Page 97 of The Orc's Captive Bride
“You can’t help with this part.”
“I can keep you fed, make sure you sleep, and stop you from burning yourself out.”
“You’re very bossy.”
“You’re very stubborn.”
She smiled despite herself. “We make quite a pair.”
“We do.”
She pulled another scroll, and started cross-referencing phrases. The work was painstaking. Every word mattered. Every nuance could shift the meaning. But she was close now, so close she could taste it. The answer to the Beast Curse. The key to saving Khorrek’s people. The weapon that could bring down a king.
If I can figure it out in time.
Hours passed, but she barely noticed and the patterns emerged. The covenant wasn’t just a blessing. It was a contract. But Lasseran’s ancestors broke the contract. They took without giving and drew power without fulfilling the covenant’s purpose.
And with each generation, the theft compounded. The orcs grew stronger, but fewer. More powerful, but barren. Their Beasts rose closer to the surface and became harder to control because the balance was destroyed.
“I’ve got it,” she whispered.
He looked up from where he’d been sitting, watching over her. “Got what?”
“The mechanism. How they did it. How they’ve been drawing power from the covenant.”
She pointed to the passages in three different texts.
“It’s a ritual, performed at specific times, that draws on the blood of orcs who’ve been pushed to the edge of the Beast, harvesting their power before it consumes them.”
“The sacrifices.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. The ritual creates a feedback loop. Each time they draw power, they destabilize the covenant further. Which makes the Beast harder to control. Which gives them more unstable orcs to harvest. Which gives them more power.”
“A cycle.”
“One that’s been accelerating for centuries. And now Lasseran wants to complete it and take the last of the power, severing the covenant entirely.”
“Can you stop it?”
She bit her lip. “I think so. The ritual works in one direction. But if I reverse the components…”
She started sketching out the process
“Instead of drawing power out, I could push it back in and return what was stolen to reestablish the balance.”
“And that would cure the curse?”
“It would restore the blessing. The covenant would heal. Stabilize. The Beasts would become what they were meant to be—a source of strength, not a threat.”
“And the children?”
“Would return. The covenant needs both sides to function—protectors and protected. If the balance is restored, life will flourish again.”
Khorrek was silent for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It was small and fragile, but genuine.
