“Ashe,” he murmured. The word carried a note of reverence, as if he were standing before something sacred rather than a simple flower. “Where did it come from?”
I shrugged, feigning indifference.
"From there," I pointed toward the patch of the clearing where several other flowers were blooming.
Malek’s breath caught as he approached, kneeling before the flowers. He reached out cautiously, touching them with a gentleness I would never have associated with an orc.
"How..." he whispered to himself, before casting a glance over his shoulder at me. The admiration on his face was almost disconcerting; his lips parted. "You?"
I tried to keep my expression neutral, giving no sign that my magic, something I shouldn't have possessed as an orc, had any part in it.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
He rose in a single leap, his entire focus locked on me. "No ashe has bloomed here for years," he said, his tone laden with something bordering on accusation. "And you were here."
"So what?" I retorted, my patience fraying as I took another step back. "They're flowers. What do you expect me to say? That I'm the one who made them grow? That's impossible. I'm not High Fae."
He watched me in silence for a long time, the tension between us stretching to its limits. All I wanted was to get away from him, to go back to the village and hide from that overly perceptive gaze.
"Ashe are rare," he said, ignoring my denial. "If you can make them grow, that means..."
"What?" I challenged.
Malek didn't answer right away. Instead, he walked to the tree and touched the bark with his fingertips. His gaze slowly followed to the flower I had picked.
"If the ashe begin to bloom again..." he murmured, more to himself than to me, "it’s a sign of life in the midst of the darkness."
"Great," I replied, my voice clipped.
He didn't pay me any mind. His focus remained on the earth, on the roots, as if he were listening to something I couldn't hear.
"You are an akra’yn," he stated. It wasn't a question. "A gift from the Great Mother."
My blood ran cold. "The what..."
He made a brief gesture, indicating the flower behind my ear and the others spreading all around, as if the answer had been there all along. "The Great Mother has blessed us."
With his eyes closed, he whispered something in Okshakai and touched his own forehead, just as the orcs did with him—a gesture of respect.
Akra’yn. A gift from the Great Mother.
If he only knew how far he was from the truth. The last thing I would ever be was a gift to the Okshai. And if Malek understood what it meant to make the ashe bloom, he would realize I was no ordinary orc.
Damned be the moment I used my powers.
The worst part was that I hadn’t done it on purpose. I felt tied to the earth in a way I had never experienced. The magic of An Talamh, which had always been weak in me as a High Fae, now pulsed in my orc blood. The ashe he worshipped was merely a side effect of that.
"I’m not an akra’yn," I managed to say, my voice faltering. "I’m just an orc from Oguk."
Malek approached, solemn, leaning in until the weight of his presence enveloped me. He tilted my chin up with the same gentleness he had used to touch the flowers; his touch was rough, calloused, so different from the soft hands of the males of Ceilte, who rarely knew hard labor.
"I feel the life of the forest in you," he said. "The scent of the earth. You’re the gift we prayed for; the Great Mother has remembered Oksha."
He pulled away, and when he spoke again, there was something new in his tone. "We’re going to Kroshak. He’ll know what to do."
???
Kroshak was the shaman of the Oksha. Nearly as old as Uruha, he had braided hair that fell all the way to the back of his bony knees, sharp green eyes, and wrinkled skin marked by countless scars.
