The sky was the color of old bruises, and the wind smelled like the mountains had burped. I stomped into camp like a woman possessed—with rage, confusion, and the lingering smell of barrel.
The Dragon didn't even look up from where he was coiled half-around the hoard, gold glinting smugly beneath his chin.
"Did you get the sacks?" he asked without so much as a greeting.
I stopped mid-stomp. My mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again like I was trying to trap a fly with my tongue.
"I found Ogden," I said.
"Did he have the sacks?"
I threw a rock at his tail. It bounced off harmlessly and offended absolutely no one.
"He's still hiding in that godsdamned cellar."
The Dragon blinked. "You didn't kill him?"
"No!" I shouted. "He's alive! Very much alive! Panicking and barrel-scented!"
"Disappointing."
I planted both hands on my hips. "He needs help."
"No, he needs to stop fucking royal bloodlines," the Dragon said flatly. "Honestly. He brought this on himself. You heard the words elven death squad. It's not a figure of speech."
I folded my arms. "We can't just leave him."
"We absolutely can," the Dragon replied. "It's the easiest thing in the world. We don't go back. That's it. Problem solved."
"That's cruel!"
The Dragon's head lifted slowly, lazily, like he couldn't believe I'd had the audacity to say that to him.
"You're cruel."
"I am not."
"Saya." His voice had that low, volcanic tone he only used when I was being especially hypocritical. "You've extorted priests. Robbed plague victims. Sold fake relics to widows. I watched you poison a mayor once because he insulted your sandals."
"They were very nice sandals."
"Cruelty has never stopped you before."
I scowled.
Then pouted.
Then kicked a small stone hard enough to startle a lizard.
"Fine," I muttered. "I'll smuggle him out. Myself."
The Dragon groaned. Loudly. His tail thudded into the dirt like a drawn-out exclamation mark.
"Do not drag me into this," he said.
"Too late. You're the getaway ride."
He buried his face under one wing and made a sound somewhere between a growl and a prayer for divine annihilation.
And me?
I was already plotting.
Because somewhere in that rotting goat village was one dumb, golden bastard with a price on his head and a baby on the way—
—and somehow, I had become his only hope.
Gods help us all.
***
Dust clung to my ankles like guilt. Every step kicked up another puff of dry regret. I stomped down the road like a woman on a mission, except I had no plan, no support, no godsdamn backup—just stubborn momentum and the echo of my own idiocy.
"What am I doing," I muttered.
Another step.
"Seriously, what the fuck am I doing."
I'd told the Dragon—declared, even—that I'd smuggle Ogden out myself. Like some noble heroine. Like some tragic romantic idiot in a stage play who dies nobly under a cart because she couldn't just shut her mouth and go home.
He was right. The scaly bastard was right.
Ogden brought this on himself. He'd mounted the wrong noble, spread the wrong legs, deposited the wrong seed, then faked his own death to avoid the fallout. That wasn't a cry for help. That was the biography of a man who deserved to stew in his own chaos.
And I was walking straight back into it.
Without the Dragon.
Without a disguise.
Without a plan.
"How in holy hells am I even gonna get him out?" I hissed. "Shove him into a potato sack? Smuggle him past elves by stuffing him into a hay cart and pretending he's a pig carcass?"
I stepped on a sharp stone and yelped. Serves me right.
I should've just nodded when the Dragon said no. Should've shrugged. Agreed. Turned tail. Climbed onto his scaly back and flown east. Let this all burn. Let Ogden face his fate, princess and all. Let the Grove sort their own mess. They had spears. They had elk. They didn't need me.
But I didn't shrug.
I didn't turn.
I opened my big, loud, stupid mouth.
"Because I'm stubborn," I spat, "and prideful, and terminally allergic to being told what to do—especially when he's right."
Another step.
Another stupid cloud of dust.
I thought of Ogden, crouched in that dark cellar, reeking of grain and desperation, eyes wide like a boy caught with his hand in the wrong temple vault.
I groaned. Loudly. Fully.
"I hate myself sometimes."
The road didn't answer. It just kept going.
And so did I.
I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even know why I was doing it.
But I couldn't seem to stop.
And gods, that was the worst part.
I'd barely made it past the crumbling shrine at the edge of the village—half a goat skull nailed to a post and some withered reeds pretending to be holy—when I heard the screaming.
Not pain screaming. Not angry villager screaming.No—this was the high, rattling, heartbroken kind. The sound of someone whose world had just cracked in half.
I slowed.
Then turned the corner and nearly tripped over her.
A woman in dust-stained linens was crouched by the roadside, hands in her hair, mouth open in an endless sob, like she was trying to pour the horror out of her lungs. Her apron was red—some of it blood, some of it afterbirth, some of it maybe just dust—but none of it made the wailing make sense.
I hesitated. Then crouched beside her.
"What the fuck happened?"
She flinched like she hadn't even seen me. Turned wild-eyed, face streaked with tears and sweat and something darker.
"I—I just came to help," she gasped. "I was called—called to the elven camp. They said the princess was laboring. She was in pain. I thought—I thought it would be an honor—"
She broke off into another fit of sobs.
