Page 17 of Orc Charming

“That’s just it,” I said. “Is it my home?”

“You grew up there. You lived there until . . . See? I don’t even know when you left the mountain.”

“Two weeks ago.”

“For the first time?”

“Yes.” Before that, my father said there was too much for me to do for our people, that I couldn’t go to the surface. It was only when it was clear I was going to bolt that he relented to my request to join the team coming here to help negotiate more conditions in the treaty.”

“Was it a big culture shock? From what I’ve read, the orc kingdom was built deep below the surface and in enormous caves. You have many cities and thousands of people.”

“That’s right.”

“Is it dark there?”

“We have natural lighting, though it’s not the same as the sun.” I tipped my head back and soaked in the feeling of it shining on my face. I loved it here and never wanted to leave. “The first time I saw the sun, I pretty much gasped. Those around me who’d been here before laughed, though in a friendly way, telling me they’d done the same thing. The roofs of our caves are lined with tiny blue creatures that emit light intermittently, and it’s pretty, though not the same. We have night like you do and what’s similar to daytime, though it’s not as bright as what you get from the sun.”

“Are the lights insects like fireflies?”

“They’re actually a plant. We foster them when we open a new area, carefully planting them in cracks in the stone. They live off the moisture in the air around us.”

“That’s incredible. Natural lights. Do you have electricity?”

“Something similar to hydroelectric, I believe you call it here, generated by rivers.”

“I can’t imagine living in a city built within an enormous underground cavern. Is it damp?”

I shrugged and finished my coffee. Cat quickly poured me some more from a carafe keeping it hot. “Sometimes it is, but our caves are so big that it doesn’t feel the same as, say, when it rains here.”

“It sounds amazing. You lived in the city, right?”

“Yes.” In the castle. “My family has a large house.”

“Ah, you live together. I’d moved out of Mom’s house and into my own place before she died.”

“It’s common for orc families to share one big residence.”

“You said your cousin lives with you. I assume it was just her and your parents?”

“Her parents died, and she moved in with us when she was ten. She’s like a younger sister to me. I love Valina a lot.”

“Is she much younger than you?”

We hadn’t discussed ages. “I’m thirty and she’s twenty-six.”

“Four years is a lot when someone’s ten and the other fourteen. I bet she followed you everywhere.”

I smiled. “She’s sweet and . . .” Our people loved her. I didn’t want to mention that. Sometimes, the words to tell Cat who I truly was hovered on my tongue, but I held them back. What we had felt too new. Fragile.

I didn’t want to ruin it by telling her I was the heir to the orc kingdom.

“She’s an amazing person,” I finished. I added cream to my coffee, plus five spoons of sugar, something that shocked Cat when I first did it. Now she just smiled.

“I’m glad you were able to grow up close to her. I was an only child.”

“I was lonely before Valina moved in with us, so I understand.”

We sat, holding hands, watching people pass on the walkway beyond Cat’s small fence. I planned to start scraping and painting it soon.

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