I am being torn apart.
The pain is so absolute that it breaks something. It shatters the cage.
The burning behind my eyes, the red haze that has ruled my every waking moment for years… it flickers. It hisses like water on a forge as the white light floods it. It fights. It screams.
And with a final, agonizing pop deep inside my skull, the red vanishes.
The burning stops.
And I am free.
My mind, my real mind, floods in.
Memories. Not fragments. Whole.
I see a green world, vibrant and sharp. I smell pine and roast meat over a clan fire. A woman's hand—a strong, green hand with blunt nails—is touching my face. Mother.
I hear my name. Namir. She is calling me Namir.
I see my first hunt. I am a novice warrior, sixteen summers old. I see the pride in my father's eyes as he claps my shoulder. My body is lean and hard, not this monstrous shape.
Then... fire. The destructive fire. Elves. Screams.
I feel the agony of the first change. The magic tearing my bones and stretching my skin, the red haze descending for the first time to smother Namir, burying him alive inside this Urog's body.
A lifetime of pain. A lifetime of rage. A lifetime of being caged.
But then... a new memory. A stronger one.
A small, cold hovel. The smell of herbs and woodsmoke. A gentle, pale hand touching my face, not in memory, but in truth.
Betty.
Her voice humming a lullaby in the dark of the blizzard. Her body in the hot spring, clean and shining, her hands tracing my scars. Her face in the firelight just days ago, calling me a star. Her scream as she called my name... Threk... taking me into her.
Her. Mine.
I weigh it in this final, clear moment. My whole Orc life... my childhood, my clan, my name... it is nothing. It is a shadow. It is a ghost.
This time with her... these few weeks... this is the only true thing I have ever known. This is the only time I have ever been alive.
This was my life.
The pain is fading. The burning in my back is gone. The cold is gone. Agony is gone.
I feel... peace.
I won. I saved her.
My life for hers.
The mural was right. A life willingly given. Not for me. For her.
The magic is fading now, and the world is fading with it. I can feel my body... dissolving. Coming apart into pure, warm light.
I have to see her. One last time.
With the last atom of my strength, an effort that costs me everything, I turn my head. I look over my shoulder, into the small, safe cave I have made of my body.
