Page 74 of Bound to the Orc King

“It’s from an unverified source.”

I refuse to give him any response other than to extend my hand closer.

Lukendevener snorts and reaches into his hidden pocket, his arm disappearing all the way to the shoulder as he leans forward in a stretch. It takes a while—far longer than any other retrieval thus far—but he finally pulls his hand free and waves a scroll in the air.

“That one’s human sized!” May darts forward, her body vibrating with excitement.

She’s right—this is the first scroll the dragon has shown us that’s a foot wide instead of five.

“It’s not good scholarship.” Lukendevener scowls. “It wasn’t written by a dragon.” The dragon slaps a scroll into my palm with one last muttered imprecation.

A tingle of power zips through me at the first touch of the ancient parchment, my premonition magic flaring to life. I grunt and spread the new parchment out for May. “This is it.”

“These are human letters!” She leans forward, and her smile falls away. “But it’s not English or French or German. I don’t know what it is.” My moon bound pulls out the translation crystal and studies the parchment again. “Shit. That worked, but the handwriting is horrible.”

She hands the crystal to me, and the ink on the paper swirls and moves, reforming into orcish. She’s right—the handwriting is abysmal.

“Can you read it?” I ask.

She waves for me to give her a moment, already bent over, her lips pursed in concentration. Her eyes bounce around at first, then her finger taps at a word. She snorts in amusement, her tone sardonic. “Go me! I found the word ‘the.’”

“It’s better than I’m doing,” I say.

She sits down cross-legged and pores over the scroll. After a bit, her shoulders slump. “It’s not an explanation of how to use magic. It’s a woman’s diary. She’s talking about baking bread for a village celebration.”

“I told you it was nothing,” the dragon says, tone smug.

I growl at him and set a hand on my bride’s shoulder. “You can do this.”

Her eyes fill with that look of wonder again, the one that says she’s amazed I believe in her. The one that makes me want to throttle the adults who ever let her doubt herself so much.

May starts reading again, her finger sliding over the crooked lines of text. “They go to the celebration. There’s a man there, visiting from another village. He’s selling pretty pieces of jewelry, small twists of copper wire made into rings. He claims they can ward off evil spirits. She wants to know if it’s true. She—”

Her breath catches in her throat, her eyes widening.

“What is it?” I ask.

May clears her throat. “She wrote, ‘I went into the house of his mind and found the room with the rings. There I saw he lied. They had no magic.’”

The scroll falls to her lap, and she whispers, “The house of his mind. The room with the rings.”

“This resonates with you.”

“She used a visual metaphor to read other people’s minds, to give her magic shape.” Excitement fills May’s voice. Then she gives a soft huff of amusement. “Fuck. It’s like Sherlock Holmes and his ‘mind palace.’ I guess it’s a good thing Cumberbatch was so hot. I watched every episode.”

I don’t understand colloquialism she’s using this time, but I don’t need to. I know what shemeans. “You found the answer. I knew you could do it.”

“I really did!” She beams and throws her arms around me, wrapping me in her bright joy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

May

Oh, god. Aldronn really does believe in me. The sweetest emotion fills my chest, thickening my throat and bringing tears to my eyes.

It’s been so long since anyone’s had this kind of faith in me and my abilities. Naomi and Hannah try. They always cheerlead whatever I’m doing, but sometimes I get the feeling it’s because they love me, not that they still believe I can succeed.

But Aldronn doesn’t look at me like that. He looks at meknowingI’ve got what it takes. It’s fucking heady. I’m already falling in love with him, and when he looks at me like that, I’m ready to brave the rest of the fall.

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