Page 31

Chapter 30

M aeve was already halfway down the lane before I realized I’d stopped walking.

“Ro?” she called, twisting back on her heel. “You coming?”

I nodded and forced my feet to move.

The streets of Everwood had returned to normal too quickly. Doors stood open, merchants haggled, someone was hammering a new sign onto the front of a bakery. People smiled when they passed us. As if the world hadn’t shifted sideways just three days ago. As if it hadn’t almost broken entirely.

Maeve skipped ahead again, her boots scuffing the cobblestones. She had color in her cheeks today. She'd eaten all her breakfast, made a mess of the jam jar, asked if she could wear her blue ribbons again.

I told her yes. I told her she looked strong.

I didn’t tell her my hands were shaking when I tied the bows.

Auntie Brindle had offered to come with us this morning, but I'd declined. This visit needed to be just us—me and Maeve, whatever we found. Whatever we had to face.

I adjusted the linen-wrapped bundle tucked against my hip—bread still warm from the oven, a jar of raspberry preserves, two clean shirts I'd found at the market that might actually fit his broad frame, and a small packet of tea Iris had pressed into my hands with a knowing look. The weight of it was grounding, practical. Something to focus on besides the knot that had taken up permanent residence in my chest.

"Good morning, Rowena!" called Tilda from her flower stall. She waved, eyes bright with curiosity. Everyone was curious these days. Word had spread through Everwood of strange happenings in the Moonshadow Forest. Of magic gone wrong. Of an orc healer who'd saved a child from dark magic.

Stories change in the telling. Grow wings. Sprout thorns. By the time they reached me, they were more myth than memory—and I was happy to let them stay that way. The truth was sharper. More jagged.

I lifted my hand in a brief wave, not slowing my pace.

"Come see!" Maeve called, already halfway to the next corner. "The sugar-spinner's here!"

I caught up to find her watching a dwarf craftsman weaving impossible shapes from molten sugar—birds with gossamer wings, stars that seemed to shimmer in the light. Maeve's eyes were wide with wonder, her hands clasped beneath her chin.

She was smiling. Really smiling. The kind that reached her eyes, that wrinkled her nose, that reminded me she was just a child—not a vessel, not a mark, not a destiny. Just a girl who loved sweet things and bright colors and bedtime stories.

The dwarf winked at her and spun a delicate butterfly from golden threads, its wings paper-thin and almost translucent. He passed it to her with a flourish.

"For the bravest little lady in Everwood," he said. His accent carried the rolling cadence of the northern mountains.

Maeve accepted it reverently, careful not to break the fragile creation. She looked up at me, her eyes shining. For a moment, caught in the slant of morning light, with her face tilted toward mine and happiness written so plainly across her features, we looked exactly like the vision the shadows had shown Kazrek—the one where we were safe and whole and happy.

But he wasn't here to see it.

The thought twisted in my chest. Sharp and sudden, like a knife slipping between ribs. I swallowed it down, forcing a smile for Maeve's sake.

"What do we say?" I prompted gently.

"Thank you," she chirped, beaming at the craftsman.

I fished a copper coin from my pocket and pressed it into his weathered palm. He closed his fingers around it and gave me a small nod. Understanding passed between us—the quiet acknowledgment that sometimes, children needed magic to remind them that the world wasn't all shadows and fear.

Across the square, a pair of robed mages stood beneath the old alder by the fountain, their heads bent together in tense conversation. One gestured toward the trees, the other toward the sky. Their voices didn’t carry, but their urgency did.

The Silverroot Circle was supposed to have moved on by now. Uldrek had said as much when he stopped by the shop yesterday—there were schedules to keep, towns waiting for medicine and supplies. But Everwood had drawn attention, and more than a few of the caravan’s mages had insisted on staying to study the residual magic left behind in the forest. Corruption that old didn’t fade cleanly, they said. It needed watching.

Uldrek had rolled his eyes so hard I thought he might tip over.

“I’m not a scholar,” he muttered, leaning heavy on the counter as Maeve showed him how her compass glowed now without flickering. “I guard people. I guard things. If I wanted to listen to six mages argue about spectral imprint decay, I’d... actually, no. I wouldn’t.”

“You could leave,” I pointed out gently.

He just shrugged. “Kazrek’s here. Vorgrim too. Someone’s got to make sure the lot of you don’t accidentally join a cult.”

Then he gave Maeve a copper coin, winked, and said he was off to “patrol somewhere far away from intelligent conversation.”

Vorgrim, on the other hand, had seized the mages’ delay before anyone could argue.

"The boy's not done healing," he’d grunted, as if Kazrek were still a squire with bruised knuckles, not a grown man who’d nearly torn himself apart to save a child. "Let the others chase ghosts. I’ll stay where I’m needed."

