Page 5 of Bound to the Orc King

“I will,” I say. “I’ll do it for you, Mom!”

But the longer the voice sings, the less familiar it sounds, slowly morphing into a ringing chorus throbbing with power underlaid by…

Wait. Is that rage? What the fuck? My mother never had a single angry bone in her entire body.

“Who are you?” I cry out, the thought swallowed by the music, which keeps insisting I do what it wants.

Oh, hell no. “Why the fuck are you pretending to be my mother? That’s seriously sus.”

“I am your goddess.”

“Mygoddess?” I snort. “Last time I checked, I hadn’t signed up for any religions, let alone yours.”

The command rings through the music, over and over.“Find me. Free me.Find me. Free me.”

My entire being freezes, locked into shocked compliance, even as my mind screams no.

It takes me a moment to realize I’mmeagain, crouched on a hard surface, my palms planted on either side of my feet to help keep me steady. The rough sandpaper of rock abrades my fingertips as a wobble makes them flex.

I blink rapidly, still bathed in blinding light, but my sense of smell has returned big time, the scent of pine almost overwhelming.

The moon hovers directly overhead, the swirling white surface broken by more and more zigzags of pale-blue lightning.

The song continues to ring in my ears, demanding compliance.

Fighting dizziness, I push to my feet, anger thrumming through me. “If you think I’m going to do what you want after you pretended to be my mother—” My voice breaks on a hiccupped sob, the sadness my anger hides bubbling to the surface. God, there for a bit, I really thought I was talking to Mom. Discovering it was a trick feels like losing her all over again.

“FIND ME. FREE ME!”

The voice reverberates through my entire body, pounding against the inside of my chest and shivering along my bones. Myknees give out, and I plop back down onto the rock, gasping for breath.

With one last chorus of demanding notes, the moon flies up into the sky, disappearing from view.

The night descends into darkness. I keep waiting for my eyes to adjust, and it takes a moment to realize they already have. It’s completely dark. Which should be impossible, because tonight’s a full moon. Tiny stars dot the deep purple sky overhead, so it’s not clouds blocking the view. Where did the moon go?

The sound of the wind whispering through trees combined with the smell of pine tells me I’m in a forest. I spin slowly, but no matter how hard I look, I can’t spot any lights in the distance, so wherever I am, it’s not near Ferndale Falls. The town is small, sure, but it still has plenty of lights.

No moon. No Ferndale Falls. Where the hell am I?

Before I can explore, tiny lights wink on in the surface I sit on, coming from little crystals inset into the stone.

Warmth blooms on my chest, and I grip the necklace my mother gave me, lifting the crystal pendant. It glows a silvery light-blue.

My jaw drops. Mom always said the crystal was magic, and when I was a little girl, I believed her with my whole heart. But then she died, and as I grew up, I lost that belief and thought all the talk of magic and witches was just Mom being Mom, a woman raised by hippies who liked herbal medicine and being super environmentally conscious. I never imagined it could be real.

Tingling electricity shoots through me, making my nerves hum with a feeling of potential. I grip the crystal, my hand cupping it in the old familiar way. Even if the goddess lied about being my mother, I feel Mom with me now.

The lights slowly dim, my crystal cooling, and the glorious feeling of potential fades as well, leaving me in darkness.Fighting down disappointment, I explore a bit on hands and knees. I’m on some kind of rectangular rock platform, about six-feet wide and twice as long. I reach down the sides, feeling only empty air. Good thing I didn’t try to walk anywhere! Who knows how high up I am?

Tiny blue lights appear in the distance, dancing and moving around so quickly they look like fireflies on a caffeine bender. I have no idea what they are, but I watch for several minutes in case they come closer.

When they don’t, I shrug and curl up on the hard stone. It’s not that different from sleeping on a wooden floor, and I’ve done that plenty. One thing you learn when you become a backpacking, travel-the-world-without-a-plan kind of girl is you sleep when you can.

“Magic is real, Mom,” I whisper and let myself drift off.

I jolt awake. I’m sprawled out flat on my back, starfishing across the top of the rock. The sky overhead is storybook blue, the white clouds so fluffy you want to pluck them from the air and stuff them into pillows. Birdsong trills high and sweet. The tops of pine trees circle all around.

What woke me? I can usually sleep through almost anything.

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