Page 102 of Her Orc Healer

Because he didn’t expect to come back.

And I—

I had no way to stop him. No magic strong enough. No spell. Just my hands, empty. My voice, lost. My heart breaking open too late to change the shape of what was already in motion.

This is what sacrifice looks like, I thought. Not a grand speech. Not fire and fury. Just a man kneeling in the dark. Choosing love over survival.

And stepping forward anyway.

The shadows moved closer. Taller now. More defined. Their forms solidified into silhouettes I couldn't quite focus on—people who'd once been real, maybe. Or would be. Their hands stretched toward him, not quite touching. Not yet.

And then I heard a voice. A whisper—soft and close and achingly familiar, though I couldn't place it. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, from the ground and the smoke and the hollow places between heartbeats.

"You're tired," it said. Gentle. Understanding. "So tired of carrying it all."

The battlefield around us rippled, then changed.

Not completely—the broken ground remained, the smoke lingered—but now there were bodies. So many bodies. Orcs and humans and elves, sprawled where they'd fallen. Some face-down in the mud. Others staring upward with empty eyes.

And Kazrek—younger, his hair unbound, his hands covered in blood that wasn't his—kneeling beside them. Trying to save them. Failing, again and again and again.

I watched his hands move from wound to wound. Watched the light flicker and fade beneath his palms as he poured magic into broken bodies that wouldn't hold it. His movements grew more desperate with each failure, each lost life leaving another crack in his armor.

"You remember," the voice murmured. "Every face. Every name. Every time you weren't enough."

The scene shifted again. A child this time—small and still in his arms, burns covering half their body. Kazrek's magic flowing uselessly into wounds already gone cold. His shoulders bowed under the weight of it, under the knowledge that he was too late. Always too late.

Another shift. Another memory. An orc warrior calling his name across a field of fallen. The sound of running feet, of desperate breaths. But distance and time won out, and by the time Kazrek reached him, the warrior's eyes were empty, fixed on a sky he couldn't see anymore.

"So much pain," the voice soothed. "So much weight. You don't have to carry it anymore."

The shadows drew closer. Their touch looked gentle now—like comfort. Like absolution. Like everything he'd been denying himself since the war ended.

"Let go," they whispered. "Rest. We'll take the burden. We'll take the memories. You won't have to feel it anymore."

And then—the final vision formed.

Me and Maeve, in the shop. Sunlight streaming through the windows. She was laughing, whole and bright. I was smiling—really smiling, the kind of smile I'd forgotten how to wear. We looked happy. Safe. At peace.

But Kazrek wasn't there.

The vision showed a future where we survived, where we healed—without him. Where he wouldn't have to watch us suffer. Wouldn't have to fail us like he'd failed the others.

I saw him hesitate. Just for a moment—a tremor in his shoulders, a catch in his breath. The exhaustion written into every line of his body spoke of how much he wanted it. How deeply he ached to put down this weight he'd carried for so long.

My throat burned. Not from the smoke—from recognition.

I knew that kind of ache. The kind that lived in the spine. In the jaw. In the weight behind your eyes when the day was almost over and you still hadn’t put it all down. That hunger to stop. To rest. To let someone else carry it, just for a moment.

I’d felt it every day since Maeve came into my life. Since the war. Since Finn vanished. Since I started pretending that if I worked hard enough, loved fiercely enough, hurt quietly enough, maybe it would be enough to keep everyone safe.

It never was.

But I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t ask. Because if I stopped—if I let myself lean—I might fall.

And now I saw that same fight in him.

Not fear. Not pride. Just the bone-deep weariness of someone who'd carried too much for too long. Who had been the last one standing too many times.