Page 25 of Orc’s Little Human

SELENE

T he flames crackle and spit, casting dancing shadows across the rocky outcrop we've claimed for the night.

Five days of walking have brought us nowhere in particular—just distance from everything that threatened to destroy us.

My feet ache despite the sturdy boots Korrath found for me before we left, and my shoulders burn from the pack I've been carrying.

But it's not the physical discomfort that keeps me staring into the fire instead of sleeping.

I ruined his life.

The thought circles through my mind like a carrion bird, picking at every moment of doubt I've tried to bury.

Korrath gave up everything—his leadership, his clan, his birthright—because of me.

Because of whatever cursed mark burns beneath my tunic, because of the magic that responds to his blood like metal to a lodestone.

He's lost in thought beside me, methodically sharpening his knife with a whetstone. The rhythmic scrape fills the silence between us, steady and soothing in a way that shouldn't be possible given how thoroughly I've destroyed his world.

Thali sleeps curled against my other side, her small body warm and trusting despite everything that's happened. She adapted to our exile with the resilience only children possess, treating our journey like an adventure instead of the desperate flight it really is.

"You're thinking too loud," Korrath murmurs without looking up from his blade.

I shift against the stone at my back, pulling my cloak tighter around my shoulders. "Just wondering how far we'll need to go before we're safe."

"We're safe now." His voice carries quiet certainty. "No one's following us."

That's not what I meant, and he knows it. The real question isn't about distance or pursuit—it's about whether we can build something lasting from the wreckage I've created. Whether three exiles with nothing but the supplies on their backs can carve out a life worth living.

I watch him work, noting the careful precision of each stroke against the steel. His hands move with the same confidence they showed when he fought Varok, when he channeled power through stone and earth to protect what mattered to him.

To protect me.

The realization still takes my breath away. He chose me over his clan, over eight years of leadership and a lifetime of belonging. No one has ever made that kind of sacrifice for my sake—no one has ever thought I was worth it.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, the words scraping past the knot in my throat.

Korrath's hands still. When he looks up, his molten gold eyes reflect firelight like precious metal. "For what?"

"For all of it. For the brand, for what it did to your magic, for making you choose?—"

"Stop." His voice cuts through my litany of guilt like a blade through silk. "You didn't make me do anything. Every choice I made was mine."

But you wouldn't have needed to make those choices if you'd never met me. The words want to spill out, to give voice to the guilt that's been eating at me since we left Gor'thul. Instead, I force myself to meet his gaze, to see the truth burning there.

He doesn't regret it. Despite everything he's lost, despite the uncertainty of our future, Korrath doesn't regret choosing me.

Maybe it's time I stopped regretting it too.

The brand beneath my tunic pulses with dull heat, as though responding to the shift in my thoughts. It's been doing that more often since we left—aching when I'm lost in guilt, burning when Korrath's magic stirs, settling into warmth when we're close like this.

Like it's trying to tell me something I'm not ready to hear.

"The mark," Korrath says quietly, settling his sharpened knife aside. "Will you tell me about it?"

My hand moves instinctively to my collarbone, fingers pressing against the fabric that hides the twisted sigil burned into my skin.

For weeks, I've avoided this conversation.

Avoided thinking too deeply about what was done to me in that place, what it means that my body survived when others died screaming.

But sitting here by the fire, with Thali sleeping peacefully beside me and Korrath watching with patient concern, the walls I've built around that memory feel less necessary.

He deserves to know. The thought settles in my chest like truth finally acknowledged. He deserves to understand what he's bound himself to.

"It happened in the death camp," I begin, my voice barely above a whisper. "There was a man there—Rusk. He brought people in for... experiments."

Korrath's jaw tightens, but he doesn't interrupt.

"They did things to us. Magic, torture, things I don't have words for.

" My fingers worry at the hem of my tunic, finding patterns in the worn fabric.

"The brand was part of it. They would heat this metal sigil until it glowed like a star, then press it into our skin while channeling magic through it. "

The memory makes my stomach twist, bile rising in my throat. I can still smell the burned flesh, still hear the screams that echoed through those underground chambers.

"Most people died," I continue, forcing the words past the tightness in my chest. "Some instantly, some over days as the magic ate at them from the inside. But my body... it took the mark. Healed around it. They said I was useful."

Useful. The word tastes like poison on my tongue. That's all I was to them—a tool that could survive their experiments when others couldn't.

