IM AN ORC?

And now it knew exactly how Ruk fought back.

The knowledge sat in him like a stone as the barge drifted into the shallows.

Zree remained on one knee beside the split anchor. Her amber eyes had dimmed, but the sound-mapping was still running. She stared at the black fragments embedded in the deck boards.

"The replies are fading," she said. "Not gone. They are moving away from the river line."

Nym crouched beside a narrow storage hatch at the stern. She had found a leather tube tucked under the ruined steering oar. The tube held a single scrap of paper, oil-stained and folded twice.

"No cipher," she said, opening it. "That is either careless or meant for someone who already knows the route."

Ruk read over her shoulder.

*Mill at Gorse Hill. Third bell after dark. Bring the river-key. No witnesses. — V.O.*

Sorn touched the scar along his side where the hook blade had cut him. The wound was shallow, but Zira’s hand went there at once. Pale light spread over the torn coat, sealing the deeper part before infection could set in.

"Varn Osk," Ruk said.

"He wants the person who delivered the core to meet him," Nym replied. "The gray-cloaked woman will not make it. Either she drowned or she has another escape route."

"And he expects the river-key," Zira added. "The broken anchor’s core."

Ruk looked at the dark fragments.

"Then we give him one."

Nym gave him a flat look. "You are thinking of walking into the meeting."

"Yes."

"Of course you are."

They took the barge back to Reed Market with the broken anchor sealed inside a grain sack. By the time they reached the dock, the fire in the fish sheds had been smothered. Smoke still curled from the wet roof boards. Grasha was waiting beside the market well with Karg and Brek, her expression telling Ruk she had heard enough from the river to know the night had gone badly.

"The market is secure," she said before he could speak. "Lenna and the town watch closed off the warehouse street. The merchant is tied in the council room. He gave us a name after Karg explained his options."

"Varn Osk," Ruk answered.

Grasha’s eyes narrowed. "So you know it too."

Nym handed her the note.

Karg leaned in to read. "Gorse Hill is an hour east. Old grain mill. It stopped turning after the river shifted."

"The Court is choosing old water sites," Zree said. "The mill race, the channel, the river bend. Places where the seam has been worn thin over years."

Grasha looked from Zree to the broken anchor sack. "And now?"

"Now we find out what Varn thinks he is buying," Ruk said.

Zira closed the healing kit and stood. "Sorn should rest."

"Sorn should walk," Sorn replied. His voice held no force, only fact.

"You can walk after you drink this." Zira held out a bitter-smelling vial.

Sorn took it, drank without argument, and handed it back.

Nym watched the exchange. "You have a very organized group now."

"It took time," Ruk said.

"I noticed." Her gaze flicked toward Grasha and Karg, then toward Lenna directing townspeople in the smoke-dark street. "You also have more people who can hold a line than you used to."

Ruk did not answer. There was no point denying it. The clan had grown into something larger than the cave where it began. Still, seeing the market held by people he trusted made the decision at the river bend feel heavier, not lighter. Every person who could stand without him was a person he had to make sure returned from the next fight.

They left Reed Market with seven people: Ruk, Zira, Zree, Grasha, Karg, Sorn, and Nym. Brek and Lenna stayed behind with the town watch, the warehouse seam, and a clear order to send a runner the moment anything shifted.

Gorse Hill rose above the eastern fields as the last light left the sky. The abandoned mill stood near its top, a crooked shape against the dark. Its wheel had long ago fallen into the dry race beneath it. Broken vanes leaned against the wall. No lantern burned in the windows.

Nym slowed before they reached the hill.

"Wrong," she muttered.

Ruk stopped beside her. "What?"

She pointed to the path. "Too clean. A meeting between smugglers leaves tracks. Crates. A horse tied near the mill. Something. This is set for us."

"We knew it would be," Grasha said.

"Knowing is different from seeing how much work someone put into it." Nym studied the dark slope. "Sorn?"

The shadow-walker had already left the path. They waited in silence. The hill wind moved through dead grass. Below them, Reed Market’s lamps showed as a scattered line of gold beside the river.

