Page 9 of Bound By Blood
"Sir Jedius," she breathes. "Her personal bodyguard. He died when I was fifteen, took fever during a harsh winter."
"A good man. I knew him by sight and reputation, steadfast as mountain stone." I study her face, reading the grief that still lingers there. "Your mother spoke of you often during those later visits. Her pride in your healing skills, her hope that you would carry on her work."
"Work you still haven't explained." Her voice hardens slightly. "What exactly did my mother learn here? What secrets did she carry home?"
I rise and move to one of the herb gardens, running weathered fingers through leaves that gleam silver-green in the filtered light. The plants here grow nowhere else. Mountain varieties that thrive in these unique conditions, their properties known only to clan healers and the select few they trust with ancient knowledge.
"Tell me, Lady Eirian, what did your mother teach you about the old ways? Before the borders hardened, before fear divided our peoples?"
"Stories," she admits reluctantly. "Legends about a time when humans and orcs worked together, traded knowledge and skills. But they were just tales to explain old ruins, ancient artifacts."
"Were they?" I pluck a single leaf and hold it up to the light. Veins run through translucent green like silver thread, and the leaf seems to pulse with inner warmth. "This is heartsease root. It grows only here, in places where two kinds of earth meet and mingle. Your mother learned to cultivate it using methods both human and orcish."
I return to the bench, offering her the leaf. She takes it carefully, examining the unusual coloration with obvious fascination.
"The healing properties?"
"Powerful. It can mend flesh that should be beyond repair, restore strength to bodies ravaged by disease or violence. But the preparation requires techniques from both our peoples, alchemy and earthsong, science and old magic working in harmony."
Her eyes meet mine, understanding beginning to dawn. "That's what she was really doing. Not just learning your healing methods, but creating something new. Something that combined the best of both traditions."
"Your mother was a bridge-builder in an age of wall-makers." I lean back against stone worn smooth by countless hands. "The question now becomes whether her daughter possesses the same vision."
Lady Eirian turns the leaf over in her shackled hands, studying it with the intensity of someone recognizing opportunity wrapped in danger.
"And if I do? If I'm willing to continue her work?"
"Then perhaps these chains need not remain permanent fixtures."
The words hang between us like a challenge, or perhaps a promise. In the healing grotto's peace, with steam rising around us and ancient herbs growing in careful abundance, the future seems suddenly full of unexpected possibilities.
The leaf trembles in her bound hands as understanding settles between us like morning mist. I see her process the implications, see the healer's mind working through possibilities and risks. Her mother had the same expression when first presented with clan knowledge, calculation warring with curiosity.
"My mother never mentioned working with orcs directly." She looks up from the heartsease root. "I always assumed her unconventional methods came from ancient texts, forgotten libraries."
"Easier to maintain that fiction. Your people would have branded her traitor if they knew the truth."
"And your people? How did they react to a human learning clan secrets?"
The question strikes deeper than she knows. I rise and move toward the pool's edge, where mineral deposits have formed crystalline shelves over centuries of patient accumulation. The water here runs clear as mountain air, heated by forces deep beneath the earth.
"My mother opposed it from the beginning."
The admission surprises me. I rarely speak of Kethara, war-chief of the Ironspear Clan, mother to three sons, keeper of traditions older than memory. But something about this grotto, this moment suspended between past and future, loosens tongues that normally stay locked.
"She believed knowledge should stay within clan boundaries," I continue, trailing fingers through the warm water. "That mixing bloodlines of wisdom weakened both. When she discovered the meetings, she forbade further contact."
"But you allowed them to continue anyway."
"I wasn't chief then. My word carried less weight than a war-leader's wisdom." I turn back to face her, noting how she leans forward despite the chains. "The choice was made for me."
Twenty-three summers past. The Bloodmoon Raids.
The memory surfaces through flesh, sudden and sharp. I settle back onto the stone bench, feeling weight that has nothing to do with years or wounds.
"Your borders were expanding then, pushing deeper into contested lands. King Aldric claimed ancient rights to valleys our people had hunted for generations. Diplomatic solutions failed."
"I remember the stories. Border tensions escalating into open warfare."
