Page 66 of The Orc's Protection
Vraag stands beside me, close enough that I can feel the solid line of him at my shoulder. He doesn’t reach for my hand.He doesn’t need to. His presence is a constant, grounding and unmistakable.
Before she speaks, Elder Korgath moves to the fire and adds something from a small pouch—a pinch of something dark that catches immediately, releasing a thread of smoke that smells of cedar and something deeper, older. The scent reaches me a moment later and I recognize it.
Binding spice.
I helped prepare this. My hands ground those seeds under Korgath’s critical eye, and now the smoke is curling upward into the cold air above the most important moment of my life. I don’t think that’s an accident. I don’t think Elder Korgath does anything by accident.
Her voice carries first in Orcish, then in English, the words slow and deliberate, shaped to be heard rather than rushed. Even without understanding every syllable, I feel the meaning ripple outward, the way gravity announces itself without sound.
She turns to Vraag and nods.
He steps forward alone.
My heart stutters—not from fear, but from the weight of what’s coming.
Vraag reaches into the inner fold of his coat and withdraws something small that immediately draws the eye. Firelight glints off silver.
The band is open, not a closed circle. The ends curve toward each other, leaving a deliberate span of space between them. Its surface is worked with stamped markings—geometric, precise, unmistakably intentional. Not decoration.Declaration.
I know his hands.
I can see them in the marks—each press deliberate, each line placed with care rather than flourish. This isn’t something commissioned or borrowed. This is something he made.
The gathered circle goes completely still.
Elder Korgath gestures toward me—a single, unhurried movement—and I understand I’m being invited forward.
I cross the distance between us. When I reach Vraag’s side, he turns just enough to close the last step, and the firelight catches his expression—steady, certain, open in a way I’ve only seen in private until now.
He leans down, his voice low and warm against my ear.
“I shaped it myself,” he murmurs. “But it isn’t finished.”
My breath catches.
He lifts the band between us, open palms offering rather than presenting.
When I extend my wrist, the world seems to narrow to that single point of contact.
The silver settles against my skin; it’s warm already, carrying the echo of his heat. Vraag brings both hands around my wrist, palms covering the band, thumbs resting lightly against my pulse. He bows his head, forearms bracketing the moment as though shielding it from the rest of the world.
The gathered circle disappears.
He leans in again, his mouth near my ear, his voice meant only for me.
“I choose you,” he whispers. “In the open. Without hiding.”
My skin prickles.
“I will protect you—not by diminishing you, but by standing with you. I will make space for you wherever I stand, and I will never ask you to become smaller so I can be more comfortable.”
The silver warms further beneath his hands.
“I will cherish you,” he says softly. “Not as something I possess, but as someone I am devoted to.”
Seconds pass.
Long enough that I realize what’s happening.
