Ruka
I pressed the back of my hand to Ardin's forehead and felt my stomach drop. The boy's skin blazed with heat, as if he'd swallowed fire itself. Even unconscious, his small face contorted in pain, his features pinched and pale beneath the sheen of sweat.
Beside me, Ryhain wrung out a cloth in the basin, water dripping between her fingers in a steady rhythm that did nothing to fill the terrible silence. Her movements were automatic, her eyes distant—the hollow look of a mother watching her child slip away.
"Still no better?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Worse." I didn't soften it. She deserved the truth. I watched Ardin's chest rise and fall in shallow, labored breaths. The fever had seized him last night, and despite the furs piled on his small frame, he trembled like a leaf in winter wind.
Ryhain leaned forward to pull back the furs, dabbing the cool cloth against his face and neck. That's when I saw it again—the bandaged wound on his chest. Even through the fresh dressing, the signs were unmistakable. The skin around it had turned an angry red, swollen and radiating heat. Infection. And it was spreading.
Our healer Morg had been here twice today already. She'd packed the wound with her strongest poultices—the room still reeked of onion, crushed herbs and bitter roots. She'd forced teadown Ardin's throat, dark brews meant to burn out fever and draw out poison. But nothing worked. If anything, he was fading faster.
My jaw clenched as I watched my sister stroke her son's damp hair with trembling fingers. Time was running out.
"We need to take him back," Ryhain said suddenly, her voice breaking. "To the human settlement. Their hospital."
I shook my head before the words fully left her mouth. "You know we can't. The female in charge threw us out. Made it perfectly clear we weren't welcome."
"But Ardin—"
"I know." The words came out sharp, edged with the same fear that clawed at her. I forced myself to breathe, to gentle my tone. "Believe me, sister. I know. But that woman looked at us like we were vermin."
And then there was Sheriff Dawson. My hands clenched into fists at the mere thought of that man—a walking powder keg of prejudice and barely restrained violence. I'd crossed paths with him enough times to know exactly how our return would play out. He'd been circling our kind like a vulture for years, just waiting for the perfect excuse to strike. Any excuse would do—to cage one of us, or worse.
Our last encounter still burned in my memory. His hand had never left his weapon, fingers dancing near the grip in a twitchy rhythm that spoke of eagerness rather than caution. He'd been hoping—practically praying—for a reason to draw it. The time before that, he'd threatened arrest for "trespassing" while I stood on land that belonged to the clan. He didn't see us as people at all. Like the female at the hospital, we were nothing more than problems requiring solutions, threats demanding elimination.
Ryhain's eyes brimmed with tears that finally spilled over as she turned back to her son. Her hand shook as she adjustedthe cloth on his burning forehead, each tremor a testament to her breaking heart.
Jordan's face surfaced in my mind—it had been doing that with increasing frequency since I'd returned to the village. Those steady hands. That unshakable calm. The way she'd looked at Ardin with genuine concern rather than the usual cocktail of fear and revulsion. "There was one," I said quietly, the words feeling like both confession and hope. "A human female named Jordan. A doctor. She wanted to help. If we knew how to find her, I'm certain she would come."
Ryhain's head snapped up, desperate hope igniting in her tear-bright eyes. "Then we find her."
"How? I don't know where she lives, where she works beyond that hospital—"
"You could go back." Ryhain's interruption came swift and fierce. "To the hospital. Wait nearby. Watch for her." Her fingers found my arm, gripping with a strength born of desperation. "Please, Ruka. You said she wanted to help. Maybe she'll come for Ardin."
I looked down at my nephew's flushed face, watched the too-rapid rise and fall of his small chest. My sister was right. We were running out of options, and Jordan had been willing—more than willing, eager even—to help before that hateful female had intervened.
Something primal stirred in my chest—a hunter's certainty that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with instinct. Jordan was different. I'd seen it in the hospital, felt it in my very marrow. The way genuine anguish had flickered across her features when that other human had forced us out. The complete absence of that sharp, acrid stench of fear that typically poured off humans like sweat when they encountered my kind.
My instincts had never failed me. They'd guided my blade through countless battles, whispered warnings of ambushes before the first arrow flew, helped me distinguish between humans who might negotiate and those who'd sooner see us dead. They were as much a part of me as my tusks or the scars that mapped my skin.
And right now, every fiber of my being sang the same truth. Jordan could be trusted. She would help—if I could only give her the chance.
The certainty settled into my bones like an old friend, as familiar and reliable as the weight of my axe or the sound of wind through pine needles.
"I'll go tonight when she might be working," I promised, my voice rough with determination. "I'll find her, Ryhain. I'll bring her back."
My sister nodded, fresh tears carving paths down her cheeks as she turned back to her son. "Thank you," she whispered.
I squeezed her shoulder once before rising to my feet. The village needed its chieftain, but my mind was already racing ahead, plotting and planning. How does one track a single human through a settlement teeming with thousands? And once I found her, what words could possibly convince her to follow an Orc into the hidden depths of the Nantahala forest?
The answers would come. They had to.
For Ardin. For Ryhain.
For my family.