Page 57 of Built Orc Tough
I set the gift down beside me and look out toward the village.
The Harmony Festival’s only a day away. Banners are already being strung across shop fronts, and I can hear the distant clatter of carts unloading booths. The whole town smells like fresh bread and damp paint. It’s chaos wrapped in optimism.
She’ll be there.
I know it.
Because Ivy Marlowe doesn’t back down from a challenge, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that she never leaves her stories unfinished.
This one isn’t done. Not yet.
I stand, stretch my back, and glance down at the gift once more. I don’t know how she’ll react.
Or if she’ll forgive me.
But I’m going to show up.I’m going to fight.
Not with fists, for once. Or with silence.
With roots.
And with this stubborn little thing we started to grow.
CHAPTER 27
IVY
The Harmony Festival smells like caramelized almonds and other people’s nerves. The streets are packed elbow-to-elbow with townsfolk in their “seasonal best,” which is really just code for linen vests and floral patterns aggressive enough to offend the sun. Everywhere I turn, there’s bunting and laughing and someone trying to hand me something I neither want nor asked for. It’s all too loud, too bright, too much.
Perfect.
Because I’ve got something to say today, and subtlety isn’t invited.
The bouquet contest takes place in the town square, on a platform that looks suspiciously like it was built this morning with optimism and questionable craftsmanship. My spot is third from last, which means I’ve spent the last hour backstage chewing my lip and dodging Gossamer Quinn, who keeps trying to peek under the velvet cloth draped over my bouquet like she’s not already planning to passive-aggressively critique it into oblivion.
I haven’t seen Gorran all day.
Which should be a relief. It’s not. Every time someone with broad shoulders walks by, my stomach flinches like it’s trying to stand up and run out of my body. I hate it.
But I also don’t.
My bouquet sits behind me, hidden. It smells like truth. Like earth and asphalt. Like something no one here expects and maybe nobody asked for, but I need to say it all the same.
The judges whisper. There’s a new one this year—some import from the southern reaches named Mina Thorne, who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else unless there’s a strong drink and stronger opinions involved. I like her already.
Suddenly, it’s my turn.
I walk up to the podium like I own the damn place, even though my knees are plotting mutiny and my hands won’t stop shaking. The crowd goes a little quiet—just enough to make the air heavy.
I reach for the velvet and yank it off in one motion.
Gasps ripple through the square.
And yeah, I get it.
It’s not a bouquet, not exactly. It’s an arrangement in a bowl carved from stormwood, roots twined into the shape of a crescent moon. Inside, city blooms—sharp-petaled dahlias, concrete-gray irises, firecracker thistle—twist upward toward wild sprays of orcish flora. Fennel arches like spines. Sage spills like memory. Bellflower and hyssop push up defiantly through cracks in a spiral of stone I hand-etched to look like fractured pavement.
It’s chaotic. It’s jagged. It’s bold.
