Chapter 6 Kielyne
SIX
KIELYNE
The ravine swallows us whole.
Rock walls rise on either side, striated red and brown, carved by centuries of water that no longer flows. Scrubby vegetation clings to cracks in the stone, skeletal and desperate. The sky above narrows to a ribbon of stars, distant and cold.
We’ve been moving since before dawn, the entire war band pushing hard across the Bloodscar Plains to reach this hidden slash in the earth. My legs burn. My shoulder throbs where the orc healers stitched me back together. Every muscle in my body screams for rest.
But rest isn’t coming. Not yet.
Blorjorn hasn’t spoken to me since we broke camp.
He’s been at the front of the column, conferring with his scouts, his lieutenants, anyone except the human woman he dragged into this mess.
The chain between us has stayed loose, but I feel its presence anyway—a constant reminder that I’m not a guest here.
I’m property. Claimed. A debt that won’t stop compounding.
The war band makes camp on the ravine floor, setting up tents in the narrow space, building fires against the cold that seeps from the stone.
I help where I can—checking bandages on the wounded from the attack, distributing the dwindling supply of herbs, keeping my hands busy so my mind doesn’t spiral.
It doesn’t work.
Thousands of bounties. Everyone knows your face. Nowhere to run.
The dying marauder’s words keep echoing in my skull, no matter how hard I try to silence them. Hadrin’s blood magic. His sigil brands. An entire world hunting me, and the only thing standing between me and execution is a bunch of orcs and a captain who owes me a debt he can never repay.
It’s not enough. I know it’s not enough. Blorjorn knows it too—I could see it in the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the way he wouldn’t meet my gaze all through the forced march.
He’s planning something. Something I’m not going to like.
“Little healer.” A voice pulls me from my spiral. The massive orc stands over me. “The captain wants to speak to you. His fire.”
My stomach drops.
“Did he say why?”
The orc’s expression flickers—something that might be sympathy, quickly hidden. “No. But...” He hesitates. “Prepare yourself. He’s not cruel, our captain. But he’s practical. And desperate times make for desperate choices.”
That’s not reassuring. That’s the opposite of reassuring.
I push to my feet, ignoring the protest of my aching muscles. “Where?”
He points toward the deepest part of the ravine, where firelight flickers against stone walls. Away from the rest of the camp. Private.
Private is never good.
I find him sitting alone by a small fire, his back to the ravine wall, his massive frame silhouetted against the dancing flames.
He’s removed his armor. Just leather and cloth now, the muscles of his arms and shoulders on full display, ritual scars catching the firelight.
He looks up as I approach. Those dark, unreadable eyes find mine, and something in my chest tightens.
“Sit.”
Not a request. I sit anyway, lowering myself onto a flat rock across the fire from him. The flames dance between us, casting shifting shadows across his hard-planed face.
Silence stretches. He stares into the fire. I stare at him, waiting, my hands clenched against my thighs to keep them from shaking.
“The blood magic.” His voice comes out rough. “Hadrin’s sigil brands. You know what they do.”
“They track. Following a person’s... life-signature, whatever that means.” I keep my voice flat. “Your scout explained it. Thousands of bounties, all carrying a piece of my essence. Anyone who holds one can feel which direction I am.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t look at me. “Running won’t help. Hiding won’t help. Anywhere you go, they’ll find you.”
“I know.” The words taste bitter. “So what’s your plan? Fight off the entire world? Keep me chained to your belt until Hadrin sends enough soldiers to overwhelm your war band?”
“No.”
He finally looks at me. The firelight catches on his gold-capped tusk, on the hard lines of his jaw, on something raw and uncomfortable in his gaze.
“There’s another way to save you. Older. More...” He pauses, like the words are being dragged from him against his will. “An orc blood oath.”
The flames crackle. Somewhere in the distance, an owl calls. I wait, my heart beating too fast.
“The oath mingles our blood. Binds us by the old magic.” His voice drops lower. “If you accept, your life-signature will be masked beneath mine. The trackers will search for you and find only orc-shadow. They won’t be able to distinguish you from any other orc.”
“And the cost?” Because there’s always a cost. Magic doesn’t come free, and orc magic least of all.
