Page 77 of Her Orc Healer

I exhaled slowly. "Not much choice in that, is there?"

Ahead, Maeve’s delighted voice rang out. “There’s iris over here!”

Not the flower. The woman.

Iris straightened from her crouch by a bramble patch, brushing green-stained fingers against her skirts. “Didn’t expect to find you out here, Ro." She wiped her hands one last time before resting them on her hips. "You lose a bet?”

I huffed. "Thought I'd make sure you weren’t getting yourself tangled in snakevine."

Her smirk was quick. “If I get stuck, I know who to yell for.”

She didn’t ask more, but her gaze flicked over me in quiet calculation. She saw the long night behind my eyes, the weight settled between my shoulders. I saw the understanding in hers, and for that, I was grateful.

Brindle and Maeve settled farther off, the child kneeling beside the brownie as they plucked at stray meadowgrass and lavender stalks. With them occupied, Iris and I walked slowly through the underbrush, the herbalist idly assessing a patch of blue-veined leaves with practiced ease. Her fingers brushed over the plants, a quiet gesture of familiarity, before she plucked a few and tucked them into her gathering pouch.

“So,” she said after a while, not looking at me. “You planning to keep pretending this is about herbs, or should I be worried you’re about to ask me to hide a body?”

I snorted. “Don’t tempt me.”

She hummed. “Ah. So it’s one of those mornings.”

We walked a few more paces in silence. Leaves shifted in the breeze overhead, whispering in the hush.

Iris plucked a twist of witch’s sprig and sniffed it. “You know,” she said, “last time I saw you, you were getting cozy with the big green guy."

I groaned. “Please don’t start.”

“Oh, I’m starting,” she said cheerfully, tucking the sprig into her pouch. “Because if I don’t get to tease you after last night, what even is our friendship for?”

I didn’t answer right away. We stepped over a low root, the path narrowing beneath an arch of alder branches. The hush of the glen closed around us again, and the quiet pressed a little tighter this time.

Iris didn’t fill it.

She let it sit for a while. Then, more softly, she said, “You didn’t run this time.”

My fingers brushed a trailing bit of ivy, just to keep them busy. “No.”

She nodded like she already knew. “And?”

I exhaled through my nose. “And now I feel like I’ve stepped off the edge of something, and I can’t see the bottom.”

“Yeah,” Iris said quietly. “That sounds about right.”

We came to a patch of low goldenleaf, the edges just starting to brown with the season. Iris crouched, ran her fingers along the stems, then began cutting a few with her curved blade.

“You know what’s funny?” she said, voice casual. “I actually went on a date last week.”

I blinked. “You did?”

“Mhm.” She didn’t look up. “A stonemason from the Artisan’s Quarter. Broad hands. Good teeth. Smelled like lemon balm and fresh clay.”

I raised a brow. “And?”

“And,” she said, straightening, “he spent the entire time talking about the properties of grout. Like I’d never seen a building before.”

I snorted. “Romantic.”

“Oh, terribly. Nothing gets me going like foundation stabilizers and water-runoff calculations.”