And then, there was nothing to do but wait.

We paused at the edge of the square. The clinic looked so ordinary. So quiet. It was impossible to believe that three days ago, I'd watched Kazrek's magic drain from his body as he poured it into the earth, taking the darkness with it. That I'd held his limp form as we were yanked back to reality, the ritual circle broken, the robed figures scattering into the trees like mist. That I'd screamed his name until my voice gave out, until Uldrek and Vorgrim arrived with the rest of the caravan to carry us all home.

Three days since Kazrek had given everything he had to save Maeve.

Three days, and he still hadn't opened his eyes.

"He's waiting for us," Maeve said suddenly. Not a question. A statement, calm and certain.

I glanced down at her. "How do you know?"

She shrugged, still cradling her sugar butterfly. "I can feel it." She tapped her chest, right over her heart. "Here."

The mark on my throat tingled in response—the place where Kazrek had claimed me that last night. Where his teeth had broken skin and something deeper than blood had passed between us. It wasn't magic, not exactly. But it was a connection. A tether. And even now, I could feel it pulling—a gentle but insistent reminder that he wasn't gone. Not completely.

"Alright," I said, squaring my shoulders. "Let's not keep him waiting, then."

Maeve bounded up the stone steps to the clinic, her curls bouncing behind her, one ribbon already slipping sideways. She stopped just before the door, turned toward me, and hesitated.

“You want to knock, or should I?”

I stepped past her and raised my hand. But before my knuckles could hit the wood, the door creaked open.

Vorgrim stood there, arms folded, filling the frame like a slab of granite. “He’s awake,” he said.

Then he stepped aside.

The scent of crushed herbs and warmed poultices rushed out to meet me—steam clinging to the air, carrying notes of mint, bark, and bitter root. It smelled like care. Like healing. Like the place where people came back from the edge.

Maeve walked in without hesitation, pausing only long enough to glance over her shoulder at me. I followed, the bundle tight against my chest, and let the door close behind us.

The curtains were drawn back, sunlight sheeting through the tall window in neat, pale stripes. Papers littered the desk beside the cot—scrap assessments, ink blots where someone had tried and failed to write something down.

Kazrek sat upright, propped against pillows, a rough-spun blanket pulled across his thighs. His skin was still pale by orcish standards—less deep green, more ash—but his posture was steady. His hands rested loose in his lap, palms up.

Maeve didn’t say a word. She just walked to him, curled her arms around his middle, and laid her head where his ribs rose and fell beneath worn linen.

“I told you we’d come,” she murmured.

Kazrek let out a breath that was half a sound, half a laugh. His hand came up to her back, slow and careful. He bent forward, just enough to press his forehead to the crown of her head.

I watched them from the doorway. Maeve tucked under his arm like she belonged there. Like she’d never been anywhere else.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him hold her.

That first day came rushing back—the scent of crushed leaves, the quiet hush of the clinic, the way his arms had cradled her while he taught her how to grind calendula into salve. I’d stood in the doorway then, too. A stranger. Suspicious. Tired.

I thought of the quiet evenings when he carried her home—tucked against his chest, curls tangled in his coat. Of the way she leaned into him without hesitation, like she knew she didn’t have to ask to be protected.

And I thought of the altar. The way his body had curved over hers like a shield. Like he’d make himself a wall between her and anything that tried to take her.

Not just her.

Me, too.

Not in the dramatic, self-sacrificing way stories get told. In quiet ways. In staying when it would’ve been easier to go. In fixing things he didn’t break. In bearing grief that wasn’t his to carry. In never asking for anything in return.

He’d been protecting us this whole time.

And I hadn’t said it. Not once. I’d barely let myself feel it.

Because if I had—if I’d let it in—I would’ve had to admit how much I needed him. How much I wanted him to stay. And need had always been dangerous. Want even more so.

But now, watching him hold her like that—like she was whole, like she was safe—I didn’t feel afraid of that need anymore.

I just felt grateful.

And something else. Something warm and aching and slow to rise.

I set the bundle down on his desk and crossed the room. Not hesitating at the edge like I usually did. Not waiting to be invited closer. Just walking straight to him, to them, like I belonged there too.

Because I did.

His eyes lifted to mine as I approached—still that deep brown, though tired now. Shadowed. But steady. Present. When I reached the edge of the cot, he shifted slightly, making space without disturbing Maeve.

I sat.

The mattress dipped beneath my weight. His thigh pressed against mine through the blanket. Maeve's curls brushed my arm where she was still burrowed against his chest.

"You were gone," he said quietly. "When I woke up."

There was no accusation in his voice. Just... something else. Something that made my chest ache.

