Free Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) by Amalia Dillin Page A

caught. The king will have us both quartered for treason, and then who will warn your people?”
    “You need not prove your strength to me, Princess. I have known it from the start.”
    “Then let me prove it to myself!”
    His hand slipped from her elbow as he searched her face. Fearless, now, but he wished she could have traded it for something other than anger. Was it for him, or for the men who abused her? Did she still look at him and see a monster? All he could see was her honor, burning brightly between them, calling to his own.
    “You will not be short of opportunity on the journey,” he said. But when she only raised her chin, her eyes flashing fire, he said nothing of how such injuries might slow them.
    “My hands are already blooded, Bolthorn,” she said, holding them out palm up. “Any more and I fear they will never wash clean.”
    He took them in his own, his thumb tracing the cut of the knife. He wanted to tell her the stain would fade in time, but it would be a lie. If it were only Alviss, perhaps, but her father’s blood was a different matter. One more reason to take her to the mountains, where the king’s ghost would not follow so easily.
    Instead, he raised the blooded hand to his chest and pressed it over one of his own wide cuts, half-healed. “As long as your blood flows for my sake, let any stain to your honor be mine, instead.”
    She sighed, dropped her forehead to rest against his shoulder. “I wish it were so simple.”
    “Oaths sworn in blood cannot be broken.” If only he could take her in his arms, hold her close against his skin, perhaps she would feel how simple it truly was. Later, he promised himself, when there was not so much blood between them in fact as well as spirit. “You can be certain I will guard your honor as I do my own.”
    Had he not given her his word from the start that he would not harm her? Now that he knew her, he was all the more determined. It was the least he might do in repayment for the grief she might yet suffer.

    He did not mention Alviss again, by name or by suggestion, and for that much she was grateful. Instead, they spoke of their escape, and Bolthorn questioned her closely regarding the guardsmen and the path they must take through the castle, his eyes so intent upon her that she felt he saw even her soul.
    “There can be no other bodies to alert your father’s men,” Bolthorn said when she named the guard upon the inner gate. She had sworn to herself she would never endanger Rodric again. After that day on the castle wall, she could not bear the thought of losing him too, of being the reason for his death as well as her mother’s. Whatever plan she made with Bolthorn, she was determined it would not harm Rodric, or any of the other guards.
    “They will already be alerted when the king does not appear for the evening meal. During the day, no one will wonder, simply thinking him accounted for elsewhere, but by nightfall there will be a search.”
    “Even of this room?” he asked.
    “I—I am not certain.” She chewed on her lip until the taste of blood filled her mouth. “It is possible they will not dare to look here for some time, searching the rest of the castle and grounds first, but it would be better if he could be seen at supper, or else some excuse made for his absence.”
    Bolthorn shook his head. “The king has never come to me at night. He believes the moon gives me some greater power and will not risk it.” He bared his tusks, his eyes glowing with what she recognized now as amusement, but it faded quickly. “He will come in the morning, and that is when I must act.”
    “I could lead you to his bedchamber.”
    “And when his body is found first thing in the morning we will have had only half a night’s lead on foot. Even an armored knight on horseback would make up the distance before we reached safety.”
    “Without knowing which way we traveled?”
    A servant had come to her room with the basket this morning, the