Chapter Two
The Wilds had started its hibernation as fall’s chill crept over the foliage. Colorful leaves clung to the maples’ branches, the vivid mushrooms had hibernated into the ground, and the underbrush crunched with each step. Yet, the Wilds still felt alive with shifters and orcs.
My birthmark pulsed a little quicker than before. It wasn’t sharp or burning, just subtly there to remind me that things were changing.
“They were never going to settle here easily,” Caleb muttered. “Not after what they left behind.”
He slowed near the bend where the trees thinned toward the northern rise. Beyond that ridge lay the orc encampment where fear and unrest festered, all because of the Priestess and the games she played. She’d pulled at the edges of their world to drive them toward the Luminary.
And we had stepped in.
Gideon. Keegan. The vampires…
We managed to redirect their focus and offered Stonewick instead.
It was a different kind of refuge, temporary and strategic, but absolutely necessary to avoid the Priestess. But it was temporary all the same. We all knew that.
The birthmark pulsed again, and I slowed.
“Maeve?” Keegan asked, noticing my movements.
“I think I need a second.” We slowed beneath a canopy of maples, their branches arcing overhead like a protective cage.
I closed my eyes, feeling something from the earth, sky, air…I wasn’t even certain where the sensation came from, but it held information…intent. I blinked my eyes open and turned to Keegan and the group.
“It’s not anger driving the orcs,” I said softly. “They must be feeling pressure on the perimeter around them.”
“What do you think it is?” Ardetia asked.
“Tension,” I replied. “But not between each other.”
Caleb frowned. “They’re the ones sounding horns.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I think that’s out of frustration. This…Something about the air feels opportunistic, and the feeling isn’t from the orcs.”
“Don’t blame us,” Caleb said, his eyes hardening.
Keegan bristled at his tone, and I shook my head.
“It’s not you either.”
“Explain,” Nova said. She positioned her staff next to her and leaned against it while I exhaled.
Nova had always done such a good job of teaching me to listen to my gut and follow my instincts in this magical world, and I was slowly getting better at it.
“We flipped the script on the Priestess,” I said. “Having the orcs around Stonewick wasn’t in her plan. She’s testing boundaries. The orcs feel it, but they might not understand precisely what it is or where it’s coming from.”
“True,” Nova agreed. “They might only feel the unsettled perimeter.”
“She knows she still has an advantage because the orcs and shifters are displaced, and we don’t actually know if there are magical folk feeling the pressure either. And now she just waits.”
Keegan’s expression darkened. “Waits for what?”
“For this.” The distant rumble of orc voices carried faintly down the slope. Metal shifted, and boots scraped stone.
There were a lot of them, a lot of families.
“They’re exiled,” I said. “But still proud and armed. They’re used to leading their own fate. And now they’re guests here.”
“Guests with axes,” Caleb muttered.
Keegan nodded. “Among other things.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “And they’re guests who don’t know how long they’re staying. They probably just want to go home.”
The Wilds stirred faintly around us as if in agreement.
“I think she’s watching to see if we fracture.” I glanced at Nova. “Or if the orcs do.”
Nova’s eyes held mine as she pressed her lips together into a fine line before glancing toward the sound of the orcs.
“We know she created scarcity and pushed them toward desperation. That part was hers.” I folded my arms over my chest. “She wanted them weak and willing to do anything she says.”
“But you redirected them,” Ardetia said softly.
“We did.” I thought back to Gideon, Stella, Nova, and everyone else. “We gave them an option. We came in peace.”
But I knew that if tension broke out now or if the orcs pushed against the perimeter or our Wards mistakenly pushed back, it might look like Stonewick was rejecting them.
And the Priestess wouldn’t need to touch a single stone. The orcs would feel tricked. The shifters would react, and an imbalance, causing a massive opportunity for the Priestess to dabble, would arise.
“She thrives on imbalance,” Nova said quietly. “Not necessarily on direct interference.”
“Exactly,” I said, learning more about my maternal grandmother every single day.
Caleb looked toward the ridge. “They’re testing the boundary because they feel caged.”
“I think so,” I said. “And if the boundary reacts too harshly, it confirms their fear.”
Keegan’s hand found mine, and I squeezed it back.
“You think she’s counting on impatience,” he said more than asked.
“I think she understands pride,” I replied. “And will twist it to her advantage.”
Another horn sounded, but it didn’t sound like the attack horns I remembered from before.
“They want to go home,” Caleb said. “That’s all they’ve wanted.”
“It’s hard to pretend this is their home, even if temporary,” I agreed.
I could relate. I understood that ache and the pull back to what was familiar. I’d felt it when I’d first arrived at the cottage.
“She doesn’t need them in Shadowick,” I said quietly. “She just needs them unsettled for now.”
Nova tilted her head slightly.
“And what are the odds,” she asked gently, “that this unrest stays simply as unrest?”
I didn’t answer because that was the question.
The orcs weren’t merely pawns.
They were displaced warriors with dwindling patience, but the Priestess had created the conditions for their displacement, and until we could figure out how to restore their lands, they were here.
