Chapter Forty-Five #2
The older orc closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, something ancient looked back at us.
“You ask us to trust those who still have full bellies.”
“I ask you to trust the truth,” I said. “And to let us help mend what was broken before more children fall.”
A long pause.
“We will not march,” he said. “Not today.”
He lowered his weapon and nodded. “Bring me my son.”
“I know Stella and the others will do their best, just as Nova did with the fallen orcs here.”
“But,” the leader continued, lifting one finger, “we will watch. Closely. And if our lands worsen—”
“You won’t need to come for us,” Gideon said evenly. “We’ll already be there.”
The orc studied him, then huffed a short, grim laugh.
“Shadow-walker,” he said. “You speak like a man already at war.”
Gideon’s mouth curved, sharp and tired. “I am, but mostly with myself.”
The orc turned to me.
“And you, witch of Stonewick. If you lie—”
“I won’t,” I said simply.
He nodded once and stepped back, signaling his people to do the same.
“This isn’t over,” I whispered.
“No,” Gideon agreed, eyes already scanning the shadows beyond.
“It’s just finally facing the right direction.”
Lady Limora stepped toward us.
“What has happened here,” she said calmly, “will be remembered. That cuts both ways.”
The orc snorted softly. “Vampires speak of memory as if it belongs to them.”
“Only because we’ve learned what forgetting costs,” she replied.
That earned a few surprised looks.
The Hollows, for their part, seemed… watchful. The ice walls didn’t retreat, but they no longer pressed inward. The hum beneath our feet settled into something like a heartbeat—slow, deliberate, waiting.
“This ground will remember too,” Nova said quietly, rising to her feet. “How you respond now matters as much as what happened before.”
The older orc turned to face his people, speaking in low tones I couldn’t fully follow. The words weren’t angry, but they weren’t gentle either. They sounded practical. When he turned back, his expression had hardened into something weary rather than furious.
“You will not advance,” he told us. “And neither will we. Not today.”
Relief fluttered through me, cautious and fragile.
“But,” he continued, fixing me with a steady gaze, “you will explain why the land itself reacts to you. And why her reach follows your footsteps.”
I nodded. “I’m her granddaughter.”
Gideon cleared his throat then, drawing several sharp looks.
The orcs gasped.
“You’re not wrong to be wary,” he said. “If the Priestess can’t control her,”—his eyes flicked to me, briefly—“she’ll try to isolate her, just like she did to you.”
Keegan stiffened beside me, but I felt something else, too. Understanding.
“She’s counting on fear to do the work for her,” Gideon went on. “That’s the cost of delay.”
Keegan finally exhaled, long and slow. “That could’ve gone worse.”
“That’s not comforting,” I muttered.
“No,” he agreed. “But it’s honest.”
I glanced at Gideon, who was watching the orcs with a distant, thoughtful expression.
“You didn’t have to step in,” I said quietly.
“Yes,” he replied again, softer this time. “I did.”
“How did you know?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer.
As the valley settled into its uneasy truce, I became acutely aware of everything we’d spent without realizing it.
Magic.
Time.
Trust.
And something else.
Choice.
The Priestess had forced our hand, but she hadn’t taken free will away. But she’d made it clear that wherever we went next, we wouldn’t be unseen.
I rested my hand over my birthmark, feeling the faint echo of warmth still there, and wondered how many more times I could stand in the middle before the balance demanded something in return.
The battle had ended.
The reckoning hadn’t even begun.
Frost still clung where it shouldn’t. Shadows lingered at the edges of vision, thinner now, but thicker, as if watching to see who would move first.
I stood at the heart of it, exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with magic.
Keegan stayed close, but even he couldn’t soften the truth pressing in on me. I felt it with every breath. With every thrum of the land beneath my boots.
This hadn’t been an accident.
The Priestess hadn’t lashed out blindly.
She’d chosen the moment with surgical precision.
She’d waited until I stepped forward without a shield.
Until I made myself visible. Until I proved, to the orcs, to the Hollows, to every faction watching, that I was willing to stand in the open and bear the weight of connection.
Nova joined me quietly, her expression unreadable as she followed my gaze across the ice-scored valley.
“She escalated into chaos. That’s never her move,” she said softly. “That means something’s changed.”
“Yes,” I replied. My voice sounded distant even to me. “She’s running out of room.”
“And you?” Nova asked.
I didn’t answer right away.
My birthmark stirred again, not burning this time, but pulsing, as if responding to a tide only it could feel.
Images pressed at the edges of my mind—Stonewick’s crooked streets, Stella’s tea shop glowing at dusk, the Academy’s doors breathing open and shut, students returning with laughter and uncertainty and hope.
All of it was fragile.
All of it exposed.
“What if she didn’t come for power?” I said finally. “What if she came for me?”
Nova didn’t argue.
I turned, scanning the horizon, half-expecting to see the Priestess standing there in the distance, composed and patient and waiting for me to reach the same conclusion she already had. But the valley was empty of her, the sky bruised and watchful, the land holding its breath.
But I did see Stella and the vampires walking with an orc, who looked to be about nineteen. He had no tusks, but he had fangs.
I turned back to Nova and Keegan.
“She’s my grandmother,” I said, the words landing with a quiet finality that sent a chill through me. “And she won’t stop until I choose.”
“Choose what?” Keegan asked, his voice low.
I swallowed.
“Whether Stonewick survives as it is,” I said, “or whether it becomes the price she’s willing to pay to finish what she started.”
Keegan’s hand tightened on mine. “Then we don’t let her decide.”
I met his gaze, wishing with everything in me that it were that simple.
Nova cleared her throat and shook her head. “I think you know there is one more decision you have to make.”
Her brutal honesty skidded over me.
“What’s that?” Keegan asked.
“She wants Maeve to choose Shadowick or Stonewick.”
I felt the Hollows shift behind us, sealing themselves with a sound like stone settling into place. I watched the orcs’ retreat echoing in the distance, heavy footsteps fading and surrounding the leader’s son.
And I knew Nova was right.
This wasn’t an ending.
It was a line drawn.
Stonewick wasn’t safe, not while the Priestess watched from the shadows of her towers.
Or while she could reach through blood and memory and magic to remind me exactly who I was to her.
Family.
Inheritance.
A door she fully intended to open.
And I knew I didn’t need to ask what happened to the Priestess’ kin before my mother and me.
I squared my shoulders and followed the others as the decision formed in my chest with cold, unwavering clarity.
If the Priestess wanted me to choose, then I would.
But not on her terms.
And not before I walked straight into the heart of her world and made her look me in the eye.