Page 2 of Her Orc Protector

The clerk tucked the ledger aside, reached under the counter, and slid across a folded scrap of paper with simple directions printed in an even hand. Then, softer: “Try to rest, Miss Fairbairn. That first night, sometimes that’s the hardest. But it gets better.”

I murmured thanks and turned to leave, one hand still bracing Ellie, the other curling around the directions.

Out on the worn stone walk, the city stretched in front of me: rooftops flickering with early light, smoke curling skyward in calm spirals. The air smelled of wet stone, chimney soot, and something faintly herbal. Not like Elarion. Nothing about this place was.

It had taken me six days to get here. Two carts, one grain wagon, and a lot of walking. My boots were splitting. My back hurt from carrying Ellie the whole way. We’d slept in a barn, under a bridge, once behind a broken shrine. Woken up more than once sure we were being followed. They called Everwood a sanctuary. A place for people starting over. I didn’t know if that was true. But we’d made it.

And for the first time since Ellie was born, I could breathe.

Tinderpost House was a half-mile east, through winding side streets and past the edge of a district called Oakroot. The directions were clear enough: right on Crescent Lane, down twoblocks, follow the ridge until the third stairwell. A city of turns and ridges instead of towers and columns. Good.

As I moved through the streets, the evening bustle of Everwood stirred around me. Shopkeepers sweeping stoops. A pair of orc children chasing each other with wooden swords near a laundry line. A dwarven man hammering something into shape just outside a storefront shutter. I passed a bakery with its doors cracked open, warmth streaming out with the scent of yeast and cardamom.

The Oakroot District grew quieter as I crossed under an arch of climbing vine and moss-covered brick. Older buildings here, soft at the edges. Low walls caught the morning sun in slanted patches, and I noticed a pale cat winding through a garden fence.

Eventually, I found the stairwell. Three stone steps, cracked at the corners, sloped toward a squat building with smoke trailing out of a lopsided chimney. I hesitated—not because I doubted the directions, but because crossing the threshold made it real. Filing the parchment had been one thing. Walking into the place where I would sleep, where I would eat from a communal pot, guarded by curfew and soft-voiced rules… that was another step entirely.

The hinges groaned a little when I pushed the door open, but the warmth that breathed out to meet me was immediate. Dry heat, touched with the sharp scent of rosemary and something more earthen. Damp wool, maybe. Old pine smoke woven into the very walls.

Inside, the hearth dominated the far wall—wide, open-faced, its stones dark with age and use. A banked fire glowed low in the grate, coals tucked beneath split logs that crackled and hissed. Above it hung an iron kettle.

The main room was long, maybe once a taproom before the house changed hands. Mismatched cots and bedrolls lined the walls in uneven intervals, thin dividers of canvas hanging fromropes to offer some illusion of privacy. Blankets hung over the shutters to keep the cold out. The floor was sweep-clean but uneven, bowing slightly toward the middle, stubborn with age.

Two people looked up as I stepped in.

A halfling woman in a saffron shawl paused mid-stitch, needles frozen above a ripple of green yarn. Her eyes were sharper than her smile, though she offered one anyway. Across from her, a silver-haired teen stirred a pot slowly with a long-handled spoon, her other hand tucked into a woolen sleeve.

“Hello?” a voice called from my left.

The dwarven woman who emerged from a side door had a linen towel slung over her shoulder, and her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, revealing forearms crisscrossed with faded scars. Steel-gray hair braided into a crown. A knit cap clung to the back of her head.

Her gaze swept down to Ellie, then back up again. "You the Hearth Office one with the babe?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yes, ma’am."

“Name?”

“Issy,” I answered. Not Isolde. That name didn’t belong to me anymore. Isolde was married, watched, spoken for. Issy might still have a chance.

She grunted acknowledgment, already moving toward one of the cots nearer the fire. The canvas divider was pulled halfway across.

"Fire’ll hold till morning. Draft by the east wall cuts through bone when it’s wet like this, so you’ll want to sleep her close."

I followed, boots scuffing against knotty boards. Ellie stirred again, a soft, unconscious sound that landed in the room like a bell chime.

The dwarf paused beside the cot. The frame had a slight wobble, but the blanket folded on top looked clean, at least.

“I’m Mrs. Gruha.” She nodded toward the cot. “You hungry?”

“I—” I didn’t trust whatever would come out if I said more. So I nodded instead.

Mrs. Gruha sniffed once like she was sizing up a batch of dough, then rolled her shoulders and nodded back. “Toes off, sit down. That girl will start fussing if you don’t rest your arms soon.” She turned to the teen by the stew pot. “Leilan, a cup of broth.”

The girl—Leilan—moved without a word, sliding a ladle through the broth with practiced ease. Across the room, the halfling woman kept knitting, her needles clicking rhythmically again.

Mrs. Gruha handed me a chipped mug with both hands. “Warm enough,” she said. “Not much, but it holds the stomach steady.”

I took it. It smelled of parsnip and something bitter, like dockleaf. The heat seeped into my fingers through the cracks in the glaze.

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