Chapter 1

1

Fifteen Years Later

F or all that Hakon's grandparents had done for him, gave him a loving home, taught him everything they knew at the forge and beyond, he couldn't bear to stay in their home more than a fortnight.

It hadn't been one thing but a series of little difficulties that felled his beloved grandmother—aching joints and a thick cough and a bitter rainstorm. Although already elderly, even for an orc, she was hearty and healthy—yet she'd quickly taken ill. She'd passed peacefully twelve days ago. It hadn't taken his grandfather long to follow, his own health fading as rain pattered against the slate roof.

Hakon had begged his grandfather not to go. Not yet. There was so much yet they had to do. He was all Hakon had.

His grandfather's gnarled green hand had risen to hang in the air, and Hakon hurried to grasp it. "You have everything you need, vittarah, " he said. He hadn't called Hakon little hammer in years. "You don't need me anymore. But I need my mate."

Hakon had sat beside his grandfather, weeping into the quiet night, as the old orc slipped away to his mate in the afterworld. Leaving Hakon behind.

That had been a week ago. A week was all he could bear in their quiet, cold house. No longer a home. The trinkets and tidbits of their life littered the house, their cold disuse burning him whenever he reached for one. What use was his grandmother's shawl or his grandfather's cane?

The life that had been lived in that house was over.

In his tide of grief, Hakon sometimes believed his own was, too.

After a week, he'd no intention of relighting his grandfather's forge. It sat ashen and dark, an empty mouth never to be fed again. He couldn't bring himself to stand there and work the bellows, bring life back into a place so well loved.

His grandparents' bodies were washed and prepared in the proper way, he saw to that. He and his aunt Sighíl said the rites and laid them upon the funeral bowers. Their pyres burned long into the night, scattering flames into the sky to be carried away by the wind to the afterworld, where together they would live again.

Without Hakon.

All he'd ever known in his thirty years was his grandparents and their home nestled into the Green-Fist clan's stronghold of Kaldebrak. After his human father perished in a hunting accident and his orcish mother disappeared into the wilderness with her grief soon after, his grandparents were his life. He whittled and set gemstones with his grandmother as they chatted with their hands; he worked the bellows and wielded the sledgehammer as his grandfather formed molten iron into fantastical shapes. Although the rest of the clan was ambivalent to him as a halfling, his grandparents had shown him nothing but kindness and love.

Ever since he was a youngling, Hakon had been hard of hearing in his right ear, just like his grandmother. She'd taught him to speak with his hands and read the lips of others. It made them good companions for a blacksmith, as many a smith lost their hearing over a lifetime of hammer strikes. Outside his grandparents' home, his ear was a vulnerability, one he worked to compensate for by being quick, strong, and observant.

Still, his grandparents couldn't help protecting him, even coddling him. It would be easy to live the life they built for him—safe, secure, a place he understood. They had left him the house, the forge, everything he needed. Except, as the cold, lonely days passed gloomily inside that very house, Hakon had come to the painful realization that his life was no longer here.

Chieftain Kennum would surely take him on as a blacksmith if he sought work—war might be coming, and there was a need for every available smith, even in a place like Kaldebrak that overflowed with them. He could earn respect and a living through his skills. But he didn't want a living, he wanted a life. Which wasn't to be found here.

He could honor his grandparents' sacrifice and gift, or…he could take the chance to be happy. Get away from his stifling grief and the life of little promise he'd have here and go find…something else.

Of course, this was all difficult to explain to his aunt Sighíl. Even now, she took up most of the front room of the modest home, fists on her hips, her frown imperious as she watched Hakon pack. She hadn't been quiet about her disdain for his plan to leave Kaldebrak—but then, his aunt wasn't quiet about most things. There was a reason his grandfather had taught him the trick of using the beeswax they put in their ears to dull loud hammering whenever Siggy came knocking.

As a grown male, Hakon realized now that Siggy was loud because she wanted to be heard in a family hard of hearing and hard of head, but it was also because she cared. Based on her current volume, she cared a great deal.

"I just don't see the point," she said for the third time, shaking the rafters. "You have everything you need here. Manan and daron left you the house. Daron his forge and tools. Everything you could need."

The guilt of those truths burned the back of his throat, but Hakon didn't stop his methodical folding. He wouldn't be bringing too much, just what he could carry on his back; clothes, a few treasured baubles, supplies for the journey, the gems he'd sold the house for, and some of his grandfather's smithing tools he couldn't bear to part with.

Oh, and the glorified rug currently snoring by the fire.

Like many in Kaldebrak, his grandparents had always been fond of dogs. They kept a pack of wolfhounds that trotted after them into the market and sat at the table to keep them company on rainy days. Most were gone now, either passed or taken in by Siggy and her two mates, who together ran another smithy specializing in silversmithing on the other side of Kaldebrak. The only one left was Wülf, a grumpy four-year-old hound who didn't really like anyone and was too stubborn to leave with his siblings and Siggy.