Sorn returned from the left side of the mill.

"Six men inside," he said. "Two more on the roof. Another three below the hill, east side. They have crossbows and oil jars."

"And Varn?" Ruk asked.

"One man upstairs. Broad coat. No visible weapon. He is sitting at a table in the old mill room."

Nym exhaled through her nose. "He wants us to see him."

"Then we let him see us," Ruk said.

They came up the path in the open.

The mill door stood ajar. A warm lamp shone inside. Ruk entered first, artifact hidden beneath his coat, Grasha and Karg at either shoulder. The mill room smelled of dry wood, old grain dust, and something sharp beneath both: hollow-metal warmed by a fire.

Varn Osk sat at a table beneath the lamp.

He was not what Ruk expected. No gray cloak. No hood. He was a heavyset human with silver at his temples and careful hands, dressed in a clean dark coat that might have belonged to a minor lord. His face held the tired patience of a trader waiting for someone late to a meeting.

A clay cup sat in front of him. He did not drink from it.

"Ruk," he said. His voice was soft and educated. "I had hoped we would meet under different conditions."

Grasha’s hand stayed on her axe. "You tried to open a wound under a market. Pick better conditions."

Varn’s eyes moved to her. "Grasha of the Black Tusk. Still protecting a clan that once fed its weak to the dark. How far all of you have come."

Her expression did not change. That was worse than anger.

"You know too much about us," Ruk said.

"That is what information is for." Varn looked to Nym. "You know this."

Nym’s mouth tightened. "I know it is useful. I also know the price when the wrong people own it."

Varn nodded as if she had made a reasonable point. "Then perhaps we can speak plainly. You have the river-key?"

Ruk placed the grain sack on the table.

Varn did not reach for it. "You broke it."

"Yes."

"That is unfortunate. It was an expensive piece."

Zree stepped forward. "It was made to imitate the boundary’s voice. To hurt it."

Varn’s eyes settled on her amber glow. "No. It was made to encourage change. The boundary has been decaying for centuries. Your Watchers held it together until they could not. Your shamanesses kept it alive in pieces. Now you are doing the same thing: patching a world that is already dying."

"We are restoring it," Ruk replied.

"You believe that because it comforts you." Varn rested one hand on the table. "The Unraveling is not an illness. It is an opening. Old powers, old borders, old hierarchies — all of them weaken when the seam weakens. People who have been trapped beneath kings and alphas and councils can take something new from the ruin."

"By burying farmers in the ground?" Karg asked.

"By changing a world that only listens when it is forced to change."

Ruk studied him. Varn did not sound mad. That made him more dangerous. He believed every word. He had looked at suffering and decided it was a tool.

"Who is the Hollow Court?" Ruk asked.

Varn smiled faintly. "People who learned to listen. People who realized the Watchers were not guardians. They were jailers."

The floor beneath the mill trembled.

Zree’s head snapped down.

"The mark," she said. "It is under us."

Varn stood.

"I did not invite you here to kill you," he said. "Not today. I invited you to understand that every time you answer the boundary, we hear you. Every time you close a wound, we learn the shape of your hand."

The walls of the mill groaned. Dust fell from the beams.

Grasha moved toward Varn. Two crossbow bolts came through the upper windows. Karg knocked one aside with her axe. The other struck the table and buried itself beside the grain sack.

"Roof!" Sorn called from somewhere above.

The trap had begun.

Ruk reached for the artifact, but the false note below the mill was already pulling at the seam. Not a single hollower mark. Several, linked beneath the old race channel.

The whole hill was becoming a wound.

Varn backed toward a side door. "If you survive, find Orrin’s Ford. Sister Halven will be waiting with a machine you cannot break."

Nym threw a dagger.

Varn ducked. The blade cut his coat and pinned the door shut behind him. He looked down at the tear, almost disappointed.

Then the floor split open between them.

Pale light rose through the gap.

Varn vanished into the smoke from a second exit as the mill began to collapse.