Chapter 171

One by one they filtered into my bedroom. Ashlara. Elise. Mirri. Serah. Vel. Thae. Moss. Clo. Tansy. Nim.

Torvek, Issa, Brinja, Mak, Tib, and Lilae had stayed behind in the demesne to watch Briva, Morien, and Naevira.

I looked around at all of them gathered in my room and exhaled slowly. “So,” I said, “does someone want to tell me what happened?”

Mirri marched straight toward me and punched me hard enough in the chest to knock me backward onto the bed.

“You almost got yourself killed!” she snapped, glaring down at me. “You’re supposed to be careful out there, idiot!”

I rubbed my chest weakly. “It was that bad?”

“Yeah, it was that fuckin’ bad,” she shot back. “It was ‘let me pick up this ball of necrofire’ bad. What the fuck happened?”

“I…” I shook my head. “I’m not entirely sure.”

I sat up again slowly, every movement pulling at bruised muscle and half-healed flesh.

“We were ambushed. I assume it was the Covenant. Grenade launchers. Automatic weapons. Battlefield magic.” I grimaced as fragments of memory surfaced. “I think Vel and Nim stepped on landmines at some point. They knew exactly where to hit us. They were watching the waystation.”

I rubbed at my face. “I would’ve taken a bullet in the brain if that rider hadn’t fallen off his horse when he did.”

“That explains them,” Mirri said impatiently. “What about you?”

“I don’t know.” I exhaled sharply. “My perceptions fractured again. But it wasn’t like before.”

I struggled to explain it. “I wasn’t beside them this time. I was…” I frowned. “In them. I could see what they saw. Feel what they felt. Know what they knew.”

“You joined the pack,” Vel said quietly. “But differently.”

Everyone looked toward her.

“Normally we coordinate instinctively,” she explained. “We understand how the others hunt. Fight. Move. We act together because that is our nature.”

Her crimson eyes met mine. “This was clearer. Deeper.” Her voice lowered slightly. “We knew what each other were thinking. We saw the battlefield all at once. We knew where we were needed before anyone spoke.”

She paused. “We knew who was vulnerable.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he got so fucked up,” Mirri said flatly.

“He took our wounds,” Thae replied.

I stared at her. “What?”

“When the link formed, my wings began healing,” she said calmly.

“My arm got better,” Tansy added quietly.

“My legs healed,” Nim rumbled.

Vel gave a slow nod. “Mine as well. You took our injuries onto yourself so we could continue fighting.”

“That’s impossible,” Mirri snapped immediately. “Magic doesn’t work that way.”

“No,” Serah agreed softly. “But Faith does.”

The room fell silent.

“He already bears the Scars of Serathiel,” she continued. “My father took my fire and placed it within Seth. That was not magic. It was symbolic transference. An act of Faith rooted in love that he sought to corrupt and control.”

Her worried gaze settled on me. “Seth may have done something similar. He took something symbolic from the pack.” She swallowed softly. “But instead of passing it elsewhere…”

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “He kept it for himself.”

Nobody spoke.

“Their wounds,” she said. “Their pain. Transferred to their father.”

I stared at her, horrified. “How is that even possible?” I asked quietly.

Serah hesitated. “Lunythera said your swarm was made from fear and guilt,” she reminded me gently. “That you absorbed suffering from others during your ascension.”

Her eyes softened. “Is this truly so different?”

* * *

I spent the next two days recuperating.

I played with Briva and Morien until my ribs ached from laughing. Took Naevira to see the tufa towers of Morentis - rising like pale stone trees from the earth. Walked the rolling hills of the demesne with Issa. Lay beneath the stars with Brinja while she pointed out constellations I still couldn’t remember the names of. Started teaching Tib how to play the harmonica, though at this point he mostly produced noises that sounded like a dying animal. I hunted with Torvek. Played games with Lilae while she peppered me endlessly with questions about Earth. And I took Mak to meet Voretta.

Which proved… interesting.

Mak wanted to see the Iron Nation someday. To understand where she came from. To know her people beyond stories and secondhand accounts.

Unfortunately, Ashlara was a terrible source for anything unrelated to fighting.

She had lost her mother at nine and her father only a few years later. After that she survived on the streets. As a child she’d been more interested in wrestling boys bloody than learning traditions or etiquette anyway.

Then she met Chamberlin.

A human knight. An outsider. He became the closest thing she ever had to a father. But because he was human, much of what he taught her had little to do with orcish culture. Instead he taught her discipline, morality, craftsmanship, how to fight, and how to survive her own anger. When he vanished without explanation, it shattered her.

And Brand had seized upon that grief when he “tested” her.