Hakon loved the mutt, and even if he wasn't the friendliest dog, his constant companionship was welcome over the last week. Hakon had no doubt that when he left tomorrow, Wülf would follow, even if he huffed and grumbled about it.

For now, the beast was content to lie there as a general nuisance and tripping hazard.

By contrast, Siggy stood across the room, her contained energy making her vibrate with impatience. If Hakon let her, she'd have him packed up and moved in with her, her mates, and her twins. While he loved visiting them, their home was already full to the brim—especially now with three more giant hounds.

And…the house was full of love. Siggy and Halstern were the loud, boisterous ones, and often their tempers and stubbornness got the better of them. Viggo was the peacemaker, soothing tempers and keeping the smithy orderly. Their lives were controlled chaos to Hakon, but it worked for them. He didn't want to upset the balance of their home.

Nor witness every day the thing he wanted most—a life, a family. Matehood. If he stayed, he feared his envy would grow into something even uglier.

He couldn't burden them. He couldn't stay in this empty house. He couldn't live a half-life, safe but hobbled. So away he must go.

His mind was made. Now just to convince Siggy of that.

"There's nothing for me here," he told her patiently.

"No, nothing, just your family and your life ," she huffed.

He winced. Her barb wasn't meant to hurt, not truly; he knew Siggy, she was sharpest when she herself was hurting. He glanced up and finally looked at her.

Siggy stood there, arms crossed over her muscular chest and eyes gone glassy with dammed tears. In that moment, she looked much younger than she was, like the young orcess who'd already lost her elder sister and now her parents.

Siggy and his grandparents often remarked how much he resembled his mother Ingrid. Even though he had a more human face, with shorter ears and small tusks and a thinner nose, he'd lived his whole life being told he had Ingrid's eyes, Ingrid's countenance, Ingrid's good nature.

It'd taken Hakon a long while to outgrow his resentment over it. He didn't want to have parts of his mother—he wanted all of her. He wanted her to have stayed with him, that he'd been enough to keep her from falling down the pit of despair that came with losing a mate. But he hadn't. She hadn't.

Hakon, with his mother's eyes and good nature, was all his family had left of Ingrid, beloved sister and daughter. When Siggy looked at him, he wasn't sure she always saw him, Hakon.

He couldn't fault her for it. The aching maw of loss was ever-present in his heart at Ingrid's absence, and he'd hardly known her, young as he'd been. Siggy and his grandparents had had her for far longer.

Yet, Hakon wanted to be his own person. With his own life.

He wanted to be more than Ingrid's poor orphaned halfling.

He wanted out of this house, with its dark corners and cold hearth and heavy memories.

"You know what I mean," he admonished Siggy gently. "I know I can work gadaron 's forge, but that's not a life. I want what you have, Siggy."

Her lips thinned into a line between her tusks, capped with jeweled silver to show off her craft. Her leathers were soft and polished, no doubt thanks to Viggo, and her tunic and kirtle had been embroidered at the hems and cuffs with intricate designs of hammers and tongs. A double-layered torque lay around her neck, two gems winking on either side of her throat.

Hakon definitely wasn't jealous that Siggy had two mates when he had none. Definitely not.

Of course, he knew his aunt worked hard for the life she had, and she deserved every happiness. Hakon was determined to work just as hard to deserve the same.

Siggy huffed again, lifting a few strands of her dark mane from her brow. "There are more females in Kaldebrak than just Feeli."

Hakon's ears heated at the name, and he pointedly kept his gaze on his folding. Getting far away from Feeli and his old feelings for her were more reasons to leave.

He couldn't even blame his infatuation on being a foolish youth, for he'd pined after the orcess for far longer than that. Feeli had been the only orcess to show any interest in him, and even though she'd made clear she'd never accept a mate-bond with him, nor even be the only male she lay with at a time, for years Hakon held onto hope that she might change her mind.

Plenty of kin mated more than one other—Siggy, Halstern, and Viggo were easy proof of that. However, deep inside, Hakon had always been a jealous sort; covetous, desirous. He wanted all of someone for himself. It was an ugly sort of possessiveness, and he'd done his best to squash those feelings, as he knew, even in his deepest infatuation, that they were useless when it came to Feeli. The orcess had no interest in choosing just one bedfellow, and even if she did, it wouldn't be him.

In the end, they'd taken their pleasures with each other. Hakon learned how to please a female and Feeli discovered what it was like to lay with a halfling. There had been times when they stayed awake late into the night, lounging in bed and just talking, that Hakon thought perhaps it would turn into something more. But now he was wiser and perhaps a bit smarter. Feeli wasn't the female for him.

"None would have me," Hakon reminded his aunt. He was friends or acquaintances with plenty, having grown up with many other kin, but most only saw him at best as a brother, at worst a pity. Poor Hakon the halfling, no kin, only one good ear —what was there to recommend him?

"You don't know that," Siggy insisted.

"I do."

"And you think a human woman would accept you?"

Hakon's ears burned again.

That's the hope, yes.

