Thalya sat upon a flat-topped rock and dangled her bare feet in the cold water. Having seen the pool in the day’s fading light, she knew it was shallow and held no mysteries, but it was easy to imagine different now as she stared into the black, rippling surface made depthless by the night. She looked up, searching again for the glimmer of stars across the roiling tapestry above her, but there were none to be found. The only light came from the insistent silver glow of the moon, pressed tight against the back of the clouds.
Her eyes fell to the men, still gathered around a small fire nestled back against the trees on the far side of the pool. Their conversation was too low to overhear at this distance, but even from here she could read the determination in every gesture made by the Sil’ath warriors. She watched Amric in particular, asking questions and inhaling the answers. The burning intensity in his features both drew and repelled her. Her father had developed such unrelenting focus later in his life, when he became convinced that the fate of the world rested upon his actions, and the change had confused and frightened her as a child. In later years, it had merely saddened her. So she studied Amric with an involuntary tightening of her skin, waiting for the signs she should have seen earlier in Drothis.
Syth glanced over at her many times, as he had been doing since she left the campfire in silence to sit here, alone by the water. She smiled and pretended not to see. Now and again she felt the weight of Bellimar’s eyes upon her, but each time she snapped up to meet that unholy gaze with her own promise and hatred, she found him instead with head turned, seemingly engrossed by the conversation at hand, and the sensation faded. She glared a few extra seconds at him each time, but somehow she doubted he found her stare quite as unnerving. Irritated, she reached up in response to the nagging itch of the scabs and welts upon her face and then caught herself. She let her hand drop once more; they would heal in good time, and she would only make it worse and risk infection by scratching at the wounds.
At the fire, Halthak pushed himself to his feet and stretched. She knew in an instant that it was more than the nonchalant gesture he would have it seem. Sure enough, his craggy countenance lifted to send a tentative smile in her direction. He started toward her, picking his way over the rocks at the edge of the pool. When he reached her, he shifted from one foot to the other, his gnarled hand kneading upon the equally gnarled ironwood staff he always bore with him.
“May I join you?” he asked.
“Well, this rock is mine,” she responded. “But I am still saving to purchase the others.”
He blinked at her, and she sighed. She tried again, this time simply giving an encouraging smile and gesturing for him to take a seat. He settled cross-legged next to her, cradling one end of the staff in the crook of his arm while he swirled the tapered end in the water. He did not say anything, seeming content to sit in silence.
She cleared her throat. “So I see you grew bored of the strategy talk as well.”
“They lost me early on,” he admitted. “I really only wanted to hear what became of the other Sil’ath. They were all wounded in their escape from Stronghold, and one of them, Varek, succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter. They were set upon by those black creatures, and only these two were able to fight their way free. Prakseth and Garlien were taken to that strange hive we saw in the distance, and Innikar and Sariel have been recuperating and trying to get close enough to the hive to rescue them.”
“I know,” Thalya said. “I was at the campfire as the tale was recounted.” She winced at the unintended impatience in her tone.
“Oh,” the Half-Ork mumbled. “Of course you were. I am sorry.”
“No,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “The need for apology is mine. I am not very good with people. I am afraid it was not among my father’s priorities when he trained me to hunt Bellimar.”
He responded with a pinched smile, his tusks protruding at the corners of his broad mouth. “It is not a skill of mine, either. Too many see my features and reach conclusions that cannot be undone by mere words.”
“You are certainly unlike any other Ork that I have seen,” she remarked.
“I am not an Ork,” he said with quiet heat. Then he flashed her a sheepish look. “But I know I owe more of my appearance to that part of my lineage than to my human side, even if I have no taste for war.”
“If you have no taste for war, I’d say that makes you uncommon as either Ork or human, Halthak. From my experience, civilization is a thin veneer at best for either race.”
Halthak chuckled, drawing the tip of his staff through the damp sand at the water’s edge. “Perhaps you are right. Still, I would prefer to be normal like the rest of you, and not caught between two unwelcome halves.”
Thalya burst out laughing and clapped a hand over her own mouth to stifle the sound, lest she draw unwanted attention to their perch from the denizens of the desert below. The baffled look in the Half-Ork’s eyes only made her shake with laughter all the harder.
“Which of us normal folk would you be like, Halthak?” she said when she could safely speak again. “Syth, who is half human like yourself and yet also has a volatile pure elemental half to his nature? Perhaps Amric, born human but a Sil’ath in all but flesh? Would you trade fates with Bellimar the Damned, caught between the worlds of life and death? Even I, raised among my kind, was held apart by circumstance. Those two Sil’ath warriors over there are probably the most normal among us, and they follow a human warmaster despite their kind’s fabled aversion to other races. None of us truly belong, for one reason or another. We are all misfits. And yet here we are, striving for what is in each of our hearts. What’s more, if Amric is to be believed, this group of misfits might well save this undeserving world.”
Halthak stared at her with wide eyes, and snapped his mouth shut after a moment.
“I think you are better with people than you are aware, Thalya,” he said in a soft voice. He held out one knobby hand. “May I?”
She cocked her head at him, uncertain what he meant. In truth, her own words had shaken her a bit; the revelation still resonated in her mind, plucking at deep-rooted threads of pain within her like a hand brushing at the strings of some dusty instrument and marveling to find it still in perfect tune. Distracted, she slipped her hand into his, feeling the creases and calluses of his pebbled flesh. The suffusion of warmth that followed stole her breath in a gasp.
The Half-Ork’s earnest expression cracked and darkened before her astonished eyes. His thick lip split in several places, and various welts and bruises sprang into existence on his whiskered face. With a start, she recognized them as mirrors to her own injuries. Even as the realization dawned, the marks shrunk and vanished from his features, and in seconds they were gone as if they had never been. Thalya felt the heat subside in her own face, and her free hand rose of its own volition to explore the now unbroken skin of her face. The wounds were gone, the sting and itch no more than a memory. The blooming warmth of Halthak’s magic withdrew, and he released her hand with a gentle squeeze. Rising to his feet, he walked back to the others, leaving her sitting there with her hand on her cheek.
Syth stood before Halthak reached the guttering campfire, and he passed the healer with a speculative look. He hopped lightly from rock to rock, and then spun to a seat beside her in a cool wash of air. He wore a boyish grin as he turned to her, seemingly prepared to share some latest bit of mischief, when suddenly he froze.