arianna said. “Vanadis could be hunting us even now, and the Gothi already knows Bolthorn is here. Where else would I be, but with him? Whatever threat the mountain offers, I think we must risk it.”

“It is not just the cold, Arianna,” he warned. “The track is steep, made even more treacherous by ice. It is no easy climb even with the sun. Worse by far than what it took to reach the passage.”

She still remembered clinging to his back, terrified of the fall. A hand placed wrong was all it might have taken. A slip of his foot on the stone—stone that would be coated with ice, now. She swallowed against her fear. The image of her mother, suspended over the wall, hanging for just a moment, and then gone.

“I would rather fall down the mountain in the dark than serve Vanadis.”

He grunted, his gaze shifting to the Gythja. “We go on tomorrow, Menja, but you have our thanks.”

The Gythja finished with his wrist, but her frown did not fade while she put her tools away. “Then I will pray that the Ancestors keep you both safe.”

Arianna turned her face back to the wind, letting the cold air sooth the sting of her cheek, and tried to ignore the way her stomach twisted. But this was the best way, the only way forward now, and once they reached the Hrimthursar, they would be safe. Or at least safer than they were among Vanadis’s blood, no matter how kind the Gythja was.

They had to go on.

“It will be good to see my brother,” Bolthorn admitted, coming to stand behind her after the Gythja had left them to return to the village. He kissed her neck and his breath made her shiver. “It will be good to bring you home.”