"I thought—" My throat closed around the words. I swallowed. Tried again. "I thought you were leaving. With the caravan. Uldrek said Vorgrim offered you a position, and I..." I trailed off, the foolishness of it hitting me fresh. "I thought that night, you were saying goodbye."

His hand found mine in the sheets. Warm. Rough. Real. “I was.”

The breath caught in my throat.

“I knew what had to be done,” he said, his voice low, steady. “And I didn’t think I’d come back from it.”

His hand tightened slightly around mine.

“I wasn’t running,” he added after a beat. “Wasn’t choosing the road.”

He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to. I understood. He wasn’t choosing the road that led away from us. He was choosing the one that stood between us and everything else. Even if it meant he didn’t make it out.

Even if it meant we had to go on without him.

“You could’ve told me,” I said softly. “You didn’t have to carry it alone.”

His mouth twitched—something like a smile, but smaller. Sadder. “Didn’t want you to try and stop me.”

“I would’ve.”

“I know.”

"What happened?" I asked quietly. "In the ritual, when you..." I couldn't finish. The memory of him falling was still too sharp.

Kazrek was silent for a long moment, his thumb tracing absent patterns against my palm. Maeve had dozed off against his chest, her breathing steady and deep.

"The magic wanted somewhere to go," he said finally. "It was... hungry. Looking for a vessel. But I couldn't—" He broke off, jaw tight. "I couldn't let it have her."

"So you took it instead."

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I remembered something Sylwen said… about how the magic doesn’t want to die. It needs somewhere to go. Someone to take it. But people… break.” He paused, jaw tightening. “Aylan broke. Sylwen lived because she didn’t.”

"The earth," I whispered, understanding dawning. "That's why you drove it into the ground."

"The forest is old," he said. "Deeper than any of us. I thought maybe..." His voice roughened. "Maybe it would know how to starve it if I couldn’t."

I thought of the roots that had writhed beneath the altar, the way they'd seemed to recognize something in him. In us. "Your magic..."

"Gone." The word was flat, final. "Used it all to make the connection. To give it somewhere else to take root.” A pause. “Not to grow. Just to be ended. Swallowed." His fingers flexed again in mine, an echo of an old habit. "Strange, really. Spent so many years trying to heal things. In the end, the only way to save her was to let something break."

"You," I said softly. "You let it break you."

He didn't deny it.

"I heard you," he said instead. "In the dark. After. When everything was quiet and the shadows were offering peace." His free hand came up to touch the mark on my throat—the place where he'd claimed me, where something deeper than blood still hummed between us.

My chest tightened. "I thought you were gone."

"Almost was." His voice dropped lower, rough around the edges. "But you pulled me back.”

He said it like a fact, not a flourish. Simple. Honest. And it undid me.

I didn’t cry—not exactly. But something in me went a little soft, my eyes heating, the knot in my chest loosening enough to let the air in. I let my forehead fall gently against his shoulder, careful not to jostle Maeve between us. I could feel the rise and fall of his breath beneath my brow, the soft thrum beneath his ribs. Not strong yet. But steady. Alive.

After a few long moments, I pulled back a little, just enough to look at him.

“I brought you some things,” I said, voice a little hoarse. “Tea. Bread. Clean shirts. You know. Life.”

His mouth twitched again. This time, the shape was closer to a real smile.

“Iris made the tea,” I added. “Said it’ll help with recovery. Also said if you don’t drink it, she’ll come down here herself.”

A low grunt of acknowledgment. “Noted.”

Kazrek looked toward the bundle on the desk, then down at Maeve, still curled against him like some small miracle he hadn’t quite convinced himself was real.

“I don’t know when I’ll be ready,” he said. His voice was quiet. Careful. “To come back. To be who I was.”

“You don’t have to be,” I said. “We don’t need who you were.”

He looked at me then—really looked at me. Like he was trying to see if I meant it. If I could hold what he couldn’t.

“We just need you,” I said. “Here. Whole. Ours.”

Something cracked in his expression—just a flicker. And then, slowly, like it cost him something to say, he asked, “You sure?”

I nodded. “I’m tired of doing this alone.”

A long breath left him. Like he’d been holding it for years. He turned his hand over beneath mine, threading his fingers between mine. Not gently. Not hesitantly. Like someone choosing to stay.

Maeve stirred and blinked sleepily up at him. He smoothed her curls back without thinking, and she smiled before drifting again.

I leaned in, resting my head lightly against his shoulder, letting the weight of the moment settle around us.

He didn’t need to speak. I could feel it in the set of his spine. In the steadiness of his hand. In the way he didn’t flinch when I pressed close.

This wasn’t a man leaving.

This was a man coming home.