Shava stood alone in the dim storeroom behind her house, back pressed to the rough wall as if the wood could hold her upright. Her hands shook so violently she had to clasp them together to keep the tremor from showing. Every breath tasted like ash.
She had not known.
She had not wanted to know.
Borg's sister, Drashka, who used to braid flowers into Shava's hair when they were children, had been exiled on Shava's testimony. One quiet nod in the clan circle, one carefully worded accusation to collaborate the lies of Borg, and the sentence was sealed.
Shava had told herself it was justice, that Drashka had crossed a line no orc could forgive. Borg had begged her, on his knees in the mud, to go against her friend. She had looked him in the eye and lied to herself for a brief second that Drashka was capable of the barbaric things she had been accused of.
The fact that she would never had met Borg if not for Drashka made this situation worse.
