The ground beneath my hand pulsed, but it was weak and uneven.
The older orc stared at me. “You feel it.”
“Yes.”
His grip loosened another notch.
“Our scouts followed the decay,” he said. “It leads toward Shadowick. Always Shadowick. But we learned Stonewick was siphoning what little remained. That you built walls and drank deeply while we withered.”
“It’s not true. I would tell you if that was the case. The Priestess planted those stories to create the distrust, make you feel you had nowhere to go but to her.” Gideon barked a humorless laugh. “But you have a choice.”
He stepped closer to the orc, close enough that I tensed.
“She needed you angry at the wrong village because if you ever turned your eyes where the rot truly begins…” He shrugged. “She’d be finished.”
Silence fell heavy, and the older orc said quietly, “My son collapsed yesterday. Too weak to stand. He is nineteen.”
Something cracked in my chest as Stella and the others raced to us.
“Where is he?” Stella asked.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing how inadequate that was.
“Nodlya can take you there,” he said, waving at a slightly smaller orc, possibly his wife.
“What do you plan to do, Stella?” I asked.
“Fix him.”
I looked back at the orc. “Would that be okay?”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Nodlya said, glancing at the leader. “But if it will heal our son.”
“Do it,” the leader said. “Whatever it takes.”
I swallowed hard and watched Stella and several other vampires follow Nodlya.
Gideon reached into his coat and withdrew something small and dull. It was an old stone charm, etched with fractured runes.
“This was taken from the Shadowick border,” he said. “Placed there recently. It leeches vitality. Not just magic but will. Your lands didn’t fail. They were fed on. My guess is she’s been placing these all over our magical lands.”
The orc’s breath shuddered.
Nova crouched beside me, fingers brushing the Hollow’s edge.
“If the flow is restored,” she said, “the land can recover. Slowly. But it must be untangled.”
“And that requires cooperation,” I added. “Not marching. Not blood.”
The older orc closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, something ancient looked back at us.
“You ask us to trust those who still have full bellies.”
“I ask you to trust the truth,” I said. “And to let us help mend what was broken before more children fall.”
A long pause.
