Page 82 of Her Orc Healer

Sylwen smiled—a real smile this time, touched with aching fondness. "She used to say that to me. 'I'm sorry,' as if she were somehow responsible for the world's cruelty." His fingers brushed over the pendant on the table. "The Taken were vessels. Containers for something that should never have been bound. The mark is how it claims you—how it changes you, slowly, until you're gone, and only the shell remains."

I thought of Maeve—her bright eyes, her curious hands, her fierce little heart—and felt sick. "Is there a way to remove it? To save someone who's been marked?"

Sylwen's gaze shifted to Kazrek. Something passed between them—an understanding I couldn't quite grasp.

"There is always a cost," Sylwen said softly. "The magic must go somewhere."

"Tell me," I demanded, voice sharper than I'd intended. "Whatever it is, just—tell me."

"It's not simple knowledge to be passed like coin," Sylwen replied. "The magic doesn't want to die. But it can be bound. With will. With sacrifice."

"What kind of sacrifice?" Kazrek asked, his voice low and rough.

Sylwen didn't answer directly. Instead, he said, "Love is the oldest magic. It calls things to it. It saves..." He paused, and the light seemed to dim around him. "...or it damns."

A tense silence spread between us. My chest felt too tight, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Kazrek leaned forward. "There has to be something—a ritual, a counter-spell—"

"There is," Sylwen interrupted. He looked between us, his expression unreadable. "But are you willing to pay what it costs, healer? Are you willing to carry what comes after?"

The question wasn't directed at me. It was for Kazrek.

I felt something shift beside me—a subtle change in Kazrek's posture, a tension in his frame that hadn't been there before. When I glanced at him, his face was set in hard lines, his jaw tight.

"I've seen enough death," Kazrek said, voice flat.

Sylwen nodded slowly. "So had Aylan."

Something cold unspooled in my chest. Not fear. Not quite. Fear was sharp. This was slower—heavier. A sinking awareness I didn’t know how to name.

Because I’d come here hoping for an answer.

And I’d found one.

But it was shaped like sacrifice.

“There are ways to buy time,” Sylwen said finally. “A binding ward. It won’t cure her, but it may slow the unraveling. Keep the magic from feeding too deeply.” He reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a rune stone—smooth and black, etched with a sigil that shimmered faintly blue in the lanternlight. He held it out to me. “Keep it close to her skin. Near the pulse point, if you can. The shadow will resist it. But it will remember pain.”

I took it carefully, the stone oddly warm in my palm.

“What do we do when it stops working?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

Sylwen’s mouth curved, not into a smile this time—but something older. Sadder.

“Then you stop asking the wrong question.”

I frowned.

“Notwhat do you do,” he said. “Butwhat will you choose.”

Kazrek rose first. I followed, the rune stone clenched tight in my palm.

There was nothing else he could tell us. No final revelation waiting to soften the blow. No hidden cure tucked behind his tapestries.

Sylwen had given us all he could.

Outside, the night air hit like a slap—sharp and sudden, slicing through the fog in my chest. I drew my cloak tight around me, breath clouding in the lamplight. The Mark of the Taken. A vessel. A price.