I hoped we hadn’t been tricked.
Chapter Two
The Wilds had started its hibernation as fall’s chill crept over the foliage. Colorful leaves clung to the maples’ branches, the vivid mushrooms had hibernated into the ground, and the underbrush crunched with each step. Yet, the Wilds still felt alive with shifters and orcs.
My birthmark pulsed a little quicker than before. It wasn’t sharp or burning, just subtly there to remind me that things were changing.
“They were never going to settle here easily,” Caleb muttered. “Not after what they left behind.”
He slowed near the bend where the trees thinned toward the northern rise. Beyond that ridge lay the orc encampment where fear and unrest festered, all because of the Priestess and the games she played. She’d pulled at the edges of their world to drive them toward the Luminary.
And we had stepped in.
Gideon. Keegan. The vampires…
We managed to redirect their focus and offered Stonewick instead.
It was a different kind of refuge, temporary and strategic, but absolutely necessary to avoid the Priestess. But it was temporary all the same. We all knew that.
The birthmark pulsed again, and I slowed.
“Maeve?” Keegan asked, noticing my movements.
“I think I need a second.” We slowed beneath a canopy of maples, their branches arcing overhead like a protective cage.
I closed my eyes, feeling something from the earth, sky, air…I wasn’t even certain where the sensation came from, but it held information…intent. I blinked my eyes open and turned to Keegan and the group.
“It’s not anger driving the orcs,” I said softly. “They must be feeling pressure on the perimeter around them.”
“What do you think it is?” Ardetia asked.
“Tension,” I replied. “But not between each other.”
Caleb frowned. “They’re the ones sounding horns.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I think that’s out of frustration. This…Something about the air feels opportunistic, and the feeling isn’t from the orcs.”
“Don’t blame us,” Caleb said, his eyes hardening.
Keegan bristled at his tone, and I shook my head.
“It’s not you either.”
“Explain,” Nova said. She positioned her staff next to her and leaned against it while I exhaled.
Nova had always done such a good job of teaching me to listen to my gut and follow my instincts in this magical world, and I was slowly getting better at it.
“We flipped the script on the Priestess,” I said. “Having the orcs around Stonewick wasn’t in her plan. She’s testing boundaries. The orcs feel it, but they might not understand precisely what it is or where it’s coming from.”
“True,” Nova agreed. “They might only feel the unsettled perimeter.”
“She knows she still has an advantage because the orcs and shifters are displaced, and we don’t actually know if there are magical folk feeling the pressure either. And now she just waits.”
Keegan’s expression darkened. “Waits for what?”
“For this.” The distant rumble of orc voices carried faintly down the slope. Metal shifted, and boots scraped stone.
There were a lot of them, a lot of families.
