Page 97 of Her Orc Healer

The Woman in Blue.

My mouth went dry.

“You,” I breathed.

The woman turned her head, just slightly, as if regarding an insect too small to swat.

“You said she’d be safe,” I said, louder now, fury cracking through the grief. “You said you could protect her—”

“I am,” the woman said, her tone unbothered. “She is safer now than she has ever been. She’s coming home.”

The words landed wrong. Too soft. Too final.

Drev stepped back, giving space, as the Lady approached the altar.

“She is the hinge,” the Lady murmured. “The turning point. A vessel born of unfinished magic and restless blood. She completes what was broken. She closes what was left ajar.”

I could barely breathe. “You’re using her.”

The woman looked at me, and—for a heartbeat—something flickered in her eyes. Not cruelty. Not kindness.

Reverence.

“She was made for this.”

Then she raised her hands.

The circle responded.

The runes along the altar flared to life, white and silver and tinged in faint, curling red. The vines binding Maeve shimmered with sigils that pulsed like a second heartbeat. Around the clearing, the other robed figures lifted their hands, movements slow, synchronized, ritualistic. The ward between us began to thrum.

“Stop—” I surged forward again, slamming both palms against the barrier. “Stop! You don’t get to decide who she is—!”

“She already is,” the woman said. “We are only shaping what the blood remembers.”

The wind stirred at last. But it didn’t come from the trees. It came from below.

A low, rising hum began to build in the stone beneath my feet. The carvings lit in sequence, one after another, spiraling toward the altar like the spokes of a wheel. Maeve stirred—barely—a flicker of movement across her brow, her chest rising too fast now, then too slow.

The air thinned.

Every breath felt too small. Like the trees had pressed inward, sealing the circle off from the rest of the world.

Her chest rose once, shallow. Again, slower. A small, broken sound escaped her throat—like a sob cut short, or a hiccup swallowed before it could become a cry. Her fingers twitched. Her lips moved around a word I couldn’t hear.

And then she stilled.

I pressed both hands to the ward. Then my forehead. The stone was cold beneath my knees. The world narrowed to the pulse of magic winding tighter, the shimmer of runes glowing bone-white along her arms, her ribs, her throat.

Drev stood beside her now. Silent. Watching.

I couldn’t scream.

Couldn’t breathe.

This is what the end feels like, I thought.Cold stone. Empty arms. And knowing I failed her anyway.

I pressed harder against the ward, the edge biting into my palms. My voice wouldn’t come. Only the thought:This is my fault.

---