Page 138 of The Orc Chief's Baker
Today she was making a change for the better too.
“Well, I’m off to pack then,” she said as they crossed through the village gates. Smoke billowed from chimneys. The pathswere empty and sparkled with frost. The smell of porridge and eggs wafted in on the breeze. So familiar it made her ache.
Brovdir tightened his grip on her hand.
“I have quite a bit to do, you know?” She patted his chest. “Lots to organize and pack up.”
“You’re really moving to the clan?” Sythcol asked.
“Is that so shocking?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Your family has baked here for generations, and I know what those traditions mean to you.”
They did mean a lot to her. They had been herwhole world.
Until now.
Now her world was changing.
She looked up into Brovdir’s worried eyes and went on her toes to kiss him. He leaned down so she could reach. He felt so good against her. Warm and sweet andright.
“You’ll do great.” Trinia gave him another squeeze. “I know you will.”
“Thank you.” He nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek, and she found the will to step away.
And then she turned up the path and started the familiar trail from the village gates back to her mother’s bakery.
For the last time.
Chapter
Forty-Four
BROVDIR
“But you are still investigating, right?” The headman asked with a tense, worried crease furrowing his brow. He balled his hands tight on the tabletop, and lack of sleep had caused bags under his eyes. “You will discoverwhythe Fades are remaking our world and how to stop the sinkholes soon, won’t you?”
The three of them sat at a round wooden table in a room that felt too small with a window that looked out onto a quiet street. The houses were packed together with barely enough room to walk between them. The cobblestone paths were slick with frost. The sun had only just started to melt them, and villagers would be waking soon.
He wanted to hurry this along and return to Trinia’s side. He wanted to throw all her things into her hand cart and drag her back to their home in Rove Wood Clan before she took too hard a look at the bakery and decided she couldn’t leave it behind.
Was she only choosing him because the bakery wasn’t an option?
He shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate on the matter at hand.
Sythcol took a deep breath. “I am still investigating. The details of the prophecy are not mine to decipher. I am no seer, but I won’t stop trying. As for the sinkholes, finding a way to stop them is going to take much longer than I previously hoped.”
Sythcol looked up and met their eyes in equal turn before saying. “I’ve broken my peace. My magic is gone.”
Brovdir went rapidly very cold.
“What?” Headman Gerald gasped. “How is that possible?”
Sythcol shut his eyes as if steeling himself. “I’ve discovered that Ergoth had been using his magic to hold back the sinkholes for years. Possibly decades.”
“He was holding them back? All on his own?”
“Yes. It used a tremendous amount of magic.” He looked away from them. “Likely that is why he chose me to perform most of his conjurings for him.”
