Page 51 of Her Orc Healer

"Rowena."

Kazrek's voice cut through the tension like a blade. He filled the opposite end of the alley, his presence both reassuring and dangerous. He reached us in three long strides, his hand finding my shoulder, warm and steady. “Auntie Brindle felt the magic surge. What happened?”

The woman in blue didn’t seem startled by his arrival. If anything, her smile deepened as her slate-gray eyes flicked over him, assessing.

“A healer, then,” she mused. “How fitting.”

Kazrek didn’t react outwardly, but I felt it—the way his grip on my shoulder subtly firmed, the slight shift in his stance. A silent, steady warning that she was being measured just as much as she was measuring him.

She only hummed, like she’d found something amusing in his silence, and pulled something from her sleeve—a small, white stone that seemed to pulse with its own light. "When you're ready to listen, break this. I'll find you."

She let it fall. I caught it reflexively, and in that moment of distraction, she melted into the shadows as if she'd never been there at all.

I glanced at the mouth of the alley, then back at the stones in my palm. "We need to get out of here." My voice came out tight, controlled. "The booth—"

"Already packed up," Kazrek interrupted, his golden eyes studying my face. "Iris is watching our things."

Before I could protest or ask questions, he bent down and scooped Maeve into his arms. She went willingly, wrapping her small arms around his neck and burying her face against his shoulder. The sight of her seeking comfort from him so naturally made something in my chest ache.

Kazrek held out his free hand to me, palm up. An offering. A choice. I hesitated for only a heartbeat before sliding my fingers into his.

"Ready?" he asked.

I nodded, letting him lead us through the shadows. The stones in my other hand seemed to pulse against my skin, a reminder of choices yet to be made, of dangers still lurking in the dark.

But for now, I held onto Kazrek's hand and let him guide me home.

Chapter 14

Thelampflickeredovermy father’s old workbench, casting uncertain light across the back room of the shop.

Maeve hadn’t been able to settle. After an hour of her tossing and turning, I’d finally given up and left her in Auntie Brindle’s care. The brownie had shooed me off with a knowing look, promising stories of ancient magic and gentle dreams.

Still, I couldn’t shake the words Maeve had whispered when I kissed her goodnight: “The shadows wanted to tell me something.”

Now, I stood over the open trunk at the back of the shop, my father’s journals and notes spread across the worn wood.

He’d been meticulous in his work—recording every magical property tied to ink, paper, and pigment. Binding techniques. Arcane sigils. Formulas that worked. Ones that didn’t. I’d turned to his research because it made sense. This had always been his way of making the unknowable a little more solid. A little more safe.

But none of it was helping.

The cracked pendant sat beside the papers, its etched symbol shifting subtly in the lamplight, never quite staying still. The white stone the woman in blue had given me lay just inches away, humming with a quieter kind of pressure.

The air between them felt thick. Charged.

Like the moment just before a storm breaks.

The sound of heavy crates being settled in the storeroom had been my constant companion—Kazrek, still methodically unloading our market supplies despite the late hour. He'd insisted on staying, moving with quiet purpose as he organized our scattered life back into order. Now, his footsteps approached the back room, and I heard him pause in the doorway.

I didn't look up, but I felt the weight of his gaze—the way he observed without rushing, taking in the scattered papers, the hunched curve of my shoulders, the restless movements of my ink-stained fingers.

"You should be in bed," he said finally, his deep voice gentle in the lamp-lit quiet.

I traced the edge of one of my father's diagrams, following the familiar loops of his handwriting. "What's the point?" When I looked up, Kazrek's eyes caught the lamplight, concerned but patient. "I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight."

He considered this for a moment, then moved into the room. Instead of taking the chair across from me, he lowered himself to the floor beside my stool, his broad shoulder nearly brushing my knee.

"Tell me what happened," he said quietly. Not a demand, just an opening.

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