Chapter 22

GURREK

S ita was strange last night, distant and quiet with a faraway look in her eyes. Over dinner, I wondered if she’s second-guessing how she wants to proceed with me. But she’s been eager and lusty until now, so I chalk it up to her blood week. I’ve heard it can cause odd behaviors along with the aches and pains, and so I hold understanding in my heart.

That night, I leave clean rags in front of her door. But in the morning, I find they haven’t been touched. After breakfast, Sita asks if she can walk to Merka’s house alone.

I have no reason to refuse her, of course. She’s grown much more comfortable here, and it had merely become a routine for us to go together.

“No bears,” she reminds me.

I chuckle and shake my head. “No bears.”

But I feel strange watching my wife walk away on her own into the morning fog, as if she’s leaving me behind. After she’s gone, I turn and head to the forge by myself.

Perhaps this is a good sign that I’m simply misinterpreting.

That afternoon, though, Sita does not run to embrace me when she sees me waiting outside Merka’s house. Instead, she makes the same request.

“You don’t need to come and get me every day,” she says when I greet her. “I can walk to the forge on my own.”

I frown. Again, I have no reason to object, but I enjoy the respite from my day. I like breathing the fresh air while I wait for her, and then seeing her happy face when Merka’s door opens. It is a routine I’ve become accustomed to, that I’ve cherished.

But if she wants more independence, I can give that to her.

“All right,” I finally say with a sigh. “I won’t pick you up tomorrow.”

Though on the surface, everything is as it should be, I can sense that something has shifted. Usually Sita likes to tease me when we’re working in the forge with little touches and kisses, but today she is quiet and keeps to herself.

Over dinner that night, I ask her about her day and what she’s making at Merka’s house now. She gives short answers and then stares off into space, like her thoughts are elsewhere. That night, she once again says she doesn’t feel well, and retires to her room early.

This must have been what it was like when I used to abandon her to go to bed right after dinner. I find myself sitting in front of the fire, uncomfortable with the quiet, wishing that Sita was there at my side.

I had hoped it was merely an off day, but the following week proceeds much in the same way, with Sita speaking very little and touching me even less. She continues helping in the forge and making deliveries, but it’s almost as if she has become... a different version of herself. One who is closed off and isolated, like a great wall has formed around her.

Merka tells me when we pass each other one evening that Sita is working harder than ever, but she is quiet there, too.

“She is changing,” Merka says when I express concern. “Just as you have changed over the course of your life. She is young, Gurrek—you knew that.”

I know she’s right, but I hope it’s not a change that will cut me out of Sita’s life.

One day, after Sita has left for the morning, I head to the clothiers to pick up my gifts. The gloves came out lovely, light brown on the outside and soft on the inside, and thick enough to protect Sita’s skinny fingers from the cold. The hat, too, is worth every pence I spent on it.

I hide the gifts under my bed so she won’t stumble across them early. I also bring home a prime cut of beef to cook for dinner, hoping to draw her out. My wife likes beef and yams immensely, so I put both items on the menu.

She’s pleased when I serve it to her, thanking me appropriately, but not with the enthusiasm I expected. It feels like an age has passed since she’s thrown her arms around me and kissed me the way she usually does, and that growing dread in my belly blooms into a shape far larger and more ominous.

Even once the time for her blood week has passed, Sita stays in her own room at night. I’m reluctant to ask her to return to my bed if that’s not what she wants, but I miss her in my arms. I miss touching her, listening to her soft moans as I pleasure her, and pulling her in close when she sleeps.

Something feels very wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. But I’m also far too cowardly to ask, in case I get the answer I don’t want to hear—that she is done with me. That I’ve held back on our physical connection for too long and made her feel unloved.

I have to believe I can wait out whatever strange mood has come over her, and she’ll come back to me on her own.

Besides, the time is coming when I can begin giving her my five daily gifts. Then, on the night of the solstice, I’ll give her the final one—a delicate, small thing, which has required much time, patience, and concentration to craft.

I hope she likes it, and perhaps it will endear her to me again. I very much enjoyed having a wife, but I worry that the time has abruptly passed, though I don’t know why.

Then the morning of my first gift rolls around. The snows have stopped falling, and for the first time in days, the sun comes out. Perhaps it’s just been the poor weather getting Sita down.

After we finish at the forge for the day, we walk home together in silence, as has become the new normal between us. I’m uneasy about how she’ll receive her present. I remember when I gifted her the new wardrobe and she flung herself at me, crying. What reception will it get this time?

Sita is sitting in front of the fire, knitting something when I kneel and touch her on the shoulder. She jumps, startled, and spins around to look at me. Her eyes are wide, her back curled tight as if I’ve made a very loud noise.

