Page 21 of Bite Sized Bride

MIKANA

T he world below us is a wound.

We stand on the precipice, a rocky outcrop that serves as the lip of the valley, and stare down through the exact heart of the Wildspont.

The air here is so thin it’s a struggle to breathe, and it hums with a low, constant vibration that I feel in my bones, in the roots of my teeth.

It tastes of ozone and something else, something ancient and green and utterly alien, like the sap of a world that grew in a different sun.

The forest in the valley is a nightmare of beauty.

The trees are not wood, but something like living, iridescent glass, their trunks twisted into agonizing spirals, their leaves shimmering with every color I have ever known and a dozen more I have no name for.

The moss on the ground pulses with a soft, internal light, shifting from emerald to amethyst to a sickly, jaundiced yellow.

The very air seems to shimmer, reality a heat-haze over a fire.

This is the place. The place of unmaking. The place that will either give me back the orc or swallow the monster whole. There is no in-between.

Kael stands beside me, a monolith of scarred flesh and tense muscle.

He is a stark, brutal reality against the surreal landscape.

The strange, magical light plays over his hardened hide, catching the jagged edge of his broken tusk, the permanent, shameful brand of the fused collar at his neck.

He stares down into the valley with a kind of hungry reverence, his amber eyes wide with a mixture of terror and a desperate, fragile hope.

He feels the pull of this place, the promise of it. He is ready to walk into the storm.

And that is what terrifies me.

He takes a step forward, his massive foot dislodging a cascade of small stones that skitter down the slope and disappear into the glowing moss below. He is going. He is going to give himself to this… this beautiful, terrible unknown.

“Wait.”

The word is a raw tear in the humming silence.

He stops, turning to look at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. The question is clear in his eyes. Why stop? We are here.

I take a step toward him, my heart a frantic, hammering drum against my ribs.

My hands are shaking. The words I need to say are a tangled knot in my throat, a truth so large and so terrifying I don’t know how to give it voice.

But I have to. I have to, before he walks into that light, before he risks everything for a future that might not include him.

“Before we go down there,” I begin, my voice trembling. “Before you… do this. You need to listen to me.”

He waits, his gaze patient, his massive head tilted.

I reach out, my hand shaking, and I touch his face. My fingers trace the rough, scarred landscape of his cheek, the harsh line of his jaw. “This,” I say, my voice gaining a sliver of strength. “This is a prison. I know that. It is a cage of flesh and magic that was forced upon you.”

My fingers move, tracing the cold, hard line of the fused iron collar at his neck. He flinches, a low growl of pure self-loathing rumbling in his chest, but he does not pull away.

“This is your pain,” I whisper, my heart breaking for him. “This is your torment.”

I look up, my gaze locking with his. I pour every ounce of my will, my love, my desperate need for him to understand into my next words. “But it is not you. Do you understand me, Kael? It is not you .”

He stares at me, his golden eyes a swirling vortex of confusion and a dawning, fragile hope.

“I don’t care what happens down there,” I say, my voice cracking with the force of my emotion. “I don’t care if you walk out of that storm as an orc, with your clan’s sigil tattooed on your skin and your memories whole. And I don’t care if you walk out of it exactly as you are now.”

I take his massive, clawed hand in both of mine, holding it tight. “This hand,” I say, my voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “This is the hand that saved my life. This body is the one that has kept me warm. This monster is the one who taught me what it feels like to be safe.”

Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and unstoppable.

“I didn’t fall in love with a memory, Kael.

I didn’t fall in love with the ghost of an orc you think you should be.

I fell in love with you . The you that is here, right now.

The you that carves clumsy wooden birds and listens to my stories and looks at me like I am the only thing in this broken world that matters. ”

I rise on my tiptoes, my hands moving to cup his monstrous, beautiful face.

“So you go down there. You fight for your freedom. You fight for your soul. But you remember this. You remember that no matter what comes out of that light, it is Kael who has my heart. It is Kael I will be waiting for. Urog or orc, it does not matter. You are mine.”

