Page 79 of Her Orc Protector

Not him. Not even the council. But Ellie. Her small weight in my arms, the way she looked at me as if I was the safest place in the world. Hobbie’s voice, gruff and unwavering:No apologies. And Uldrek—still beside me. Silent. Solid. A shield, even without raising his voice.

I leaned forward, and this time, my voice didn’t shake.

"Narrative," I repeated. "You think I faked records from the Civic Vault? Burned my own charms? Put my daughter at risk just to spin a story?”

He met my gaze with well-practiced sorrow. "I think you believe what you're saying," he said gently. "That’s what makes it so tragic. Whatever happened between us has clearly left you in pain. Enough that you’ve woven this elaborate version rather than facing the truth."

I let the quiet stretch. Then said, flatly, "And what truth is that?"

"That marriages end," he said. "Sometimes, painfully. And sometimes one party—" his gaze touched on me, briefly, with a practiced softness, "—finds it difficult to accept that truth. Especially when things haven’t gone the way they hoped."

He folded his hands neatly on the table. "Is it easier to believe your partner wronged you than to admit you made mistakes? That your choices, your temper, your disappointment—" he let the words land gently, as though he weren’t driving a knife in with each one, "—played any part in the unraveling?"

His voice was low, reasonable, pitched for sympathy.

"I don’t fault her. I truly don’t. Pain does strange things to memory. But dark magic? Mind control? That’s not a truth—it’s a story. One designed to ease the guilt of walking away from a marriage that was already failing."

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. His words hit too precisely—not because they were true, but because they had been. Once.

There was a version of me that would have nodded along, quietly swallowing blame she hadn’t earned. That version who spent long nights wondering if maybe she’d been too sharp, too emotional, too difficult to love.

And there he was, giving that old doubt a polished voice and a sympathetic tone.

Poor Isolde, he was saying.Couldn’t hold a marriage together, so she built a fantasy instead.

My fingers curled into fists in my lap. I felt the edge of the table under my knuckles.

But I wasn’t that woman anymore.

I had faced childbirth with no one but a kitchen witch and an iron tub. I had walked out of a house he thought I’d never leave with a child strapped to my chest and nothing but a name I’d half-forgotten. I had stood beside a man who never once asked me to make myself smaller.

I looked up at the dais. “Councilors,” I said. “There’s no marriage left to end. What I left was possession, not partnership. You can call that bitterness, or failure, or fantasy if you want. But I know what it felt like to be under that artifact’s influence. And I know what it felt like the moment it stopped.”

I turned toward Gavriel, meeting his gaze squarely.

“That silence? That peace in my own mind? That was truth. And I would bet my soul on it.”

Chapter 22

The chamber had grown very still. I could feel the weight of every gaze upon us—the Council, the gallery, the silent observers taking measure of truth and falsehood.

"I name it," I said, my voice clear and deliberate. "The Seal of Veritas. Dark artifact of compulsion and perception, forbidden after the Shadowfall War."

As I spoke the name aloud, something shifted in the air—a ripple so subtle it might have been imagination. But I saw one of the Council members blink rapidly, as if clearing fog from their vision. Saw another straighten slightly in their seat.

"This is absurd," Gavriel said, but his tone had hardened, the careful compassion slipping. "You can't simply invoke the name of an artifact and expect—"

"Why not?" I challenged. "If it holds no power over this room, what harm is there in naming it? The Seal of Veritas. The tool you've been using to sway this very Council, just as you used it on me."

Another ripple. Thenholt frowned, touching his temple briefly.

"Enough," Gavriel said sharply, then immediately modulated his tone. "This has gone far beyond reasonable discourse."

But it was too late. The crack in his composure was visible to everyone in the chamber. Councilor Thorne was watching him with renewed intensity, her earlier uncertainty replaced by focused suspicion.

"Lord Duskryn," she said, "the Council takes these allegations very seriously. The document before us ties you to a restricted artifact. The petitioner's testimony describes effects consistent with its known properties. And your reaction to its naming suggests..." She let the implication hang.

"This is a coordinated political attack," Gavriel said, his pleasant mask slipping further. "The Order of Renewal has many enemies who would see us discredited. My estranged wife has clearly been manipulated into becoming their pawn."

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