Page 22 of Till Orc Do Us Part

DROKHAZ

I do not follow her.

It takes more strength than I want to admit.

I watch Rowan’s back as she storms down the boardwalk, steps fast and hard, shoulders drawn tight beneath the cold morning sun.

She doesn’t look back.

I remain standing in the doorway of my home, the words I should have said coiled like iron beneath my ribs.

"You are not a conquest."

"I fight for this place. For you."

But words are not enough. Not now.

Not when trust is a blade she holds tight against her own skin, afraid to let anyone close enough to dull its edge.

I close the door with a soft click. The sound feels final.

The house hums with the silence she left behind. Her scent still lingers—ink and salt and lavender—woven into the air like a memory I cannot escape.

I move through the kitchen, absently setting the mug she abandoned back onto the counter.

"It was always a fling."

I heard the lie in her voice. Saw the tremor in her eyes.

But I also know fear when I taste it.

And now I don’t know how to fix what I do not fully understand.

I sink onto the couch, elbows on my knees, gaze fixed on nothing.

Power is easy. Deals. Negotiations. Battles fought with words and steel.

But this—this war of the heart—is terrain I have never mapped.

And every step feels like a stumble.

The day passes slow, cold, and wrong.

I attend my meetings in body, not in mind. My assistants bring reports I barely register. Ilyana’s sharp eyes follow me through the call—measuring, questioning—but I give her nothing.

I will fight this battle.

But not today.

By sunset, I find myself walking the boardwalk again, feet carrying me without thought.

The Gilded Page is closed.

Lights off.

No sign of her.

I should walk away.

Instead, I lower myself onto the steps, the cold boards biting through my slacks.

The sea murmurs soft and low beneath the pier. Gulls wheel above, their cries sharp against the darkening sky.

I sit in the stillness, every muscle taut beneath a calm I no longer feel.

Footsteps approach.

Small. Familiar.

I look up.

Jamie.

He trots up with his notebook tucked under one arm, curls wild from the wind. His face is solemn in the dim light.

He stops in front of me, small chest rising and falling with purpose.

“You look sad,” he says simply.

I huff a breath. “Perhaps.”

He studies me, head tilted. “Are you gonna fix it?”

My throat tightens. “I do not know how.”

Jamie frowns, clearly displeased with this answer.

Then he brightens. “Wait.”

He rifles through his notebook, pulls out a familiar object—my compass.

But now, taped across the cracked glass is a strip of lined paper. In bold, crayon-scrawled letters:

“Find your brave.”

I stare at it.

Jamie holds it out. “Mom says brave doesn’t mean not scared. It means doing it anyway.”

I take the compass slowly, fingers closing around the worn brass.

The words blur for a beat before sharpening into focus.

"Find your brave."

I swallow hard.

Jamie watches me with the unflinching gaze only a child can give. “You’re a green giant. You can do brave stuff.”

A rough laugh escapes me—low and soft.

“I will try,” I say.

He grins, satisfied, and plops down beside me on the steps. “Good. I’ll help.”

We sit in silence, the boy’s small warmth a fragile tether against the dark.

I turn the compass in my palm, the needle spinning lazy beneath the taped message.

"North doesn’t always mean right."

"Find your brave."

Perhaps the path is not the one I planned.

But it is the one I must take.

For this place.

For her.

For me.

Later, long after Jamie’s small frame leans sleep-heavy against my side and I carry him back to Liara’s waiting arms, I walk the boardwalk alone.

The night is sharp with cold. The wind cuts clean through the thin fabric of my shirt, but I welcome it.

It keeps me awake.

The planks groan beneath my boots—old wood steeped in stories, in salt, in stubbornness.

I move slow.

Every step a memory.

"You can’t just… do this."

"Then why does it feel like one?"

"I fight for this place."

"And I will stand beside you—or not at all."

Rowan’s voice threads through the dark, tangled with the sea’s low murmur.

I lean against the rail where the love-locks hang—a riot of rusted metal, bright ribbons, names scrawled in fading ink.

Here, beneath the paper lanterns not yet taken down, I remember the way she looked at me—defiant and afraid and aching in ways she could not say aloud.

I run my fingers along the cold metal, the rough edges.

She is right to doubt me.

I have given her every reason to.

For years, my life was built upon walls—stone and steel, contracts and clauses. Everything is controlled. Everything is calculated.

Emotion was a weakness. Attachment, a flaw.

But now, I glance down at the compass in my palm.

"Find your brave."

Jamie’s words. His trust.

Rowan’s gaze, too soft beneath the mask of her pride.

I thought I fought for legacy.

For the name Vellum carved into glass and stone.

But that is no longer true.

Now I fight for something older. Something deeper.

A life.

One that is not empty rooms and hollow victories.

One where a boy with too-wide eyes calls me green giant without fear.

Where a woman with ink-stained hands teaches me that courage is not in steel, but in staying when every instinct screams to run.

I close my eyes.

And I know.

I am ready to lose everything.

Every contract.

Every title.

Every carefully constructed shield.

If it means keeping this place.

If it means keeping them.

I press the compass to my chest.

The board may strip my power. The firm may fall to pieces.

But some things are worth bleeding for.

I lift my head to the stars scattered above the dark tide.

And I walk forward—not as Vellum the conqueror.

But as Drokhaz.

Man. Brother.

And somehow, ready.