Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (8 page)

“The stream!” Tears spilled down her cheeks, her throat tight. “I went to the stream and the cold air eased my pain.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Highness.” Alviss jerked her toward the great hall. “Or perhaps you enjoy being beaten.”

“Please, my lord, I will do anything—anything that you ask, and the king need never know.”

“A tempting offer, my dear, but I fear your father cannot fail to notice what I would do with you. This way, he might even grant me his blessing.”

She was barely healed. A night on her knees, that was what he should have wanted. But his eyes glinted now with a different kind of lust. He did not dare whip her without the king’s permission. Bruises, her father might overlook, but spilling royal blood—even if that blood was only half-royal—was a greater crime, punishable by death.

“Wait,” she breathed, her stomach twisting.

If they were caught, Bolthorn’s people would never be warned. And there were others who knew where he had been found. The lord who had delivered him to the king would surely see the same opportunity for an army, especially after the king’s death. A chance at the throne, if it was only orcs who died.

“I’ll tell you—no, I’ll show you. Everything.”

He felt her coming before he heard her, just as he had felt her anxiety and pain before that. The ancestor’s doing, all of it, and he did not like to think what it meant. Could not think of it until they were free and safe and beyond the mountain.

She wasn’t alone. A man’s voice, indistinct from beyond the door, and Arianna’s heartbeat, too fast. Gunnar? Or Alviss.

He hoped it was Alviss.

Arianna had left him unchained, that if the king came before she did, he might act. Now, he stepped back behind the swing of the door and waited.

“The king would have you beaten for this,” the man said as the door opened. “He would have us both beaten.”

“If he knew,” Arianna agreed. “But to admit to such a grievous wrong would do you no favors. And the reward is much greater than the risk. Quickly, my lord, before we are seen.”

She stumbled and fell to the stone floor with a cry of shock, and Bolthorn tensed, only holding himself behind the door with effort. If Alviss escaped them, Arianna would suffer for it. They both would.

“I see nothing but a mirror,” the man snarled, shutting the door behind him. Bolthorn’s hands balled into fists. He had seen this man before. In the foothills of the mountains. “No treasure of any kind.”

Arianna lifted her gaze, and Bolthorn met her eyes. “Forgive me,” she whispered.

One step forward and Bolthorn held the man by the throat, lifting him up off the floor. The man landed a sharp kick square against his shin, but Bolthorn only grunted. Alviss’s fingers groped against his, as if he would ever have the strength to pry them loose. Orc hands were built for climbing, for tearing apart stone.

“You should not have touched her,” he said over the lord’s strangled shouts. And then he snapped his neck, the bone parting with a sick pop. So easy to kill when they weren’t caged in steel. He grimaced. “Open the mirror, Princess.”

She struggled to her feet, her face pale as moonlight and her hand groping for the frame. Bolthorn threw Alviss inside with a sneer. No one would find his body there, even if they searched this room they would be no wiser.

“He meant to have me whipped again.” Even her voice trembled as she reached for him. “I wouldn’t have been able to rise from my bed and our escape—he meant to ruin everything.”

Her fingers were ice against his skin, and he caught them up, bringing her hand to his lips. “It does not matter now.”

“We were supposed to go to supper, after. I should have waited but he wouldn’t let me go, wouldn’t even have let me eat.”

“Shh.” He stroked her hair, drawing her against his body. She hid her face in the curve of his shoulder, hot tears stinging against his chest. “He’ll never touch you again, never threaten you. You’re safe.”

“I should have found another way.”

“It was the best way,” he assured her, but she only stiffened in his arms, pushing away.

“I have to go. I have to go to supper or the king will wonder…”

“Let him wonder,” he growled. “Let him search for you, let him find you here and we can be done with all of this.”

She shook her head, brushing her tears from her cheeks with an impatient gesture. “Maybe—maybe after the meal. I’ll try to think of some reason he must come with me. Maybe if he believes Lord Alviss was plotting something.”

“With me,” he said. “Tell your father you saw Alviss enter this room, that he spoke of an army of orcs.”

“But how could he know? No one knows you’re here.”

“Alviss did, and his men. I did not know until tonight, but it was Alviss who brought me to the king.”

She sniffed, her gaze shifting to the mirror, black and still. “Then perhaps it is fitting that Alviss bring the king to you.”

