Page 24 of Her Orc Healer

I swallowed against the painful lump in my throat. “No, Miss May. Never.”

She didn’t look at me. Her small fingers kept tracing that slow, uncertain pattern on the wood. “But she said Mama ruined everything.”

I exhaled carefully. “Drev says a lot of things.”

Maeve’s brow furrowed. “Did she? Ruin everything?”

I hesitated. Maeve was so young—I wanted to protect her from the truth, to hold her in the warmth of the stories I told her before bed, where mothers and daughters were never parted, where love was strong enough to keep people from leaving.

But Maeve was clever. Sharp in the same way Finn had been, asking the hard questions before she even fully understood the weight of them. And after tonight, I couldn’t hide the truth from her anymore. Not all of it, at least.

"Your mama loved you," I said finally. "That was never a question."

Her fingers stilled.

"But sometimes," I continued, voice steady, "loving someone doesn't mean staying. Sometimes people leave because they think it’ll keep the ones they love safe." I exhaled, pressing my hands together in my lap. "And sometimes, they leave because they don't know how to stay."

Maeve was quiet.

Finally, she whispered, "Did Mama not know how?"

I hesitated, then reached for the compass in my pocket. I turned it over once in my hand, feeling its familiar weight—whole again, stronger than before.

Maybe that was the real truth of things. Maybe none of us were beyond repair.

I held it out to her. “This belonged to your mama.”

Maeve blinked down at it, her little fingers hesitant as she reached out to take it. “What is it?”

“A compass.” I curled her hands around it gently. “It helps people find their way. Your grandfather gave it to your mom a long time ago, and your mom left it for you."

Maeve turned the compass over in her small hands, fingers tracing the cool metal carefully. "Does it really show the way home?" she asked, her voice quiet, uncertain.

I swallowed against the tightness in my chest. "Not always the way back," I said slowly. "But maybe the way forward."

She frowned, considering this with the same seriousness she gave to stories about heroes and witches. "But Mama didn’t come back."

I felt the weight of those words settle between us, heavy and undeniable. "No," I admitted. "She didn’t."

"So what if I get lost?" she whispered.

I exhaled carefully, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of her auburn hair behind her ear. "Then you find your way," I murmured. "And you don’t have to do it alone."

She sniffled, rubbed her nose with her tunic sleeve, then clutched the compass to her chest. "Can I keep it?"

Something shifted inside me at how she held it—like a treasure, a promise. Like something she could carry forward instead of something Finn had abandoned.

I nodded. "It’s yours now."

Maeve’s fingers curled around it tighter, and after a long pause, she scooted closer, leaning into my side. I wrapped my arm around her, resting my cheek against the top of her head, breathing in her familiar scent.

For so long, I’d believed my life had already been decided—that I’d been left behind while the rest of the world moved forward, tethered by responsibility, held in place. But maybe staying wasn’t the same as being stuck. Maybe love—the kind that bound one life to another—wasn’t a weight but something steadier. A guide. A way forward.

And maybe it wasn’t too late to want more. To dream of something beyond ink-stained fingers and long, sleepless nights. Just the thought of it felt dangerous.

But maybe that was okay, too.

Maeve sighed, pressing closer, her small heartbeat steady beneath my palm. “I didn’t mean to break everything,” she murmured.