Page 27 of Orc's Pride

Doesn’t he see?

My family survived experiments and starvation and untold cruelty, but they couldn’t survive me.

“I was a fool. I thought the orcs might kill us, too.”

Pitha’s hand tightens on mine. “Orcs have been known to do that, from time to time. How could you have known otherwise?”

By being patient. By watching, waiting.

“I led my own family into the woods, where the surviving dark elves hid.”

Moonlight had lit our path out of the foreboding dark elf buildings and into the forests surrounding them. Fire burned unchecked as the orcs drove the dark elves from the village and destroyed their monsters.

All I could hear were war cries and hoofbeats as the orcs overran the elves. Humans and elves alike lie dead on the ground. But shouldn’t I have known the dark elves would choose to take us with them into death, instead of allowing us to escape?

Couldn’t I see that they’d been cut down with fancy jeweled daggers instead of broadswords or battle axes?

I hadn’t spared them more than a fearful glance.

“They killed my father first, as he turned to warn us.” I can still see the silver gleam of the dagger in the moonlight as it pierced his throat from behind. He’d been mid-shout. “Then my mother. I made it back to the edge of the forest with my sister, but…”

I’m sobbing too hard to speak.

My mother is dead.

My father is dead.

My sister is dead.

And here I am, alive and crying about it.

Grief threatens to spill into rage—that’s usually how I handle this. Overwhelming self-hatred, a nice dose ofwhat have you done—but Pitha refuses to let me succumb to it.

He pulls me fully into his lap, shushing me, and the rage peels away like a thin scab, revealing the grief it’s held back for so long. It should be embarrassing, how tightly I cling to him. I haven’t cried like this since I was a child and our pet rabbit was eaten by wolves.

“I can’t…”

“Shhh.”

He doesn’t tell me it’s okay, or that I’m safe, or that everything will work out for the best. That my family is in a better place now, or that I did the best I could.

Pitha lets me cry, and he’s implacable in the face of my grief.

Immovable.

13

Pitha

Idon’t have much in my kitchen. Usually I travel to the cafeteria whenever I need a meal. But I try my best to make Dana something to eat, fussing around in the pantry until I produce some bread and fruit.

It’s not much, but she looks wan after crying for so long. Her eyes are rimmed with red and swollen, and just looking at her makes me fidget. I might not be able to make her feel better, but I can feed her, at least.

Out of nowhere, a memory of my mother threatens to overwhelm me. I can see her in the bed, plain as day, sobbing. Broken.

Enough.

Dana is nothing like my mother. She’s strong, stronger than most people I’ve met. I just want to make her feel better for a while. To help her step outside of her closed shell for a night, before she locks herself back in.