Page 100 of Her Orc Healer

The second pulse hit.

This one was different. Deeper. Golden instead of white. It split the air like thunder without sound. The trees shuddered. The roots beneath the stone writhed. Every leaf in the canopy above us went still.

The ward didn't just break.

It shattered.

Light flooded the clearing—raw and fierce and familiar. My skin tingled. The mark on my throat burned, sudden and sharp, like a beacon calling out. Like an answer.

Kazrek.

He burst through the remnants of the barrier as if it were nothing but smoke. His magic rolled off him in waves—not the usual steady warmth, but something wilder. Untethered. Alive.

He didn't look at me.

He didn't pause.

He moved.

Drev's voice cracked through the air—"Stop him!"—but she was already too late.

"Kazrek—!" His name tore from my throat, but he was already in motion.

He threw himself between Maeve and the circle of mages, gathering her small form against his chest. His body curved over hers like a shield, like armor, like something meant to break before it bent.

The ritual's magic surged outward—a wave of shadow and cold, laced with the power of the binding glyphs. It struck Kazrek full force, a torrent meant to imprison, to suppress. But instead of passing through him, it caught—held—twisted.

The shadows rose from the runes like smoke in wind, but wrong—drawn toward him instead of away. Coiling around his arms, his chest, seeking the points where his skin met Maeve's. Where connection lived. Where magic could flow.

"No!" I lunged forward, desperate to reach them. My fingers caught his wrist just as the spell closed again.

The circle slammed shut.

Reality bent.

Broke.

The world disappeared.

I felt my body freeze—caught between spaces, between breaths. Half-pulled into whatever realm the magic had carved between shadow and light. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only watch as the battlefield formed around us—broken earth and spilled blood and too many graves.

I didn’t belong here. I could feel it in my bones—the wrongness of it, the weight of something that wasn’t mine pressing in from all sides.

The battlefield wasn’t a place.

It was a memory.

The ground beneath me was cracked, blackened, seared through with old ash and the stink of burning metal. No trees here. No sky. Just a haze of smoke that hung too low, too thick, curling at the edges of the world like paper caught in flame.

And silence.

I stood on the edge of it. Caught between breath and unmaking. I could still feel the echo of Kazrek’s wrist beneath my hand, but he was gone. Or moved. Or—

No.

He was there.

Kneeling in the center of it all, Maeve clutched to his chest. Her little body limp, her curls streaked with soot, the compass still glowing faintly in her fist. Kazrek wasn’t glowing anymore. Whatever magic had answered my call was gone now—burned up in that first defiance.