"I've tried to find a mate here. It's time I search elsewhere," he said, quite diplomatically, he thought.

"But humans…" Siggy made a dismissive, rude gesture. "They're so…"

"My father was human."

"Yes, but Cormac was different. Strong. They aren't all like that, you know."

"Not all orcs are the same, either, Siggy."

She pointed a warning green finger at him. "Don't argue with me, nephew."

"Not arguing, just pointing out."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

Siggy made a disgusted sound before marching across the room. Hakon braced for a sisterly slap, but instead, Siggy laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

"I've lost my sister and now my parents. I don't want to lose you, too, nephew."

Heart aching, Hakon dropped his folding to pull his aunt into a firm embrace. They were nearly the same size, Siggy slightly taller but Hakon with wider shoulders. He felt her love and her loss through her embrace—it almost convinced him to stay.

"I want you to be happy, I do. I just worry that your leaving is out of grief, not to find happiness."

Hakon pulled back to look up at her. "I will carry them with me wherever I go. And this isn't goodbye."

Siggy sighed deeply. "Where will you go?"

"Do you remember what the trackers who came last month said? About the human place accepting other folk?"

"The Darrowlands."

"Yes. Apparently, there are already halflings there." He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious to meet one of his own kind, another who was both human and orc.

Stepping back, Siggy held him by the shoulders, assessing him with those deep-set brown eyes. The family all had such eyes, including Hakon. They were a mark that, even if he was only half, that half was theirs.

"Perhaps it's for the best," she finally said reluctantly. "There's talk that Vallek Far-Sight may come north, looking to recruit. Young smith like you would get taken, and I don't want that life for you. His talk of unity is all well and good, but war is ugly."

Hakon made a noise of agreement. Vallek Far-Sight was chief of chiefs, the closest thing the orcs had to a king. Ruling over the ancient stronghold of Balmirra, Vallek had taken up the banner of unifying the orc clans into something like a human kingdom. It wasn't the first time such a feat had been undertaken. The orcs had once held a vast region, far beyond the craggy reaches of the Griegen Mountains they currently dwelt in, but dragon and human conquests, as well dissent amongst the orcs themselves, had eaten away at orcish territory.

There were renewed whispers of threats to the east. Pyrros was again expanding its borders. Having spent centuries at war with the nomadic tribes across the southern plains, as well as the dragons in their desert and rocky islands, the Pyrrossi empire had consolidated its borders and was now looking west, at the mineral-rich Griegen Mountains. There was also talk of Eirean lords encroaching on the disputed borderlands to the north, more human villages sprouting in the forests and foothills.

Vallek wasn't the first leader to claim that the only safety was to band together and stand united against such outside threats. However, orc clans were unruly, and several had long since splintered away to live in the eastern foothills, far away from others the last time a Balmirra chief tried to fly a single banner. Perhaps the other chiefs wouldn't mind Vallek trying to subdue the cruel Stone-Skins and vicious Sharp-Tooths, but as for the other clans, the Broad-Backs and their own Green-Fists and the others, Hakon didn't know how well they would accept having their own power subjugated.

All of it smelled of coming war—and Siggy was right, he wanted no part of it.

Hakon wanted a good life, a small life. A mate, a family, work to be proud of. He'd no interest in politics nor war games. Give him a good woman, a hearty forge, and the chance to make something of himself and he'd be content.

His dreams weren't big or grand, but they were vivid—and his. His grandmother and Siggy often called him a dreamer, losing himself in his daydreams while working the forge.

Perhaps he was a dreamer. Perhaps he was foolish. All Hakon knew for certain was that he had to take this chance and get away.

Blowing out a loud breath, Siggy reached into her pocket to pull out a bulging sack. She pressed it to Hakon's chest, the jagged contents poking him even through the hide.

He took one look at the fistful of uncut gems and handed them right back.

"I can't take this."

"Oh yes you can," she retorted, pushing his hands and the sack back toward him. "We've got plenty. Use it to start this life of yours."

Hakon gripped the sack, the gems inside tinkling. Kaldebrak was a rich city built into a jagged eyetooth of a mountain deep within the Griegens. Uncut gems and geodes were almost a nuisance, sprouting like weeds out of the dirt. Behind the chief's seat in the great hall, a vein of gold thicker than Hakon's arm swirled in the rockfall.

The Griegens, and Kaldebrak in particular, was everything the Pyrrossi dreamed it was and more. It was why the orcs kept to themselves; such wealth would only bring trouble to their door if anyone knew.

"Thank you, auntie," Hakon said, throwing his arms around Siggy's neck.

His aunt huffed at the monicker and hugged him right back, a rib-cracking embrace that squeezed the air from his lungs.

"You'll come back," she said, not a question nor request. "When you find this woman of yours, you'll bring her back to meet us."

"Of course," he promised. "No matter where I go or how far, we're family, Siggy."

Eyes glittering with tears, Siggy nodded. "Good. Now, move over. Your folding is atrocious."