Page 86 of The Orc's Captive Bride
“We’re not brothers. We’re weapons. That’s what he made us.”
Khorrek grabbed Declar’s arm, and forced him to turn. He met those dark eyes and saw the same devastation he felt reflected back.
“We’re both. Weapons and brothers. And I won’t let him kill us without a fight.”
Declar stared at him, and then his shoulders slumped. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Fight him. Disobey. Even thinking about it makes me—” Declar’s hand went to his chest.
The chains. The conditioning. Khorrek knew that pain. He’d felt it himself every time he’d questioned an order. Until last night. Until Thea had looked at him and told him he was more than what Lasseran had made him.
“It gets easier,” he said quietly.
“Does it?”
“The first break is the hardest. After that, the chains start to crack.”
“And then what? We’re free? We suddenly become something other than monsters?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we just become ourselves.”
Declar laughed, bitter and broken. “We don’t have selves. We have programming—thirty-five years of being told exactly what we are.”
“And what if that’s a lie?”
“It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. I’ve seen what we do. What I did when Lasseran gave me an order.”
“I know. I’ve done the same things.”
“Then you know there’s no coming back from that. No redemption. No second chance.”
He wanted to argue, to tell Declar that he was wrong, but the words stuck in his throat. Declar was right—they’d done terrible things, things that couldn’t be undone.
We’re monsters. Both of us. All of us.
But maybe monsters could still choose to stop being monstrous.
“There’s a human woman,” he said. “In the palace. Lasseran brought her here to translate an ancient text.”
Declar’s expression didn’t change. “So?”
“So she looked at me and saw something other than a monster. Something worth…” He trailed off, unsure how to put it into words.
“Worth what? Saving? Redeeming?”
“Choosing.”
That got a reaction. Declar’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Lasseran will?—”
“I don’t care what Lasseran will do. Not anymore.”
Declar stepped back, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head. “You’ve lost your mind.”
