Page 37 of Orc's Forbidden Claim

Wren helps as much as she can considering she’s a third of his size. He gets to his feet, wavers only a moment, then he seems steady. He rubs the bandage over his wound and then rolls his shoulders. The grimace of pain on his face is the only outward sign of how he is doing. I don’t know Sek’su well, but judging by that look, he’s in a lot of suppressed pain.

Khiara stares with a hard, judging look. His jaw tenses and I think for a moment he’s going to tell him to sit back down but then he looks down the tunnel and shakes his head.

“We have to move,” he says. He looks from Sek’su to me then to Wren. “You two bring up the rear. Say, stay right behind me, okay?”

I nod understanding and he walks over to the lantern, picks it up then hands it to me. Feeling tentative, I take it, finding at least a little pride in the fact that my hand doesn’t shake, too much at least.

Khiara looks us all over with a deep grimace then turns and leads the way. I don’t blame him. What are we going to do if we do run into a patrol? Or another… cudov… or anything else? Sek’su is badly hurt, and Wren and I are not fighters. We’ll be worthless if it happens.

I swallow my fear and follow. Every step must be painful for Sek’su. He doesn’t groan or make a lot of noise, he’s too smart for that, but I hear it in his breathing. It hitches with every step.

I’m a terrible person.

I don’t want to be, but once again I am glad it was Sek’su who got hurt and not Khiara. Which makes me a jerk. The lantern grows heavy in my hand as our journey through the tunnels continues. How far did they bring us? I guess it’s not how far they brought us, but how we find our way back with the simple way blocked.

The lantern bounces off my leg, too heavy to hold it up and out any longer. The dancing tight beam of light causes shadows to dance around. It’s kind of scary. Not scary right off, but more in a ‘creeping in on you’ way of slowly becoming aware that something is watching you and you don’t know what or even where it is.

Khiara stops, holding up a closed fist, and we all hold our positions. He turns to me and holds out his hand, so I give him the lantern. Just as well, the back of my neck is a constant prickle of fearful imaginings.

He raises the lantern and moves it along the wall, clearly looking for something he expects to be there. He goes back and forth two times then growls as he shakes his head. I slip up next to him, doing my best to be as silent as possible.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

“It should be here,” he murmurs.

He sets the lantern down then presses his hands flat to the wall and slides them along the stone. There is just enough light that I can see he has his eyes closed and he is humming, oh so softly, to himself.

I step back to let him do what he is doing, which I can’t even begin to comprehend. If I were to hazard a guess it looks like he’s communing with the stone, which seems silly but on some level, it also feels true.

Instead of staring and wondering, I turn my attention to Wren and Sek’su. I move in close to avoid any unnecessary noise. Wren looks the worst I think I’ve ever seen her. The drawn look on her face at least competes with how she looked right after the ship crashed and we all woke up spread across the desert sands, desperately looking for one another and the rest of our friends.

Sek’su is hunched over, the injured shoulder curving in towards himself. He keeps his head bowed and is breathing heavily. I move until I can get a good view of the bandage and see the dark stains that are soaking through. It needs changing, but with what? Wren and I are wearing the bare remnants of our shirts, which now barely classify as midriffs.

All of Wren’s attention is on him and he seems to be consumed by the effort to remain upright. The wound was bad, but this seems worse than it should be. I put my hand on his arm, and he looks up. Zmaj don’t sweat but one look and I know if he was human he’d be pouring sweat. The pain is written large all over his face.

“Any help?” I ask.

He shakes his head, breathing heavily, his mouth twisting into a grimace.

“Poison,” he says.

My stomach drops and Wren makes a tiny gasping sound. She didn’t know that either. Feeling sick and scared, I go back to Khiara. Before I can say anything to him though, he balls one hand into a fist, raises his arm back, then strikes the wall with the side of his fist.

I expect him to cry out in pain or something, but he doesn’t even grunt. What I didn’t expect was for the wall to crumbleunder his blow. Yet that’s exactly what happens. It turns to dust and streams down the wall. He grunts softy, nods his head, then repeats the action. The wall continues to crumble, but it’s strange. I squint in the dim light, turning over why this is odd.

It’s not stone.

Once I see it, I can’t unsee it. Someone hid this passage with some kind of material. It must have mimicked the stone, but Khiara found it. Maybe he was communing with the wall, how else would he know that the passage was there?

When he finishes, the opening isn’t very wide at all. I’m not sure Khiara can fit through it, much less Sek’su who is quite a bit bigger. Khiara steps back, assessing it and I know he’s thinking the same thing, confirmed when he looks over at Sek’su.

“Come,” he says softly.

Sek’su shuffles forward, stopping to look at the opening. He doesn’t say anything, seeming to know this is what we have to do. He straightens himself, turns sideways, and presses himself against the crack in the wall.

Nothing happens at first. My stomach clenches. Wren is at my side, and I take her hand. She squeezes mine so tight it cuts off the blood flow. There is a scraping sound that makes me hurt to hear it, but Sek’su slips through the opening, all but where his tail connects to his back or spine or however it is part of him.

He shifts, pushes, then groans but nothing changes. We watch him twist and try but no luck. Wren’s hand on mine is shaking. I don’t think either of us has dared to take a breath since this began.

---