“I’m sorry for surprising you, sweetling,” I say, trying my very best to smile. “But I have something for you.”

Her brow furrows. “What is it?”

I retreat to the bedroom, where I rifle under the bed before emerging with the gloves wrapped in paper.

“I don’t know if this is a custom among your people,” I begin, “but among orcs, there is a tradition that you give your beloved five gifts leading up to the night of the solstice. That is the night when true magic happens, or so we’ve always believed.” It’s superstitious silliness, but I think that’s just what I need right now. She appears curious, so I place the paper-wrapped gift in her hands.

“But I didn’t get anything for you,” she says, frowning. “I didn’t even know.”

I smile at this. Of course she wishes to reciprocate. “Maybe next year.” I kiss her on the forehead. “Just let me spoil you this time, though?”

With a slow nod, she turns her attention to the present. Sita tries not to tear it, though that is the point of a gift. When it’s unwrapped, she pulls out the two sheepskin gloves and lets out a gasp. She slips one glove on, flexing her fingers inside it.

“Oh!” She rubs her bare hand over the oiled leather. “These are lovely. And so soft inside.” Sita raises her eyes to mine. “You had these made? For me?”

“It’s the first gift of many.” I push some of her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. “For my beloved.”

Unexpectedly, Sita flinches, and her eyes fall back to the gloves in her lap.

“They’re so warm,” she says, testing them out on both hands. “Very thick, but easy to move in.”

I nod in agreement. “Now your wee fingers won’t turn into icicles.”

A smile pulls at the edge of her mouth. “Thank you, Gurrek.” She removes the gloves and turns to face me. “This is a wonderful gift.”

Sita leans up to kiss me, and I realize it’s the first time she’s kissed me since before her blood week. Her mouth is tentative, the kiss quick, before she pulls away again to examine the gloves.

She did not throw her arms around me or cry, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But she does seem to appreciate them, putting them on again and then stepping out into the snow as if to test their warmth.

That night, I work up the courage to offer my bed to her.

“Would you like to sleep with me, sweetling?” I ask after dinner. I hope she doesn’t feel obligated because I gave her a gift, but I want nothing more than to hold her again.

“All right.” Sita follows me into my room and takes off her dress, leaving her in her slip. I take off my own trousers, but keep my drawers so I don’t make her uncomfortable. When we lie down together, she lets me take her into my arms, but her hands do not wander. She doesn’t kiss me with the wild, lustful passion I had grown accustomed to, and though she’s here with me again, I have trouble falling asleep. Her breaths remain even and steady, as if she can’t sleep, either.

I wish I knew how to fix what’s broken between us.

The next morning, I go to pick up my second gift at Naggen’s workshop. It’s a simple thing, a wooden rack on which Sita can hang her belongings, but I’ve asked him to fashion it with some engravings. I carry it home and slip it inside her room before I go to Merka’s house.

All afternoon, Sita does as I ask, bringing me tools and helping me around the forge like she usually does. I’m hopeful that she’ll like the rack, and maybe this gift will turn the tide.

When I show it to her, she smiles and thanks me as she touches the engravings in the wood with delicate fingers.

“It’s very beautiful,” she says, hanging up her cloak on it as I’d hoped she would. She stands in front of it, admiring the craftsmanship, but there are no embraces. Once more, she gives me a quick kiss on the lips, but despite the smile on her face, her eyes look sadder than ever.

That night, after we sit quietly in front of the fire working on writing, Sita sleeps beside me again—and again, she keeps her hands to herself.

My dread grows deeper and meaner. My plan is not working. What have I done to upset her? How have I driven her away?

The following day is one of our expedition days, which have become more challenging with the thick snow on the ground. Luckily, Sita’s boots have held up well, and she doesn’t struggle to wade through it. Her new cloak and gloves seem to do a good job of keeping her warm.

There’s not much to gather this time of year, but we spot some wildlife which piques her interest. I explain how some animals in the mountains change color with the time of year, such as the foxes who turn snow white, while others have even gone into hibernation.

“No bears,” I say, attempting to make a joke. “They are all asleep.”

She cocks her head. “Asleep? All winter?”

“All winter.”

Sita nods and listens attentively as I tell her more about the mountain animals, though she still doesn’t hold my hand as we walk.

I had been excited to give her the third gift, to see her face when I show it to her, but now I wonder if I’m simply trying to buy her affection. Am I hoping that one more present will change the tide?

She is not happy here any longer, that much is becoming clear to me. Nothing seems to bring her true pleasure. She doesn’t hold my eyes, and she has not once attempted to touch my cock. I don’t even try to venture under her slip at night. Sometimes it’s as if she’s not even in the bed with me at all with the way she sleeps, her back facing me.