A sound rips from his throat, a raw, guttural sob of pure, unadulterated emotion. He closes his eyes, a single, hot tear, a perfect, glistening jewel of pain and relief, tracing a path through the grime on his cheek.

“Mikana,” he breathes, his voice a broken prayer.

He leans his forehead against mine, a gesture of such profound, trusting vulnerability that it shatters the last of my own control. “You… are my mate,” he says, the words a solemn, sacred vow. “Not a replacement. Not a ghost. You. My beginning.”

“I love you,” I whisper, the words I have been so terrified of finally breaking free.

“I love you,” he echoes, his voice a raw, powerful rumble that vibrates through my entire body.

He kisses me.

It is a passionate kiss of desperation and hope, of endings and beginnings. It is a kiss that tastes of salt and ozone and the impossible, terrifying promise of a future. It is a seal on our vow, a final, silent confession before we walk into the fire.

When he pulls back, the pain in his eyes is still there, but it is overshadowed by a new, fierce determination. He is not just fighting for himself anymore. He is fighting for us.

He takes my hand, his massive fingers lacing with my own, and together, we turn and begin our descent into the center of the Wildspont.

The air grows thicker with every step, the humming vibration intensifying until it feels like the world is singing a single, deafening note. The glowing moss is soft and spongy under my feet, and the iridescent trees seem to watch us pass, their twisted branches like silent, judging arms.

We reach the center of the valley. It is a perfect circle of flattened, glowing grass, the air so thick with raw power it is almost a liquid. In the very center, the light is brightest, a column of pure, white energy that reaches from the ground to the unseen sky, a pillar of creation itself.

This is the heart. The crucible.

Kael looks at me, his eyes full of love so profound it takes my breath away. He squeezes my hand once, a final, silent promise, and then he lets go.

He takes a step toward the light.

“I must admit,” a voice, smooth as silk and cold as the grave, echoes through the clearing. “I am touched. It is a pity such a… poignant moment must be interrupted.”

We both freeze.

We turn.

He is sitting on a throne of black, polished stone that has been conjured from the very air, his posture relaxed, as if he is merely a spectator at a particularly interesting gladiatorial game. Lord Malakor.

He is dressed in immaculate black silks, a single, ruby-red zanthenite brooch pinned at his throat. His handsome face is a mask of bored, aristocratic amusement. Vexia stands beside him, a silent, beautiful specter in her dark purple robes, her violet eyes alight with a cold, clinical curiosity.

My blood turns to ice in my veins. It is impossible. There were no tracks. No scent. How?

Malakor seems to read my thoughts. He smiles, a thin, cruel curve of his lips. “You have been a most entertaining quarry, Mikana. But the hunt must, regrettably, come to an end.”

He raises a hand. In it, he holds a small, familiar object. A crudely carved wooden bird. The one Kael made for me.

“Fenris was most apologetic,” Malakor says, his voice dripping with false sympathy.

“He asked me to give you this. A token of his… regret. The enchantment woven into it was quite subtle. A simple tracking rune, keyed to my own life force. A brilliant piece of work by my dear Vexia. It allowed us to follow your every move, to watch your every pathetic, hopeful step toward this place.”

He tosses the bird to the ground. It lands at my feet, a symbol of my foolish, naive hope, now a tool of my own damnation. Fenris’s daughter. The story was a lie. A perfect, beautiful, soul-crushing lie.

“You led us to a place my own scouts have sought for a generation,” Malakor continues, rising from his throne. “And for that, I thank you. Now, the demonstration can begin.”

He looks at Kael, his eyes shining with a possessive, proprietary light. “Vexia will now perform the final mind-wipe. We will strip away the last, flawed remnants of the orc. We will correct the… emotional imbalance you seem to have caused. He will be my perfect, mindless weapon once more.”

He turns his cold, indigo gaze on me. “And you, my dear anomaly, will be my new project. I am so very eager to discover what secrets are hidden in your blood.”

The final confrontation has begun. And we have walked right into the center of the cage.