Scarcity and squeezed out.
My throat tightened, and I shook my head. “She got to them too. She knew they were still up there.”
“They said their home is failing,” Caleb went on. “Not just food. Not just game. The ground itself. The stone that used to hold heat is turning cold. They said they wouldn’t survive the winter. Their springs are drying up. Something is siphoning energy from the land.”
“The northern orcs need help too.”
“They do. They weren’t looking for conquest, just a place to breathe long enough to figure out what’s been done to them.”
“And the clans we already have?” I asked.
Caleb’s expression shifted into something cautious.
“They met them,” he said. “Out there. On the ridge, and they didn’t draw weapons. They recognized markings on the northerners, old clan sigils, and ancient weapons. There was forehead pressing, language I didn’t understand, and a quiet agreement.”
The Wilds seemed to lean closer.
I glanced at my dad and back at Caleb, having no idea what that meant, but it seemed like a good thing.
“So, they like each other?”
“Or will at least tolerate one another,” Caleb said, nodding.
Despite everything, a quiet laugh escaped me.
“They did this on their own. Remarkable.” My dad’s skepticism faltered just slightly. “Orcs are known for keeping to their kind. The ones in the swamp like the swamp. The ones in the caves like the caves and so on…”
“How’d they know about Stonewick?” I asked. I felt my chest tighten, waiting.
Caleb smiled. “They said word reached them from travelers and magical strays. The orcs heard there’s a town that is offering help to big and small.”
Hope ran through me. If they heard that meant somehow the story, our offer, was moving faster than the Priestess could choke it.
Stonewick wasn’t just a refuge by accident anymore. It was becoming known as one by choice. Relief washed through me so abruptly that I had to blink against it to hold back tears because something had goneright. Kindness had moved faster than fear.
Because welcome had spread without my permission, without my planning, without the Academy making a decree.
It was simply… happening.
“That has to make her furious,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Caleb’s mouth tightened. “Good.”
Nova would have said it was risky to say such things aloud. That attention could be attracted.
But my mother’s gaze lifted to mine, and something in it wasn’t only fear anymore. It was an old, quiet spark of defiance.
“She always hated it when people chose differently than she expected,” my mother said softly.
“So, what now?” I asked, knowing I couldn’t pretend to understand it all.
“We just keep doing what we’re doing. We don’t let impatience turn to panic. We don’t let fear turn to policy.” Caleb glanced at my dad and back at me. “We take time to listen.”
“And we stay ready,” my dad added. “Because I don’t think the Priestess is going to like being outpaced.”
My birthmark pulsed once, as if agreeing.
For a brief spell, the Wilds felt quieter, not because danger had left, but because something steadier had arrived alongside it.
