I inhaled deeply, feeling the pressure settle more firmly in my bones, not crushing, but insistent. This was it. The next move. One that couldn’t be undone.
I glanced once more at the glowing map, at the thousands of lights inching forward.
“I just hope,” I said quietly, “that I can reach them before she does.”
Because if I couldn’t, Stonewick wouldn’t just be facing unrest.
It would be standing in the path of something vast, desperate, and very hard to stop.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Maple Ward was quiet in the way only living places could be when they were thinking.
I stood at its edge with my hands tucked into the sleeves of my sweater, breathing in the soft, amber-sweet scent of leaves and sap and earth that had known many seasons without needing to name them.
The canopy overhead glowed with that peculiar Maple Ward light. It wasn’t quite sunlight and not quite magic, but something in between that warmed me from the inside out. Leaves drifted lazily to the ground, each one landing with intention rather than gravity, as if they knew exactly where they belonged.
I’d come here because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t feel the call of the dragons, and frankly, I wanted them to know I could make decisions without asking them every step of the way.
Granted, the outcome of what was about to take place could prove that theory right or wrong and make me wish I had.
But in less than an hour, I would be leaving Stonewick and the Academy behind. We’d be leaving the wards that had become my anchor.
And despite all the planning, all the meetings, all the careful nods and reassurances, I still didn’t know what I was going to say when I stood in front of thousands of displaced orcs who had every reason not to trust a witch from a town they’d never called home.
I walked deeper into the Ward and smiled.
The Maple Ward had always felt different from the others. The Flame Ward burned with purpose. The Stone Ward held firm. The Butterfly Ward transformed.
But the Maple Ward listened.
It remembered beginnings, and it honored endings. It knew that growth didn’t happen without discomfort, and that connection was the only thing that made the stretching worthwhile. It required light and dark to survive.
“I could really use your advice,” I murmured, feeling a little foolish and not caring. “I don’t know what I’m offering them. I don’t know what I’m asking. I don’t even know if I’m the right person to be doing this. If you’re wondering who I’m talking about, it’s the orcs.”
The Ward responded the way it always did, not with words, but with sensation.
The light shifted, deepening into warm golds and reds, the colors of change rather than decline. A breeze moved through the branches, stirring the leaves into a slow spiral around me. One brushed my cheek, another landed against my palm, its surface faintly warm.
Connection, the Ward seemed to say. Not control.
I closed my eyes.
“I can’t promise them safety forever,” I said quietly. “I can’t promise Stonewick can hold them. I can’t promise the Priestess won’t keep pushing.”
The leaves rustled again, firmer this time.
Growth requires honesty.
“I don’t even know if they want peace,” I admitted. “They might just want somewhere to stop running.”
The ground beneath my feet warmed, steady and reassuring.
New beginnings don’t start with certainty.
I let out a breath that trembled despite my best efforts.
“You’re right. New beginnings don’t start with certainty. They start with the first hopeful step of believing there is another way.”