I had a wife for a short time, but now I am alone again.

I consider the gift I’ve been working on, wondering if it’s even worth finishing. It is a cruel twist of fate, I think, that I should have finally found what I always wanted—a lover, a companion, a wife—only to lose her.

Still, on the desperate hope that something might change, I sneak away to wrap the hat I had made for her in paper and hide it under the bed.

That night, after we finish with dinner, I ask her to wait for me at the table. I fetch the gift and bring it back, setting it in her hands.

“A third gift for my beloved,” I say, trying to remind her what she means to me, trying to tell her I would give her anything if she would just love me again.

But Sita reacts the same way she did when I gave her the gloves and the rack: smiling, with a small kiss on the lips and little else.

“Thank you, Gurrek,” she says, putting the hat on her small head. It fits well and covers her tiny, round ears. “It’s beautiful.”

She hangs it up on the new rack beside her cloak, pausing there to rub the soft fur lining of the hat. When she thinks I’m not looking, she drops her head and wipes her eyes, as if my gift has done nothing but hurt her more.

I wish I understood what I was doing wrong. Or perhaps it was nothing I did—perhaps she misses her home so much that, at last, she has broken.

Sita wears the hat the next day as she leaves for Merka’s house, walking by herself. I stand on the path and watch her go, missing her even as she stands right in front of me.

While I work, pounding the metal with my hammer, I try to find that quiet place in my mind that I used to have. Thom. Thom. Thom. I seek it out over and over, but I can’t seem to find it. My thoughts race too fast, too tumultuous, as I consider how the future in front of me has suddenly changed. Sita had seemed so eager and excited about having a family together, but now... I don’t think such a thing is possible.

When I go to pick up my fourth gift, which cost me the most out of everything, I pause before knocking on Naggen’s door.

Perhaps I shouldn’t give her this one. Perhaps I should sell it, instead, if it will only make her more unhappy with me.

Instead of retrieving it, my feet carry me to Rulag’s house. There, I knock on the door much too hard.

“I’m coming,” Rulag bellows. When he opens it, he does not appear to be in a good mood. “Oh, Gurrek. Make it quick.”

I cock my head. “What’s happened?”

“Ugh. My woman.” He shakes his head ruefully. “She asked me to marry her.”

“Congratulations.” But after I say it, I don’t think it was the correct thing to say.

Rulag’s frown deepens. “I’m not after a wife. I have plenty of other business to attend to. So she left.”

Well, that explains his sour mood. Hopefully he will still be open to granting me what I’m about to ask.

“Rulag,” I say gently, hoping to introduce my idea in a softer way, though it sends a sharp ache through my body merely to open my mouth. “I need a favor. Perhaps a large one.”

He crosses his arms. “What is it?”

“I want you to send Sita home.”

It cuts me deep to say the words aloud. But it’s the right thing to do, as much as it makes me bleed.

Rulag blinks. “Hm? Are you already done with your pretty little human wife?”

I bristle. I don’t like him talking about Sita this way, as true as it might be.

“No. But she is done with me.”

The clan leader studies me, though I can’t read his face.

“I see.” He sighs and leans against the doorframe. “But we had an agreement with her village. Besides, the snows are too deep—you know that. There will be no traveling, at least until the melt.”

I chew my lip. I should have figured as much, but I had hoped there was a chance. That would have been my fourth gift to her: offering to take her home.

I would give anything for Sita, I realize now. Even if what I have to give up is her, my heart and soul.

“But,” Rulag continues, “if there has been no improvement by the spring, then I’ll allow it. I don’t believe in torture. I’d hoped this could be the start of a new, better relationship between us and the humans, but I see it’s not meant to be.”

I didn’t realize we were the beginning of something greater. But I think that he’s right, and whatever scheme he had planned is doomed. Orcs and humans are like oil and water. We don’t belong together, in each other’s worlds.

I sigh. “All right. In the spring, she’ll go home.”

Rulag’s lips twist like he’s tasted something sour. “It seemed the two of you were doing well at the harvest festival. What happened?”

I wish I knew. Instead I say, “We’re too different. There’s no love between us, as hard as we’ve tried.”

Perhaps this is true. I’m not sure anymore. Somewhere along the way, we have deviated from the path, and now the future I had imagined for us is gone.

Rulag nods in understanding. We say goodbye, and then I head back to Naggen’s workshop, where my fourth gift is waiting.

This will be my last attempt to crack Sita’s hard shell. If she is still unhappy with me after receiving it, I will tell her my plan for the spring and promise to take her home. I will give up on ever having my wife’s affection again and do what I can to ensure she finds happiness in the future—without me.