Page 31

Chapter 30

P ain shot through my skull as I woke, bound and aching. The rough stone beneath me was cold, and my head throbbed from the force of whatever had knocked me out. I blinked against the dim, flickering light—a fire crackled nearby, casting strange, jumping shadows on the crumbling walls surrounding me. I tried to move, but my wrists were tied behind my back, the rope biting into my skin. Panic threatened to flare, clawing at my throat.

Elias.

I twisted against the restraints, ignoring the pain in my arms, my breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps as the memory of his screams rang through my head. I’d heard him. I’d run to him. And now... nothing. My head spun, a sickening combination of fear and confusion clouding my thoughts.

And then, across the fire, I saw him.

An enormous figure loomed in the flickering light, broad-shouldered and hunched over, the orange glow casting jagged shadows across his green skin. His muscles were taut beneath the rough, worn leathers he wore, and in his massive hands, he held a blade—dark, heavy, and wickedly sharp. The slow, methodical scrape of steel against stone filled the room, the sound grating in my ears, setting my nerves on edge. His tusks gleamed in the firelight as he ground the blade with deliberate, practiced strokes, like he was savoring the moment.

I knew exactly who he was.

Dregor Bloodclaw.

I swallowed, trying to steady my voice. “Where is Elias?”

The question came out as little more than a rasp, my throat dry and raw. Dregor didn’t flinch. He didn’t even acknowledge me. He just kept sharpening his blade, the scrape of stone against steel steady and unnerving.

“Dregor,” I tried again, louder this time, fighting the panic clawing at the back of my mind. “Where is my son?”

This time, his hand stilled on the blade. Slowly, he lifted his head, his eyes gleaming with cruel amusement as he turned to face me. His lips curled into a twisted, mocking smile.

And with that smile, my blood turned to ice.

Before I could demand an answer, a voice, soft and trembling, echoed through the room.

“Mama... help me...”

I froze.

It was Elias’s voice. But something about it was wrong—distorted, like it was coming from the depths of a nightmare.

I strained against the ropes, my heart slamming against my ribs. “Elias?”

The voice came again, weaker this time, dripping with fear. “Mama, please...”

My throat tightened, a sickening dread creeping over me as I glanced toward the source of the voice.

But it wasn’t Elias.

What stood there, at the edge of the firelight, was something twisted, something... wrong.

A grotesque, hollow-eyed version of Elias—with limbs too long, fingers that twitched unnaturally, and a face that stretched into a grotesque mockery of my son's sweet, round features. Its skin was a sickly, pallid color, almost translucent, like a poorly drawn imitation of a child carved from nightmares. The eyes, though—those hollow, empty eyes—bore into me, devoid of any warmth. Devoid of my child.

“Mama...” the thing rasped again, its mouth— Elias’s mouth—curling into a sickening, too-wide smile that split its face like a cracked doll.

I jerked back, bile rising in my throat. “No,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “That’s not him. That’s not...”

Dregor’s rumbling laughter filled the air, the sound dragging like gravel as he finally stood and sheathed the blade. He took a few slow steps toward me, his hulking shadow bending over me like a vulture circling its prey.

“No? Are you sure?” His golden eyes gleamed, almost playful in their malice.

“I know my child,” I snapped, surprised by the raw fierceness that surged from me. “I know Elias.”

“Mama…” The mimic twitched again, taking a slow, deliberate step closer, its movements jerky, like a puppet dangling from invisible strings.

I recoiled, my chest tightening with fury and terror. “Where is my son?” I rasped.

Dregor shrugged one massive shoulder. “Home, probably. Sleeping soundly under the traitor's watchful eye.”

The traitor. Vorgath. Relief flooded through me, but it didn't last.

“Since the charmstone in your home and the runes on your forge wouldn't let me near, I had to find a way to bring you to me. It might have been better to have the boy. More symbolic. But,” he trailed off, eyes lingering on my neck where I knew Vorgath's mark was still visible. “You will do.”

“Where are we?”