I’d done what I could for Mak. I gave her books on the Iron Nation. Introduced her to the handful of orcs living around Highstone. But most of what she knew came from pages and stories rather than lived experience.

Voretta was different.

She was a shaman. Advisor to a warlord. Seer. Historian. Keeper of memory. There were few alive who understood orcish culture better than she did.

“You should have brought her sooner,” the old orc woman grumbled as we entered her tent.

Her hair had been painted bright red and waxed into uneven spikes that framed her deeply lined face like a crown of thorns. The heavy smell of smoke, herbs, and old leather filled the space.

“I apologize, shaman,” I said, bowing my head respectfully. I offered no excuses. I knew better than that.

Voretta snorted harshly through her nose and stalked toward Mak, leaning heavily on her staff.

She looked the girl up and down once before her gaze settled on Mak’s eyes.

The old woman stared. And stared. The silence became uncomfortable almost immediately.

Mak shifted nervously and glanced toward me.

“Don’t look at him,” Voretta snapped. “Look at me.”

Mak obeyed, though uncertainty crept into her expression.

The shaman continued studying her in silence long enough that even I began feeling uneasy. Finally, Voretta grunted. “She’s definitely your daughter.”

Then she turned and shuffled back across the tent toward a thick cushion piled atop furs. “Sit.”

Mak looked at me again.

I smiled reassuringly and sat beside her across from the old woman.

Voretta lowered herself with a groan onto the cushion and planted her staff beside her knee.

“Skor’thal Graev?” she asked abruptly.

Mak blinked. “What?”

The old woman sighed heavily. “Bone-Hyena Clan. Those are your people?”

Mak nodded slowly. “My father was a hunter. I don’t remember my mother.”

Voretta hummed low in her throat. “You have their eyes. Only Bone-Hyena and Burning Plains carry eyes like that.” She scratched thoughtfully at her jaw. “And Burning Plains are too far west near the desert.”

“Where are the Bone-Hyenas?” Mak asked quietly.

“South,” Voretta answered. “Halfway to the elves. Close enough to Burning Plains territory that the clans intermarry sometimes.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “How’d your father die?”

Mak’s gaze flicked toward me automatically.

I gave her a small nod.

“He got into a fight with humans,” she said softly. “They killed him. After that I ran away.” Her voice tightened. “Slavers caught me later.”

For a moment, genuine sympathy softened Voretta’s weathered features. “Sorry, kid,” she muttered gruffly.

Then she cleared her throat hard, as though annoyed with herself for showing compassion at all. “I’ll answer what I can,” she said. “But books and stories only get you so far. The only real way to learn your people is to live among them.”

Her sharp gaze shifted toward me briefly. “I doubt your Grath-Vael intends to allow that anytime soon.”

Then she looked back to Mak. “But when you’re older? Spend time with a clan. Truly live with them for a while. You’ll never understand who you are otherwise.”

* * *

I was in the springhouse after dinner checking the barrels of brining meat. It was one of those chores that needed doing every day or two and never took particularly long. I’d already skimmed the foam from the surface and was in the middle of repositioning the cuts to ensure everything stayed submerged beneath the saltwater.

“Greetings, Shaper.”

My back was to the door, but I recognized the voice immediately.

“Hey, Iolite. What’s up?”

There was a pause. An uncomfortable one. “Would you walk with me?”

“Sure,” I answered. “Let me just wash up.”

By the time I turned around, she was already gone.

I rinsed my hands in the small spring that ran through the building, the mountain water so cold it bordered on painful. Had I still been human, my fingers would’ve gone numb before I finished.

I dried my hands, stepped outside, and shut the springhouse door behind me.

It took me a moment to spot her.

She stood nearly fifty feet away on the far side of my workshop, half swallowed by shadow. But even in the darkness, it was obvious something had changed.

Her hair was no longer rough stone jutting from her scalp in rigid slabs. It had been shaped and layered now, smoother and softer in silhouette. It still wasn’t true hair - more like polished sheets of dark stone that shifted independently of one another - but it resembled hair in a way it never had before.

And her face…

The harshness had faded from it. What had once looked like a riverstone with features carved into it now resembled something closer to a mannequin sculpted by careful hands. Her mouth bore the faint suggestion of lips. Her nose curved naturally instead of protruding as a hard ridge. Clay and dark soil filled the spaces between the stones of her frame, softening the skeletal geometry of her body into unmistakably feminine contours.

But what stopped me cold was the dress.

Not just clothing - which I’d never seen her wear before - but an honest to goodness dress.

A dress.

The shock must have been obvious on my face because she abruptly stepped behind the corner of the workshop and vanished from sight.

I swallowed hard.

Up until now, I’d assumed her changes were an experiment. An attempt to blend in. To better understand the people living “above stone,” as she called us. Every change she’d made had been to the stone of her body - subtle adjustments to shape and movement.