Saya instincts said walk away. Saya instincts also said slap her until she stopped being dramatic and started making sense.
"What did you see?" I asked, trying to keep my voice flat. "What kind of pain?"
She looked up at me, lips trembling.
"It was wrong."
My stomach dropped.
She gripped my arm with cold, shaking fingers.
"I've birthed humans. Dwarves. A few halfbloods. But this…" she shook her head violently, as if trying to shake the image loose from her skull. "This was not right."
I stared at her.
"Speak plain."
She inhaled like she was about to confess a crime.
"The babe," she whispered. "Elven mother, yes. But the child… the child had greenish skin. Wide jaw. TUSKS. Tiny tusks."
My mouth opened. Then closed. Then—
"What."
"TUSKS!" she shrieked. "Orc tusks! A halfbreed! An abomination!"
I blinked.
I blinked again.
My brain did a full-body recoil.
"Oh. Oh shit."
The midwife wailed into her apron again.
And I—
—I just stood there.
One foot still on the road.
Mouth open.
Because holy fuck.
I stood there for a full beat. One heartbeat. Two.
Then I started to laugh.
Soft at first. Just a breath.
Then louder.
Then louder still.
The midwife looked at me like I'd gone mad—and maybe I had—but I couldn't stop.
I threw my head back and howled.
"No," I gasped between fits of laughter. "No, no, no, no—this is perfect."
I clutched my ribs.
"Oh gods, this is beautiful."
The midwife recoiled. "It's a horror!"
"No," I said, wiping tears from my eyes and gasping for air, "it's a miracle. A gods-damned get-out-of-death-free card."
She didn't understand. I didn't care.
Somewhere, back in that over-decorated elven tent, there were two highblood warriors and a very hormonal, very betrayed elven princess—
—currently realizing that their heir to the Grove had tiny green tusks and a suspiciously wide jaw.
I could picture it.
Did you lay with a human?
Yes!
Are you certain?
Yes!
...You're sure it wasn't an orc?
I—
And then… oh gods, the silence. That awful, awkward silence.
And Ogden?
That smug bastard?
That reckless, barrel-scented, golden-haired prick?
He was off the hook.
Like royally off the hook.
He didn't defile anything. Didn't sully the bloodline. Didn't topple a thousand years of elven purity with his wandering dick.
He was innocent.
For once.
I leaned on my knees, still giggling.
"This changes everything."
And then I stood up, cracked my knuckles, and dusted off my skirt.
Because guess what?
Now I wasn't smuggling a disgraced paladin fugitive out of Hanigalbat.
I was rescuing a wrongfully accused national scandal. With leverage.
And I knew exactly whose smug face needed to hear the news first.
By the time I got back to the cellar, the smug was leaking out of the cracks in the walls.
I didn't even have to open the trapdoor to know Ogden was awake and stretching, probably singing some dumb hymn to his reflection in a puddle.
I kicked the hatch open with my boot and dropped down like divine judgment.
He was halfway through braiding his hair. I kid you not. Sitting cross-legged on a folded sack like some barrel-aged monk rediscovering self-care.
"Guess what, golden boy," I said, dusting my hands.
He blinked up at me, hesitant. "You brought food?"
I laughed in his face.
Then tossed him the best news he'd never deserved.
"That baby? Not yours."
He froze.
For a second, it didn't compute. His brow furrowed. Lips parted like he was waiting for the second punchline.
"What?"
I mimed tusks. "Green skin. Orc jaw. Tiny little baby fangs. Definitely not your spawn, paladin."
He paled. "But—I slept with her."
"Yeah, and she clearly slept with someone who roars more than you moan." I plopped down on a crate, grinning. "Congratulations. You didn't fuck a kingdom into war."
He blinked rapidly. "I—I was sure. She was all moony and poetic and there was moonlight and swimming and—and she sang to me, Saya."
I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly saw my brainstem.
"She probably sang to the orc, too."
He covered his face with both hands.
"Gods. I didn't seed the Grove."
"Nope."
"I didn't taint the bloodline."
"Not even a little."
He dropped his hands slowly, eyes wide.
"So… I'm free?"
I snorted. "Well. Not morally. Or karmically. But legally? Yes. Off the hook."
He sat back like someone had just removed a ten-ton chastity belt.
"By the gods," he whispered. "I was cheated."
I squinted. "What now."
"I should've had a half-elven heir," he said, staring at nothing. "Son of a hermit kingdom princess. Paladin blood. Elven magic. The legacy. I earned that."
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
"Instead," he continued, tragically, "I was ousted by some sweaty orc with a tusk kink."
I threw a stale biscuit at his head.
"Cry harder."
He caught it without looking. Bit into it like a man pondering the injustice of the cosmos.
"You know what," he said after a moment, mouth full, "this is still your fault somehow."
"My fault?!"
He pointed at me with the biscuit. "You should've warned me elven princesses might be polyamorous."
I lunged for him.
He shrieked and ducked back into the barrel.
I slammed the lid shut.
Gods help me—I almost missed him.