Page 22 of Her Orc Healer

I flinched at the sound.

"I don't—" My voice cracked. I swallowed hard and tried again, turning to Kazrek. "I don't know what to do."

The admission cost me. I never admitted to not knowing, to not being able to handle things on my own. But standing there, surrounded by shattered glass and spreading pools of ink, watching shadows curl where they shouldn't exist—I was lost.

Kazrek studied me for a long moment, his dark eyes unreadable. Then, without a word, he shrugged off his outer coat and rolled up his sleeves, revealing the swirling tattoos that marked his forearms.

"First," he said, voice steady and sure, "we clean up what we can see." He reached for a broom in the corner. "Then we deal with what we can't."

I exhaled slowly, nodding. It made sense. It was something to hold onto. But as I bent to gather the shattered remains of an ink bottle, my fingers shook.

Because the mess on the floor? That, I could handle.

It was the darkness in Maeve’s eyes that left me trembling.

Chapter 6

Wehadbeencleaningfor what felt like hours, sweeping up shattered glass, salvaging what parchment we could, wiping down every surface that had been touched by Maeve’s magic-fueled outburst. The worst of the mess was gone now—at least, the kind that could be swept away.

Kazrek had taken the broken shelf outside, the door swinging shut behind him. For the first time since the chaos, the shop was quiet.

I exhaled, rolling my stiff shoulders, and reached for a final handful of torn paper scattered near the base of the counter. That’s when I saw it.

A dull glint beneath the mess.

I frowned, shifting the ruined parchment aside, and there—half-hidden beneath the wreckage—was the compass. I’d forgotten I had put it on the shelf for safekeeping. Now, it lay among the wreckage, ink bleeding into its cracks, its glass face shattered. I picked it up carefully, brushing my thumb over the jagged edges.

The door creaked behind me. Kazrek returning. His footfalls were slow, measured. He must have seen the way I was holding it, the way I hadn’t moved, because he didn’t speak right away.

Just waited.

"I forgot this was here," I said softly, more to myself than to Kazrek. "It was supposed to be safe."

"What is it?" he asked, moving closer.

I turned the broken compass over in my hands, feeling the weight of memories heavier than its brass casing. "It was my sister's. Finn's." I swallowed. "Maeve's mother."

Kazrek didn't press, didn't ask the questions I could see in his eyes. He just leaned against the counter, making himself smaller somehow, less imposing. Waiting.

Maybe it was his silence that made me continue. "Our father gave it to her when she was seventeen. 'So you can always find your way back home,' he told her." I traced the cracked glass with my fingertip. "She actually did, for a while. She'd disappear for months, then show up with wild stories about smugglers and skyships, cities where the streets gleamed like gold at sunset."

I could still see her, windburned and grinning, perched on the shop counter while Father pretended to scold her. But his eyes had always softened when she spoke of her adventures.

"The war changed her," I found myself saying. "She was... different. Sharper. Like she was waiting for something to catch up with her." I set the compass down carefully. "The last time she was here, she left this behind. I kept telling myself I'd give it to Maeve someday, that she should have something of her mother's. But really..." The words caught in my throat. "Really, I knew what it meant. She wasn't coming back this time. She made sure of it."

Kazrek shifted slightly, and I realized I'd said more than I'd meant to. I started gathering the remaining scraps of paper, trying to busy my hands.

"Sometimes," he said, his voice low and careful, "people leave because they think they're protecting those they love."

I looked up sharply, but there was no judgment in his eyes. Only understanding. And something else—something that made me wonder who or what he had left behind in his own past.

He reached out, his large green hand hovering over the compass before gently lifting it from the counter. The brass casing looked oddly delicate against his battle-worn fingers as he turned it, studying the fractures.

"It's not beyond repair," he said quietly.

I blinked at him. "It's broken." The words came out harder than I meant them to, brittle with years of disappointment.

He looked up then, and something in his gaze made my breath catch. The way he looked at me—steady, knowing, gentle—made me wonder if we were still talking about the compass at all.

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