Page 24 of Bound By Blood
"The wound will heal cleanly now," I say, helping him from the pool and providing clean cloth for drying. "But you need rest and proper nutrition. Fighting infection requires resources your body doesn't have while you're maintaining the pace of a war chief."
"Tomorrow," he agrees, donning his clothes with movements that show genuine improvement. "We'll continue the treatment tomorrow."
But as he prepares to leave, I sense we've crossed a threshold that extends beyond medical care. The forbidden blessing I chanted over his healing, the trust required for him to accept treatment that violates cultural boundaries on both sides. These create connections that simple captivity can't contain.
What happens when healing becomes more than medicine? When enemies discover they share deeper values than the ones that divide them?
The touch happens by accident. We reach for the same herb packet floating in the pool, our fingers brushing beneath the mineral-warmed surface. Contact lasts only seconds. His calloused palm against my wrist, my thumb grazing the thick vein at his throat where fever still pulses.
But those seconds stretch into something that defies measurement.
Heat flows between us, not the simple warmth of skin contact but something deeper. Through that touch, I feel the steady drum of his heartbeat, the careful control he maintains over pain and exhaustion, the leadership that never allows him true rest. Power radiates from his massive frame, but also a loneliness so profound it makes my chest ache.
What am I sensing?
He goes rigid, amber eyes widening as if experiencing similar impossibilities. His breathing changes, becoming deeper and more deliberate. The fever flush across his cheekbones darkens into something that has nothing to do with infection.
"You..." He pulls back from the contact, water sluicing between our separated hands. "That's not normal human healing."
"I don't know what that was." Truth, but incomplete. The sensation felt familiar, like remembering a dream upon waking. Something my mother's journals described but never fully explained. "Did you feel it too?"
"I tasted your thoughts." His voice drops to a whisper, as if speaking heresy. "Compassion. Dedication. And underneath, fear of your own power."
He tasted my thoughts.The phrasing suggests this phenomenon exists in Orc healing traditions, even if rarely experienced.
"Is that normal? In your culture?"
"Among the deep-bonded. Warriors who share blood oaths. Healers who bind their spirits to clan chiefs." He studies my face with new intensity. "Never between peoples of different blood."
The implications crash over me like freezing mountain water. Blood oaths. Spirit binding. Practices that create connections deeper than marriage, more permanent than political alliances.
"I should go," I say, gathering my supplies with hands that shiver. "You need rest, and I have other patients to check."
But I don't move. Neither does he. We remain frozen beside the steaming pool, both understanding that something fundamental shifted in those seconds of contact. Something that can't change by pretending it never happened.
"Eirian." My name sounds different in his voice now, less formal and more intimate. "What happened just now?—"
"Was healing. Nothing more." The denial sounds hollow even to my own ears. "I should return to my chamber."
This time I move, gathering my satchel and walking toward the grotto entrance with as much dignity as I can manage. But I feel his gaze following my retreat, and the heat of that attention burns between my shoulder blades long after I reach the safety of my assigned quarters.
Sleep eludes me that night. I lie on the simple cot they've provided, staring at phosphorescent patterns on the ceiling while replaying those moments beside the pool. The touch itself, yes, but also the aftermath. The way Drokhan's expression changed from suspicion to something approaching awe. The carefully controlled hunger in his voice when he spoke my name.
Warriors who share blood oaths. Healers who bind their spirits to clan chiefs.
My mother's journals mentioned such practices, but always in clinical terms that emphasized their primitive nature. Barbaric rituals performed by peoples who hadn't learned to separate emotion from medical treatment. I'd dismissed those passages as anthropological curiosities, examples of how superstition corrupted genuine healing knowledge.
But what if she was wrong? What if the practices she documented contained wisdom that civilized medicine had forgotten?
I roll onto my side, pulling the rough blanket higher against the grotto's perpetual chill. I hear the indistinct murmur of Orc voices engaged in late-night conversation. Guards changing shifts, perhaps, or wounded warriors unable to find comfortable sleep.
Then a distinct sound reaches my ears. Footsteps approaching my chamber, measured and deliberate. Too heavy to belong to any of the healers or servants who normally move through these passages.
A soft knock against the wooden door that separates my quarters from the main grotto.
"Lady Eirian?" The voice belongs to Gorth, Drokhan's lieutenant, whom I treated on my first day of captivity. "The Chief requests your presence in the council chamber."
My heart lurches.Council chamber.Not the healing grotto where medical consultations take place, but the formal space where clan business gets conducted. Where decisions about captives and their ultimate fate receive official pronouncement.