He stroked her cheek. “You need not do this tonight. Morning will be soon enough, and he will come on his own.”

Her mouth firmed, her lips pressed together, and she dragged her eyes back to his. “Tonight. With Alviss dead, it must be tonight.”

She squeezed his hand, and then she was gone.

Arianna paused outside the great hall, pressing her hands to her stomach to smooth the fabric and stop them from shaking. Alviss was dead. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, steadying herself. Bolthorn would have been better at this. She had never seen him so much as tremble, not even after suffering the king’s whip.

The meal had already been served when she entered, and she felt the king’s gaze follow her until she reached her seat. Alone.

“Where’s Lord Alviss?” Isabel asked.

She shook her head, glancing at the king where he sat at the center of the long table. He leaned back in his seat, studying her with hooded eyes.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Forgive me, Father. Lord Alviss kept me and you bade me to obey.”

He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “And Lord Alviss?”

“He said he had to speak with someone.”

“I see.” The king waved a hand and a servant came forward. “The princess is not hungry.”

Her plate was swept away at once, along with her cup and silver. A punishment for arriving without her escort. And just what did he expect her to do? He’d made it plain she was Alviss’s to do with as he pleased—ah. Of course. She was meant to be sure he was pleased to remain at her side.

“I beg an audience, Father.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I should think you had seen enough of me.”

“This is a different matter, Your Highness.”

“Very well, daughter.” He raised his cup. “After the meal.”

She bit her lip and lowered her gaze to her empty place. All she could do now was pray.

The king emptied the hall with a flick of his fingers, ignoring Arianna completely while the tables were cleared. She sat on the edge of her seat, her head down, waiting. Speak only when spoken to, a lesson she had learned at an early age. Even requesting an audience was more than she should have risked. If what she said did not merit the privilege, he would punish her. But not if he didn’t live.

“You were a biddable girl, once,” the king said, when the last of the servants left them. He gestured that she should stand before him and she did so. “Well-mannered and proper. But these last days with Alviss, it has been one failure after another, and now you have made yourself so disagreeable to him that he could not even be bothered to accompany you to supper.”

“Perhaps you granted your favor to the wrong man,” she said, careful to keep all hint of challenge from her voice.

His eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”

Treason would be a fitting end to her…
Had this been his plan all along? To be rid of her and Alviss both? She had not considered it before, but now, standing before him, it seemed all too likely.

“Last night, when he thought I slept, I heard him speaking with another man,” she said, struggling to keep the words even. Her throat tightened, and she cleared it. “He said he meant to raise an army of—of orcs, to march upon us. That he is forging an alliance with them even now. With me as his wife, he believes he can take the throne. And then tonight…”

She glanced up to be certain of his attention. He had not moved, still leaning back in his chair, expressionless but for the hardness of his grey eyes. If she did not do this, did not see him killed first, it was only a matter of time until he rid himself of her. By marriage to Alviss, or some other man intent upon the crown, and then he would behead them both. She cleared her throat again.

“Go on,” he said.

“Tonight, after he had—held me from supper, I saw him go into the tower room. The one you have forbade anyone to enter.”

He let out a breath, more hiss than sigh. “Of course.”

“I believe he is there now, Father.”

The king rose from his seat, catching her chin in his hand and tilting her face up. “Perhaps I misjudged you, my dear.” Then he released her with enough force that she stumbled back. “Only time will tell, I suppose. Come along, then. I shall want you at hand.”

She rubbed the spot over her heart. Bolthorn would be ready and waiting, she reminded herself.

He was good at waiting.

The king. Bolthorn knew his tread upon the stone as well as his own heartbeat by now. And Arianna with him. He pressed himself into the shadows across from the door, flexing his fingers. Gunnar would have his whip, of course, and he always carried a knife beside it on his belt, but Bolthorn had the longer reach and far greater strength. It would be quick and easy once he had hold of him.

Arianna made a soft, strangled sound from the hall, and Bolthorn stiffened, swallowing a growl. The door swung inward slowly, and he narrowed his eyes against the torch light, and what he saw...

The king stood in the doorway, a knife to Arianna’s throat, holding her before him like a shield. “Show yourselves,” Gunnar demanded.

Bolthorn did not move, frozen with his own understanding. Arianna’s eyes were wide, her chin high and her body stiff with fear. And Gunnar meant to spill her blood, to sacrifice his own daughter for the power in her veins.