Page 60 of Till Orc Do Us Part

Maximum height restrictions to preserve ocean sightlines.

My fingers move faster now,carving a path through the numbers and jargon. My old self would call this weakness—sentiment infecting the clean geometry of profit.

I no longer care.

I glance at the folded scrap of paper tucked in the inner flap of my wallet.

“He used a wrench and a wish. And he fixed it.”

A child’s story—yet it holds more truth than a thousand quarterly reports.

I sit back, reread the draft in its entirety.

It is not perfect.

It is honest.

I save the file and attach it to a message addressed to the board and to Ilyana:

Subject: Lowtide Bluffs—Final Vision.

I hesitate for one breathless beat.

Then send.

The window goes dark.

I lean back, listening to the hollow quiet of this place I built.

And wonder—when exactly did I begin to want things that do not live on ledgers.

The answer comes swiftly.

Less than twelve hours later, Ilyana summons me.

The primary conference room gleams like a blade. Steel and glass, polished wood, chairs arranged like a tribunal.

The board is present—six figures already seated beneath the halo of overhead lights.

I stride in, every motion deliberate, controlled.

The room smells faintly of citrus oil and cold ambition.

Malkor Veyne sits at the end—an elf whose greed runs deeper than any river I’ve charted. Anna Quill, human, sharp-eyed and quick as a hawk, flips through a paper copy of my proposal.

Ilyana stands at the head of the table.

“Drokhaz,” she says without preamble. “We have reviewed your revision.”

She slides the document toward me. Her nails—polished obsidian—click against the paper.

“Unacceptable.”