But clothing?

That was different. That wasn’t adaptation.

And in light of what Myrrakai had told me, it terrified me.

My Faith changed people. Shaped them. Twisted them into things they were never meant to become. My bloodchildren now possessed emotions they should never have had, and Tansy was already fracturing beneath the strain. Myrrakai believed the others were coping better, but that didn’t make the danger any less real.

But now I was doing the same to Iolite. I was changing her. And I had no idea how that would affect her - the damage it would do. She was changing physically. What about mentally? Emotionally? Did she have feelings she was never built for? How would she cope with them? How could she cope with them?

I forced myself to breathe and walked toward her.

Her head peeked cautiously around the corner at the sound of my footsteps before immediately disappearing again.

“You look very nice tonight,” I said gently, managing a smile.

And she did.

Up close, I could see the extent of the changes. The smooth polish of her stone skin, despite the varied shades and textures. The tiny gemstones embedded where earrings would sit. The refinement of her features. The swell of her breasts-

-of her breasts?

The clay filling the spaces between stone plates created softer lines and curves - feminine in a way she’d never been. Breasts. Hips. Thighs. A butt.

Not exaggerated. Not artificial.

It was as though she’d averaged the proportions of the women around her and quietly shaped herself accordingly. Her chest was modest - smaller than Ashlara’s and fuller than Mirri’s. Her hips resembled Serah’s more than anyone else’s. Even the shape of her ass reminded me of Elise after Morien was born.

The dress itself was simple - sleeveless and green. Something an ordinary human woman might wear while walking through town. I found myself wondering where she’d gotten it. And whether I needed to reimburse someone.

But this was Iolite, not Clo. I couldn’t imagine her stealing anything. Which only made me more curious.

She looked away and the clay around her mouth deformed slightly into a smile.

My breath caught.

I had never seen her face move before. Intellectually, I understood why - it was stone - but actually seeing expression cross her features was startling in a way I couldn’t explain.

Iolite had spent years trying to understand human expressions. Earth elementals didn’t possess them. As far as I understood, elementals in the Earthpulse existed more as spirits than physical beings. There was no light beneath the stone. No faces to observe. No body language to read. They sensed one another somehow, but I had no idea how non-verbal communication worked.

“Where would you like to go?” I asked softly.

Her eyes of polished stone snapped back to me. “There is a place,” she said quickly. “It’s not far.”

Then she turned and hurried through the gate, stopping only once to ensure I was following.

She led me into the hills beyond Highstone. For several minutes she remained silent and walked several paces ahead of me until eventually she slowed enough for me to catch up.

“I have continued attempting to understand why your proximity alters my cognitive processes,” she said hesitantly. “I believe my behavior toward you has diverged significantly from normal elemental attachment patterns.”

Fine cracks appeared along the clay near her jaw.

“Here,” she said abruptly.

She turned toward a cave carved into the hillside.

It wasn’t particularly deep - perhaps thirty feet - and narrow compared to its length. Moonlight spilled faintly through the entrance, enough to reveal the interior.

And the cave was beautiful.

Clusters of smoky quartz covered the lower walls, some of the terminated crystals stretching more than three feet long. Between them rested massive garnets the size of my head, their dark geometric forms nestled among the quartz like the hearts of flowers.

Higher up, the jagged crystal formations gave way to smooth sheets of reflective mica veined with pyrite. The pale green moonlight struck the glittering surface and scattered across the ceiling like starlight.

Small patches of grass and wildflowers dotted the cave floor, carefully transplanted from outside.

I stared in stunned silence.

She made this. Planned it. Worked on it. Thought about it. A work of art shaped from stone and moonlight.

And she brought me here to share it with me.

“You are… exceptionally important to me,” she said quietly from the far side of the cave.

A low vibration rolled through the floor beneath my feet. Dust drifted softly from her shoulders.

“More than is structurally normal.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but she continued before I could speak.

“When you are harmed, I experience distress disproportionate to logical necessity.”

More cracks spread across her arms and face.

“I altered my physical structure because humans respond favorably to visual attraction.”

The moment she spoke the words, she clapped her hands over her non-functional mouth in horror. A section of her cheek cracked free and shattered against the floor.

“Io-”

“I wished to become…” she interrupted shakily. “Preferable to you.”

And then she broke apart. Her body collapsed into stone and soil in an instant before sinking soundlessly into the earth beneath the cave floor.

She was gone - fled back to the stone.

I stood there in stunned silence for several long moments.

There was no misunderstanding what that had been - it was a confession.

One she barely understood herself. One that had probably terrified her.

And honestly?

I had no idea how I was supposed to feel.