Dregor gave a slow, cruel smile. “An old haunt. A place where warriors fought, bled, and died—just as you will, eventually. But not yet.”

I glanced around, my heart still pounding, taking in the unsettling space. The walls were thick, ancient stone, worn smooth in some places and pocked with scars in others. Rusted iron chains hung from the walls, their links thick and heavy, swinging slightly in the draft that seeped through the cracks in the stone. The air was damp, filled with the smell of mold and something metallic—like blood, soaked into the stone and never fully washed away.

It had to be one of the abandoned outposts left behind after the war. There were several scattered in the woods around Everwood, relics of a conflict that had only ended a few years ago. Both sides had used them as temporary fortresses, hastily built and then forgotten. I hadn’t seen one up close before. Most people avoided them—too many bad memories, too much death.

And now, I was inside one, my hands bound, and Dregor sitting across from me, watching with that cold, cruel smile.

“Why am I here?” I finally managed to ask, biting down the fear crawling up my throat.

“You?” he repeated slowly, voice like thick, grating gravel. “You’re just a means to an end.” His gaze flickered lazily to the mimic still jerking at the edge of the firelight, garbling up another twisted version of Elias’s voice. My stomach roiled at the sound.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” Dregor’s smile widened, his tusks gleaming in the firelight, “that this village’s gentle green giant took something from me. Something irreplaceable. Something—” He clenched his fists, the tendons in his forearm flexing under the dim light—“precious.”

“Your son,” I ventured, my voice barely a breath.

That smile was gone now. “Throk,” he hissed. His hands tightened around the blade he was sharpening earlier, fingers tense, white with strain. “Throk was the future of our clan. A warrior—a true orc, unlike him .” Dregor growled. “Vorgath let his brother live. After everything Gorkath did, Vorgath couldn’t finish the job. And because of that...” His grip on the weapon tightened. “I lost my son.”

The weight of his words hung heavy in the cold air, the grief behind them undeniable. Despite everything, I felt a pang of something almost like sympathy. I could see it—the twisted logic that drove him, the pain that he let consume him until there was nothing left but vengeance. Nothing left but rage and a raw, unyielding grief.

“And he thinks he can just walk away from it all,” Dregor snarled, his voice growing louder, fueled by the rising flames of his fury. “Start a new life. Forget the blood. Forget the loss. Forget my son !” His hand slammed into the crumbling stone wall next to him, the impact violent enough to send dust and small rocks tumbling down.

I flinched but kept my eyes on him. His pain was palpable now, a living, breathing thing that filled every inch of the space between us. It was dangerous, volatile.

Still, I had to say something. Anything that might buy me time. Time to figure out how to get back to my son, to escape this nightmare.

“I... I lost someone, too,” I whispered. “My husband. Kald. The war took him from me, just like it took Throk from you.”

This was the wrong thing to say.

Dregor's eyes flared angrily. “The war didn’t take Throk. Vorgath did. And now,” he growled, stepping closer, his massive form casting a shadow that swallowed me whole, “I’m going to take you from him.”

My heart lurched in my chest. “Dregor, wait,” I gasped, trying to pull myself together, to think of something that would get through to him. “Killing me won’t—won’t bring Throk back. It won’t change what happened.”

His lips twisted into a snarl, and he slammed the axe into the ground beside me, the blade digging deep into the stone, sending shards flying. “You think I care about changing what happened? This isn’t about the past. This is about making Vorgath suffer the way I suffer!”

The venom in his voice was so sharp, I could almost feel it pierce through my skin. I tried to steady my breathing, my pulse racing.

“If this is about Vorgath,” I said, as calmly as I could manage, “then take it up with him. He’s the one you want. Not me.”

Dregor’s face twisted into a grim smile, his tusks gleaming menacingly in the firelight. “Oh, I will. Don’t worry. But not yet.” He leaned in closer, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath. “First, I’m going to watch him break. Just like I did.”

I flinched, bile rising in my throat. This wasn’t just about revenge. It was about torment, about dragging Vorgath into the same nightmare Dregor had been living in for years.

