Chapter 15 Kielyne #2
Grothak finds me while I’m stitching a gash on Vekra’s arm. The old warrior sits stone-still, enduring the needle without flinching, but Grothak hovers nearby with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Little healer,” his voice is carefully neutral, “you’ve been busy.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “The wounded need—”
“Not what I meant.” His gaze flicks to Blorjorn, who’s organizing the survivors into marching order on the other side of the valley. “The captain, hmm?”
I focus on my stitching. Keep my voice steady. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem.” Grothak’s tone softens. “He hasn’t let anyone close in years. Not since Glasha died.” A pause. “Some of us thought he’d forgotten how.”
Glasha. His mate. The one who died, along with their daughter, in some battle I’ve never heard of.
“I’m not—” I start, then stop. Not what? Not his mate? Not trying to replace the family he lost? “It’s complicated.”
“It’s simple.” Vekra’s voice, rough with pain and something else—grudging respect, maybe. “You saved our lives in the building. Saved the captain from the blight. Bled for him.” Her dark gaze meets mine. “Now you’ve taken him to your bed. You’re one of us, human. Whether you want to be or not.”
One of us.
The words should feel wrong. I’m human. They’re orcs. We’ve been at war my entire life—their kind burned my village, killed my mother, made me the refugee I am today.
But Vekra’s gaze holds no hostility. Grothak is nodding, his expression warm. And across the valley, Blorjorn catches my eye and something passes between us—understanding, possession, the beginning of something I’m afraid to name.
Maybe enemy was always too simple a word.
Not all the orcs are pleased, of course. I catch muttering from some of the wounded—words in orcish I don’t understand, but the tone is clear enough. Human witchcraft. Seducing the captain. Weakening the war band.
Blorjorn silences them with a look. One flat, dangerous stare that makes the mutterers find somewhere else to be. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to.
“The captain’s protective.” Grothak sounds amused. “That’s new.”
“Shut up, Grothak.”
“Yes, little healer.”
We move toward our destination—the Veilspire, following the trail Grothak’s group left during their escape.
The survivors travel in a loose formation—wounded in the center, fighters on the perimeter, scouts ranging ahead and behind. I stay near Fenrik’s stretcher, monitoring his condition, changing bandages when they soak through.
Blorjorn stays near me.
He’s subtle about it, but I notice. The way he positions himself between me and any potential threat. The way his hand finds my back when the terrain gets rough. The way his gaze tracks me whenever we’re apart, checking, always checking.
Possessive. Protective.
It should annoy me. I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding exactly this kind of attention, this kind of claim. But when he pulls me against his side during a rest stop, his arm heavy across my shoulders, I lean into him instead of pulling away.
“You’re thinking again.” His voice is low, meant for my ears only. “Your face gets this look when you’re overthinking.”
“I’m trying to figure out how this happened.” I keep my voice equally quiet. “Two weeks ago, you were dragging me through a war camp in chains. Now I’m—” I gesture vaguely. “This.”
“This?”
“Wearing your cloak. Smelling like your bed. Letting you touch me in front of your entire war band.” I look up at him, searching his face for something I can hold onto. “I swore I’d never let anyone this close. And now you’re—”
“Now I’m what?” His hand cups my jaw, tilts my face toward his. “Yours? Because that’s what I am, Kielyne.”
My breath catches. “Blorjorn—”
“I haven’t claimed anyone in a long time.
” His thumb traces my lower lip, and I shiver despite myself.
“Haven’t wanted to. Haven’t let myself even think about it.
” His gaze holds mine, fierce and tender all at once.
“But you’re under my skin. In my head. I can’t stop wanting you, and I’m done pretending otherwise. ”
I should be terrified. Should be running as fast and far as I can from this orc who’s claiming me with words and touches and that look in his eyes that makes me feel like the center of his world.
Instead, I rise on my toes and press my mouth to his. Let the kiss say what I’m not ready to put into words. Feel his arms wrap around me, pulling me close, and for one perfect moment, the war and the danger and the chaos fade away.
When we break apart, Grothak is watching with a grin that could light a fire. Vekra’s expression is unreadable, but she gives me a slight nod—approval, I think, or at least acceptance.
“The captain has a woman.” Fenrik’s voice, weak but amused, drifts up from his stretcher. “Someone tell me I’m not hallucinating.”
“You’re not hallucinating.” I move to check his bandages, grateful for the excuse to hide my burning face. “Now shut up and rest.”
“Yes, healer.” His eyes drift closed, but he’s smiling. “This is the best day ever.”
We crest the final ridge as the sun begins to set.
The Veilspire Cathedral rises from the Bloodscar Plains like a monument to everything the war has destroyed.
Twin spires reach toward the sky—one intact, one shattered—their stone blackened by fire and age.
Stained glass windows catch the dying light, glowing faint red even in daylight, beautiful and terrible and wrong in ways I can’t quite name.
“Gods.” The word escapes me without permission.
Hadrin’s army spreads across the plain before the cathedral in an endless sea of tents and soldiers. Dozens of them. A hundred, maybe. Banners snap in the wind—the silver blade through green skull that marks Hadrin’s personal standard, flying highest of all.
They’ve set up a siege. Not around a fortified city, but around the cathedral itself. Supply wagons form a perimeter. Cavalry patrols circle the outer edges, blocking our only path forward just like Morra said would happen.
The weight of it settles on my shoulders. All those deaths at Waypoint. All the orcs who fell because Hadrin was tracking us, hunting us, following the trail of our blood magic. He knew where we were headed.
“It’s not your fault.” Blorjorn’s hand finds mine, squeezes. “You saved my life.”
“And got half your war band killed in the process.”
“Hadrin killed them.” His voice is fierce. “Hadrin and his army and his blood-mages. Not you. Never you.”
I want to believe him. Want to let myself off the hook, blame the enemy, pretend my hands are clean.
But the bodies in that valley are burned into my memory. The price of keeping Blorjorn alive.
Would I pay it again if I had the choice?
I look at him—at this orc captain who’s claimed me, protected me, made me feel things I swore I’d never feel again. At the fierce determination in his gaze and the warmth of his hand wrapped around mine.
Yes. Gods help me, yes. I’d pay it a hundred times over.
And that terrifies me more than the army spread before us.
“What do we do?” Vekra’s voice, steady despite the impossible odds. “We can’t go around. We can’t go through. We’re twenty wounded orcs against an army.”
Silence falls over the group. The wind carries the distant sounds of the encampment—horses, voices, the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer.
Blorjorn stares at the cathedral. At the army. At the impossible path between us and safety.
“We wait.” His voice is quiet. Thoughtful. “We watch. And we find a way.” His gaze finds mine, and something passes between us—determination, promise, the beginning of a plan. “Hadrin wants us. Wants her. That makes him predictable.”
“And predictable can be used,” Grothak finishes. A slow smile spreads across his face. “I like the way you think, Captain.”
I don’t know what they’re planning. Don’t know what desperate gamble might get us through an army of a hundred. But Blorjorn’s hand is warm in mine, and his confidence is infectious, and somewhere in the chaos of the last two weeks, I’ve started to believe we might actually survive this.
Together.
The word doesn’t terrify me as much as it used to.
We retreat from the ridge, back into the fading light, and begin to plan.