Page 27 of Built Orc Tough
And now we’re laughing again. Together. Like idiots who maybe, just maybe, enjoy each other’s chaos more than we’re willing to admit.
The festival’s gonna be a disaster, and I’m suddenly not dreading it one bit.
CHAPTER 12
GORRAN
The scent of rosewood clings to my hands like memory. Sweet. Persistent. A little too delicate for someone like me. Ivy says it’s good for calming nerves, that people use it in bath oils and those fancy candles she hoards like they’re sacred relics. I wouldn’t know. The closest I’ve come to peace smells more like blood and burnt earth.
But I’m trying.
We’re both elbow-deep in marigolds and snapdragons, crafting a centerpiece for Miss Lyria’s upcoming tea lecture, which is apparently a thing that draws a crowd in Elderbridge. Ivy calls it “floral diplomacy.” I call it hiding in plain sight.
“Careful with the base,” Ivy murmurs, brushing past me to nudge the stems. Her fingers barely graze mine, but it’s enough to ground me. “The angle’s off. Unless you’re aiming for tragic asymmetry, which, honestly, might be your aesthetic.”
I grunt. Not because I’m annoyed, but because if I start smiling every time she says something that ridiculous, she’ll never stop.
She squints at me, hands on her hips. “That was almost a smirk.”
“It was not.”
“Don’t lie. Your eyebrow did the thing.”
I shake my head. “You’re imagining things.”
“Mmm, the eyebrow never lies.”
She grins, smug and bright and maddeningly beautiful in a way that makes me want to wrap her in chainmail just to keep the world from touching her.
I focus on the bouquet. One stem at a time. Snapdragon, a bold yellow, then a single deep violet one near the edge, like a bruise trying to fade. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped moving until she speaks again, softer this time.
“Hey,” she says, not joking now. “You good?”
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I never know how to answer that question.
“I ever tell you about Varkess?” I ask, voice low.
She tilts her head. “That the arena you fought in?”
I nod. “First one. Was barely seventeen. Got sold out of a pit market by someone who called herself my aunt. Said I was too big to be useless and too quiet to be missed.”
I hear her breath catch, but she doesn’t interrupt. Just listens, eyes wide but not pitying. Thank gods.
“They shaved our heads and burned our old names. Called us by numbers. Mine was Fourteen. I didn’t even get a real weapon the first few fights—just my fists and a sack of rocks they called a training tool.”
I keep working as I talk. Snapdragon. Heather. Daffodil. It helps, somehow. Like building something alive might stitch together what’s broken.
“There was a man. Drel. Older. Missing an ear and half his left hand. He taught me how to survive. Not win—survive. He said winning was for people who still had something to prove.”
“What happened to him?” Ivy’s voice is small. Like she’s afraid she already knows.
“Killed by a crowd favorite in a blood duel,” I say, steady. “Didn’t flinch when they called his name. Said he’d rather die on his feet than keep selling his soul for cheap cheers.”
She’s quiet for a long time.
When I finally look up, her hands are still, and her expression is unreadable. For once, the sarcasm’s gone, the mask dropped. What’s left is just…her.
“I hated the noise,” I say. “The screaming. The chanting. The fire and drums and the smell of sweat and terror. They said it was glory. Felt more like rot. Like something festering under the skin.”