"I never knew what it was for," I admit. "Just that everything hurt when they worked their magic, and the brand would burn like they were pressing hot iron to my skin all over again."

Korrath leans forward, his massive frame seeming to fill the space between us. "It amplifies magic. Specifically blood-forged magic."

I nod, though hearing him say it makes something twist in my chest. "I figured that out when your power started reacting to it. But I don't understand why it doesn't hurt when you use it the way it did with them."

His eyes narrow thoughtfully. "Different intent, maybe. Those bastards were trying to hurt you, to break you. When I use my magic..." He trails off, studying my face in the firelight.

"When you use it, you're protecting me," I finish softly.

"Always." The word carries weight, promise, certainty that makes the brand beneath my tunic pulse with sudden warmth.

We sit in silence for a long moment, watching flames dance and spark. Thali stirs against my side, murmuring something unintelligible before settling deeper into sleep.

"Can I see it?" Korrath asks.

My hands freeze on the ties of my tunic. The brand is ugly—twisted lines that form no pattern I recognize, raised flesh that's never quite healed properly. It's a mark of ownership, of violation, of everything I've tried to leave behind.

But it's also the thing that connects us. The reason his magic sings when I'm near, the source of the power that saved us both.

Maybe it's time to stop hiding.

I untie the laces slowly, my fingers trembling despite my determination. The fabric falls away from my shoulders, baring the mark to firelight and Korrath's steady gaze.

His breath catches. Not with revulsion or fear, but with something that might be recognition.

"It's old magic," he murmurs, leaning closer to study the twisted sigil. "Older than anything I've ever seen."

The brand pulses as he speaks, sending waves of heat through my chest. Not painful heat—something deeper, warmer, like recognition answering recognition.

"May I?" He raises one hand, hovering inches from my skin.

I nod, unable to find words for what I'm feeling as his fingertips brush the raised flesh of the mark. The moment we make contact, power flares between us like lightning seeking ground.

The brand stops burning.

For the first time since it was carved into my skin, the mark doesn't ache. Instead, it warms like sunlight on stone, like coming home after a long journey through cold wilderness.

"Gods," Korrath breathes, his hand flattening against my chest. "It's not fighting me anymore."

Because you're not trying to break me. The realization flows through me like clean water, washing away years of pain and confusion. You're trying to heal me.

Magic hums between us, blood-forged power that no longer feels like violation but like completion. Like two pieces of something broken finally finding their way back together.

"Try using your magic," I whisper, covering his hand with mine. "I want to understand what this is."

Korrath draws his knife with his free hand, making a shallow cut across his palm. Blood wells, dark in the firelight, and power responds like a tide rushing to shore.

But this time, it feels different. Stronger, yes, but also... right. Like this is how magic is supposed to flow, how power is supposed to feel when it's shared instead of stolen.

The stones around our fire shift and reshape themselves, forming a perfect circle of raised earth that will shelter us from wind and rain. The working should have left Korrath pale and shaking—blood-forging always demands its price.

Instead, he looks energized. Alive in a way I've never seen before.

"It doesn't hurt you anymore," he says, wonder coloring his voice.

I shake my head, marveling at the warmth spreading through my chest where his hand rests against the brand. "It feels... complete."

Like I feel complete. The thought whispers through my mind, dangerous and hopeful in equal measure. Like this is where I belong.

For so long, I've defined myself by what was done to me—victim, prisoner, experiment, exile. But sitting here with Korrath's hand warm against my skin and magic flowing between us like shared breath, I feel something I thought I'd lost forever.

Purpose.

Not the purpose others tried to force on me, but something I choose for myself. Someone I choose to stand beside, to fight for, to build a future with.

The brand pulses one more time beneath Korrath's palm, then settles into steady warmth. Like a heart finding its rhythm after too long beating out of time.

"What happened to you in that place was evil," Korrath says quietly, his thumb tracing the edge of the mark with infinite gentleness. "But what you've become because of it... that's something else entirely."

I lean into his touch, feeling tears prick at the corners of my eyes. "What have I become?"

His smile is soft as dawn breaking over mountains, fierce as the fire that burns between us.

"Mine," he says simply. "And I'm yours."

Yes. The word echoes through every fiber of my being, through the mark that no longer burns, through the magic that flows between us like promise made manifest.

Yes.