Page 44 of The Orc Chief's Baker
Of course they were. It was nearly the end of the day.
But she certainly wasn’t going to let that stop her. Because the only other option was to face the end of herlifeas she knew it.
She turned on her heel to run down along the wall, to the crack in the base she used to slip through as a child. She foundit by muscle memory and tried to shove her way inside without thinking.
The space was so much smaller than she’d realized, but she pushed on without care. Brittle branches tore at her clothes and cut into her arms. One slashed her cheek, and she swiped at it, cursing at the stinging the action caused. Her hand came back wet with blood.
Her body was zinging with fury, and her mind was desperate for escape. She clawed her way through, and the branches gave into her demands, breaking apart to make room.
She burst out on the other side. Out of the village and into the night.
She set a bruising clip into the woods, uncaring where she went. Undaunted by the dark and chill. The snow crunched under her feet and soaked into her leather shoes. Shoes that had not been made by Ronhold. She’d never once given him her business. She’d never wanted anything to do with him or his high prices or his ruthless ways.
And now he was going to take control of her mother’s bakery.
Of herlife.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
“Fuck you, Ronhold!” she screamed into the night as her steps slowed. Her lungs were giving out, but her fury had only just begun. “You and your worthless, whiny son! And fuck you Yerina! I hope you choke on that worthless selfishness of yours!”
If she hadn’t stolen all those pans, if she had justhelpedaround the bakery like she was supposed to, perhaps Trinia would have been able to make enough profit to trade back the bakery.
If only she hadn’t given away so much free bread.
If only she hadn’t spent so much time on worthless house plans.
If only she could work faster and better and...
And if only Brovdir, the new chief of Rove Wood, hadn’t cut her off so completely, he might have been able to help her.
It wasn’t rational. She knew that. But the anger gripped her nonetheless.
“Curse you too, Brovdir! None of this would have happened if you’d just traded with me!”
She screamed, as loud as she possibly could. So loud that the Fades themselves would wake from their slumber. So loud that her rage bloomed into the woods and shook the ground under her feet.
No, the ground under her feetactuallyshook.
Trinia’s scream broke off as she looked down. The snowy ground wasrippling. There was an odd roaring sound.
And then the surface of the groundripped open.
Her stomach plunged.
And her whole body plunged with it as she fell into the dark icy depths.
Chapter
Twelve
BROVDIR
“We can dig pits and line the bottom with spikes. We’ll dig them all around the whole clan. I think two of your lengths deep will work fine.”
Brovdir’s skin went chill at the elderly orc’s words. Jolin, who’d earned his place as one of the clan’s wisest by outliving most of his generation, appeared passive and easygoing in his loose cotton clothing.
He never thought the harmless elder would want to bring such egregious harm to the warrior orcs who would soon settle in the Rove Woods.