And I was the weapon he’d use to do it.

“You won’t get the satisfaction you’re looking for,” I forced out, my voice shaking. “Vorgath—he’s stronger than that.”

Dregor’s laugh was low and cruel. “We’ll see.”

Before I could respond, a movement caught my eye. The mimic, still wearing Elias's twisted face, had begun to change. Its form rippled and shifted, like water disturbed by a stone, and I watched in horror as it morphed into something new. The sickly pallor of its skin deepened to a rich green, its limbs thickening with muscle. The round, childish features of my son's face elongated, sharpening into a distinctly orcish visage.

Dregor's entire body went rigid. The firelight flickered wildly, casting jagged shadows over the creature as it completed its horrific metamorphosis. What now stood before Dregor was a nightmare vision of a young orc—broad, powerful, but wrong. Too sharp, too distorted, with eyes that gleamed hollow and soulless.

It was Throk. Or at least, the twisted version of him.

“ Durak …” the mimic rasped, its voice lower now, more guttural. “Father.”

Dregor flinched at the sound of the word. His hands trembled, his breath caught in his throat, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the creature. His son, or at least the mockery of him, stood there, staring at him with cold, accusing eyes.

“You said you’d protect me...” the mimic continued, its tone soft but filled with a cruel edge. “But you didn’t.”

Dregor’s knuckles whitened around the handle of his axe. His chest heaved, and his eyes glistened with a grief that hadn’t dulled with time. “I… I tried, Throk. I tried to protect you.”

“You let Vorgath choose mercy.” The mimic spat the word like a curse. “And now I’m gone.”

I watched Dregor crumble, his knees almost buckling under the weight of his grief. His hands trembled, but his grip on the axe tightened. I could see the war raging inside him, a storm of fury and guilt that had been festering for years.

Then I realized something. Watching Dregor unravel under the weight of his own choices—the way his grief had twisted into rage, consuming him from the inside—it felt eerily familiar. It was a reflection of the darkness I had fought so hard to escape, the version of myself I could have become if I hadn’t let Vorgath into my life. If I hadn’t made the choice to rebuild, to open my heart again instead of letting the pain harden me.

And that terrified me.

More than the fear of love. More than the pain of loss. The thought that I could have surrendered to despair, just like Dregor had, was the scariest thing of all.

The mimic’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “You let me die.”

Dregor’s face twisted into a mask of agony, his whole body trembling. “I have to… make it right,” he growled, though the words sounded hollow.

The mimic laughed, a cold, terrible sound. “You’re not doing this for me, durak . You’re doing this because you’re too cowardly to live with your failure.”

Dregor’s eyes flickered with something close to desperation. He was on the edge, teetering between falling into the abyss of his rage and letting go of the vengeance that had driven him for so long.

The mimic stepped closer, its voice soft and full of venom. “You’re just trying to run from your own guilt.”

Dregor’s hands shook violently, and for a moment, I thought he might drop his axe. His face contorted with the weight of everything he had lost—his son, his brotherhood, his sense of honor.

And then, with a roar of pure fury, he swung the axe.

The blade cleaved through the mimic’s chest with a sickening crunch, a spray of dark ichor erupting from the wound like a burst of ink in water. The creature let out a terrible, agonizing screech as it split apart, tendrils of shadow and flesh unraveling in a macabre display as it collapsed to the cracked stone floor.

For a long moment, the room was silent. The fire crackled faintly, casting flickering shadows on the walls, but the air was thick with the stench of death.

Dregor stood there, his chest heaving, his axe still raised as if ready to strike again.

And then he turned to me.

His eyes, still wild with the echoes of his pain, locked onto mine. Before I could even react, he was moving—crossing the room in two powerful strides. The axe still gleamed in his hand as he pressed the cold steel to my throat, against Vorgath's mark.

I swallowed hard. “Dregor, please—”

He pressed the blade harder against my skin, just enough to draw a thin line of blood. “Vorgath is the reason my son is dead,” he snarled. “And I will make him pay. Starting with you.”