His jaw tightens. “The oath ties our fates. If one of us is severely wounded—dying—the other will know it. Feel the echo of that pain.” A pause, heavy with things unsaid. “Breaking the bond requires both our consent and another ritual. Without that, attempting to sever it could kill us both.”
“So we’re bound until we both agree to end it.”
“Yes.”
The word hangs in the air between us. Final. Absolute.
I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve moved.
“No.”
The word tears out of me, sharp and furious. I pace, stalking the narrow space between fire and stone wall, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.
“You’re asking me to bind myself to you. Magically. To tangle my life with yours so completely that breaking free might kill me—”
“I’m not asking.” His voice stays level. “I’m offering. There’s a difference.”
“A difference?” I spin to face him, fury burning in my throat. “You dragged me out of one prison and you’re offering me another! At least with Torvin, I knew what I was dealing with—just another soldier who wanted me dead. You want to bind me. To tie me to you with magic I don’t understand!”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react. Just watches me with those unreadable eyes while I rage against the walls of the ravine, against him, against every choice that’s led me to this moment.
“I escaped Millbrook.” My voice cracks. I hate it.
“I watched my mother die, and I escaped. I survived the Incursions. I survived fifteen years of war. I survived being called a traitor, a collaborator, an orc-lover. I survived being hunted by my own people. And now you’re telling me the only way to keep surviving is to chain myself to an orc captain I barely know? ”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me what it is!” I shout. I don’t care. “I’ve spent my entire life fighting for the right to make my own choices. To save who I want to save. To be free. And you want to take that away with a magic ritual and call it protection?”
The echo of my voice bounces off the ravine walls. Fades into silence.
Blorjorn stands. Slowly. Deliberately. He moves around the fire toward me, and I hold my ground even though every instinct screams at me to run.
He stops an arm’s length away. Close enough that I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his massive frame, smell the smoke and leather and something underneath that’s just him.
“Run if you want.” His voice is quiet. Rough. “They’ll catch you before dawn. I’m offering you a chance to survive.”
My breath catches.
He continues. “You think I want to bind myself to a human I’ve known for two days?
” He takes another step closer. I should retreat.
I don’t. “You think this is easy for me? Tying my fate to yours, knowing that if you’re dying somewhere, I’ll feel it?
Knowing I can never walk away without your consent? ”
His hand comes up. Hovers near my face, not quite touching. I can feel the warmth of his palm against my cheek, the rough calluses that would scrape my skin if he closed the distance.
“The oath doesn’t make you mine, Kielyne. It doesn’t give me power over you or make you less than what you are.” The words come out strained. “It just... links us. Your blood hiding beneath my blood. Your survival tied to mine. That’s all.”
My name on his lips. The first time he’s said it. It sounds different in his rough voice—softer, somehow. More dangerous.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why would you do this? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you saved Grothak when any other human would have let him die. I know you threw yourself at an armed marauder to protect Durnak.” His hand drops.
The loss of almost-contact leaves my skin cold.
“I know you’re the first person in a hundred years who’s looked at me and seen something other than a monster. ”
My heart pounds. Too fast. Too loud. He can probably hear it.
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it?” A ghost of something flickers in his gaze. Not quite humor. Not quite pain. “You didn’t flinch when I killed those soldiers. You didn’t scream when I chained you. You argued with me. Challenged me. No one challenges me, Kielyne. No one has for decades.”
“Maybe they should,” I manage. “Maybe you need someone to tell you when you’re being an ass.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. It transforms his face—makes him look younger, somehow. Less like a weapon and more like a man.
“Maybe I do.”
We stand there, inches apart, the fire crackling behind us and the stars overhead. My fury has drained away, leaving something else in its wake. Something I don’t want to examine too closely.
“If I do this,” I say slowly, “I’m not yours. The oath doesn’t make me your property. It doesn’t give you the right to make decisions for me or control my life.”
“Agreed.”
“And when this is over—when Hadrin is dead or I find another way to break the blood magic—we both consent to end the bond. Immediately. No arguments, no negotiations.”
A pause. Something flickers in his expression—there and gone before I can identify it.
“Agreed.”
I take a breath. Let it out slowly. Feel the weight of the decision settling on my shoulders.
“Then do it. Before I change my mind.”
The ritual is simpler than I expect. And more terrifying.