Keegan squeezed my hand once. “We talk first.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
We crested the rise together, the encampment coming into view beyond the trees.
Caleb lifted his chin toward the center of the encampment.
“There,” he said quietly. “By the ridge stone.”
I followed his line of sight and saw that a makeshift tent had been erected where the tree line gave way to exposed rock.
It wasn’t decorative or symbolic, just canvas stretched tight over a rough frame, staked into ground that didn’t fully welcome it.
Two heavy spears marked the entrance. They weren’t ornamental, merely practical.
The leader would likely be inside.
As we descended the last stretch of slope, the crowd shifted, and conversations faltered.
It was a sea of broad-shouldered orcs, weathered and armed with well-worn travel leathers.
They didn’t appear to be posturing, but they were braced. Maybe for uncertainty? Or perhaps a signal?
Keegan stepped closer to me. I knew he wasn’t being possessive or claiming me. He was just steady, and his presence anchored my breathing, anchored me.
Nova and Ardetia hung back a pace, allowing space so we didn’t look threatening, but Caleb didn’t slow.
The first orc we passed watched us with narrowed eyes, but didn’t move to block the way. The second shifted his weight, jaw tight. A third muttered something low to the one beside him.
The trail parted, but it wasn’t out of welcome, more like acceptance.
With every step forward, the tension grew more tangible. It lived in the set of shoulders. In the way that hands hovered near weapons without quite gripping them. In the shallow breaths of warriors who had not yet chosen violence, but had considered it.
My birthmark pulsed slightly, but it wasn’t flaring as it did in Shadowick. There was no immediate danger.
I looked around to see some orcs pacing while others were trying to keep themselves busy with weapons and leather. It wasn’t a calm existence, to say the least.
Caleb spoke without looking at me. “I told you.”
“Yes. You did.”
It had only been days since they arrived. Days since we walked them through the boundaries, explained the Wards, and promised temporary sanctuary. Yet, they craved home.
Their temporary meant waiting, and waiting meant uncertainty. Uncertainty didn’t sit well with people who had survived scarcity.
We reached the tent. Two guards stood at either side, both taller than Caleb and Keegan by half a head. Their expressions were unreadable, but not blank. Assessing.
Keegan inclined his head once. Respectful. Equal.
One guard looked at Caleb, and he nodded. “Maeve is here to speak with the leaders.”
The guards’ gaze slid to me, and I smiled with a nod.
I wasn’t exactly sure what was customary, but it felt like a smile couldn’t hurt.
A murmur rippled outward through the gathered orcs behind us. It wasn’t loud or chaotic, just contained mutters, and that was almost worse.
I became acutely aware of how small the Academy must seem from here. How fragile our assurances might sound against the weight of abandoned swamps and caverns.
The guards went into the canvas and reappeared quickly.
The canvas shifted, the tent flap opened, and the leader’s wife stepped out.
She was broader than I remembered, or perhaps she only seemed so beneath the weight of the moment. Dark green scars marked her forearms in pale lines. Her braids were pulled tight, beads woven through with symbols I didn’t recognize but respected instinctively.
Her gaze moved over Caleb first, then Keegan, and finally me.
She didn’t smile.
“We heard the horns,” I told her, hoping that would lead into conversation.
“And you feared we were attacking your boundary?” she asked calmly.
“No, not yet,” I said truthfully. “But I feared you were about to.”
A flicker crossed her expression. It wasn’t amusement but curiosity.
The crowd behind us shifted again. She stepped closer, just enough that I could see the strain at the corners of her eyes. She was tired and stressed, bearing the weight of her people on her shoulders.
“It has been three nights,” she said. “Three nights of waiting while our homes remain unstable. Three nights, while you speak of patience. Our land doesn’t have time to wait. The food supply is dwindling. The swamps are…” she stopped and looked at me.
Her words weren’t shouted.
They didn’t need to be.
“I know you want to go home,” I said. “I would too, but we can’t rush it. We’re working on magic to reverse whatever the Priestess did. I know how it feels to miss your home.”
“Do you?” she asked.
Behind me, I felt Keegan tense. He wouldn’t strike, but his protector instinct was ready.
The leader’s gaze flicked briefly to the Wilds.
“We tested the line,” she said. “It pushed back. I thought you trusted us.”
My stomach dropped.
“We do. That line you feel isn’t to keep you out. It’s to keep the Priestess out.”
“You say this, but it pushed back in our direction.”
My chest tightened. That wasn’t supposed to be how it worked.
“How hard?” I asked.
Her jaw tightened, and she looked at each one of us before returning her gaze to me.
“Hard enough.”
A low murmur rolled through the gathered orcs again, and my birthmark warmed.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as I touched my hip.
“You feel it,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
The air shifted, and I met her gaze fully.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s not us trying to keep you out, but there might be something trying to come in.”
And somewhere beyond the ridge, farther than the Wilds, farther than the perimeter, a third horn sounded.
The leader turned her head toward the sound, and the crowd stilled.
“Something is coming,” she said, eyeing me. “I hope you’re prepared.”