Page 101 of Her Orc Healer

He looked up.

His eyes met mine across the shattered plain—and there was something in them I’d never seen before. Not anger. Not fear.

Grief.

Grief so old it had grown roots in him. Grief so heavy it had bent his back without him noticing.

And then—

The shadows came.

Not charging. Not screaming. Just there. Slipping through the cracks in the earth. Crawling from the edges of the battlefield. Tall, thin, faceless things with too-long fingers and hollow chests.

They didn’t touch him.

They waited.

Behind them, something larger moved. A shape without form. A pressure without weight. Like a question you didn’t want to ask.

And Kazrek… didn’t move.

Didn’t run.

Didn’t flinch.

He looked down at Maeve—tucked her small hand tighter against his chest—and exhaled slow. Quiet. Final.

Then he stood.

And the shadows stepped forward.

Chapter 28

TheshadowscircledKazreklike wolves around prey, their forms liquid and wrong, bending where bodies shouldn't bend. I stood frozen at the edge of this broken battlefield, unable to move forward or retreat. The air tasted like ash and copper, like the aftermath of something that had burned too hot, too fast.

Kazrek didn't look afraid.

That was the worst part. The stillness in him. The acceptance. He held Maeve tight against his chest with one arm, her small form limp but still glowing faintly from within. The compass in her hand pulsed weakly, its light dimming with each beat.

"Don't," I whispered. My voice didn't carry. Couldn't. But I said it anyway. "Kazrek, please—"

He wasn't looking at the shadows. He was looking at her. And then at me—across the impossible distance between us.

And that was when I knew—I’d gotten it all wrong.

All this time, I thought he was holding back because he knew what I was willing to do. Because he saw the path I was already walking, and had decided not to follow. I thought he would let me go. Let me burn myself out trying to save her. And when it came time—he’d leave. Like everyone else always had.

But he wasn’t leaving. He was preparing to stay. To offer up the only thing he had left—himself—so that Maeve and I wouldn’t have to carry this alone.

He was never trying to escape us. He was trying to protect us.

And I hadn’t seen it. I’d pushed him away, convinced it would end the same way it always did: with me, standing alone in the ashes, watching someone I loved walk into the dark without looking back.

But Kazrek wasn’t walking.

He was standing.

Holding Maeve like she was the only thing anchoring him to the world. Looking at me like I was the only thing worth remembering. And the grief in his eyes wasn’t for himself. It was for me. For the cost he knew I’d have to live with.