The cloud lifted smoothly into the air, rising through layers of warm wind that carried the scent of dust and thyme. The orcs stood clustered near the center of the platform, as far from the edges as they could manage while still having room to breathe.

  Their weapons lay abandoned on the grass below—Sael had suggested leaving them behind, and after a moment's hesitation, they'd agreed. The youngest one kept glancing down at where his axe had fallen, like he was reconsidering that decision.

  The older orc—the one with the spear, though he didn't have it anymore—had his arms crossed tight across his chest. His jaw worked like he was chewing on something unpleasant. The mage stood with both hands pressed flat against the cloud's surface, fingers splayed wide, testing its solidity. Every few seconds he'd shift his weight slightly, as if expecting the cloud to give way beneath him.

  They climbed higher. The ruins fell away below, white stone shrinking to toy-sized fragments scattered across pale grass. The tremors from whatever had been approaching faded into memory, replaced by the sound of wind and the occasional creak of someone shifting their weight too quickly and then freezing, probably terrified they'd disturbed the magic keeping them aloft.

  "This is fine," the mage said quietly, mostly to himself. His fingers pressed harder against the cloud. "This is completely fine."

  It wasn't fine. That much was obvious from the way his voice climbed half an octave on the last word.

  The youngest orc made a small noise in the back of his throat and took a half-step toward the center of the cloud, which brought him directly into the older orc's personal space. Neither of them seemed to notice or care.

  Sael stood near the front edge, watching the horizon. Behind him, Robin and Oz had settled into their usual positions.

  "We're not going to fall," Sael said without turning around.

  The orcs went very still. Even their breathing seemed to pause.

  "The cloud is stable," he continued, keeping his voice level and matter-of-fact. "It's held together by a sustained enchantment that draws power from an external mana source, which means it doesn't rely on my concentration or active maintenance. You could hit it with a battering ram and it wouldn't budge. The structural integrity is..." He paused, considering how to phrase it. "Excessive, really. I may have overengineered it."

  There was a silence.

  Then the mage's voice, very small: "That's... good."

  "How high are we going?" This from the one with the cracked sword, who'd apparently found his voice somewhere between absolute terror and mild panic.

  "Not much higher than this," Sael said. "Just enough to stay out of sight of whatever was chasing you. We'll level out soon."

  The cloud did exactly that a moment later, the upward motion smoothing into horizontal flight. The change in direction made all five orcs tense again, but after a few seconds without plummeting to their deaths, some of the rigidity eased from their shoulders.

  Sael turned to face them properly. They still looked deeply uncomfortable—the mage's hands hadn't moved from the cloud's surface, and the youngest one had his eyes squeezed shut—but at least none of them seemed on the verge of panic anymore.

  Which raised the question of what to do next.

  He'd brought them up here to talk, to ask questions about the Orc Lord's army and what they were fleeing from and why they'd deserted. But dropping into an interrogation while they were still processing the fact that they were standing on a cloud several hundred feet in the air seemed... poor timing.

  They needed something to settle their nerves first. Something to occupy their hands and give them something to focus on besides the drop.

  Food, maybe?

  Sael reached into his dimensional storage and pulled out a small cloth bag. The fabric was stained slightly from where some of the sugar coating had melted and re-hardened, and when he opened it, the smell of candied peanuts drifted out.

  Sael pulled one out and held it up slightly. "Would anyone like some of these?"

  Five pairs of eyes fixed on the peanut.

  Nobody moved.

  "They're candied," Sael added, which didn't seem to help. "Peanuts. The vendor coats them in a mixture of salt and sugar—I think there's butter involved as well, or maybe some kind of oil to help the coating adhere properly—and then roasts them until the sugar caramelizes. It creates this sort of crust that's sweet but also has a slight bitterness from the caramelization process, which balances nicely with the salt. The peanut itself stays relatively neutral in flavor, mostly just providing texture and a bit of nuttiness, if you'll pardon the obvious observation."

  He was aware he was talking too much. The words were coming out in that particular way they did when he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing and his brain decided to compensate by providing excessive detail about something completely irrelevant to the actual situation.

  ... And maybe he wanted to practise his orcish. Just a little bit.

  The orcs continued staring at him as Sael ate the peanut he'd been holding. "They're very good," he said after swallowing.

  More staring. That hadn't worked, it seemed.

  Sael closed the bag and tucked it back into his storage, feeling a flush of embarrassment creep up the back of his neck. The silence stretched out, heavy and awkward, and he found himself completely uncertain about how to proceed. The candied peanuts had seemed like a reasonable idea—offering food was a universal gesture of hospitality, wasn't it?—but apparently not when the people you were offering it to were still processing their near-death experience and subsequent healing and were now floating through the sky on a cloud that defied everything they understood about how the world worked.

  He should say something. Probably. But what? He'd already tried reassuring them about the cloud's stability, and that had only sort of worked. Jumping straight into questions about the Orc Lord seemed insensitive. Maybe he could—

  "I would like some, sir, if you don't mind."

  Sael turned. Robin was looking at him, one hand raised slightly, the gesture polite and expectant.

  "Oh," Sael said. "Robin."

  He pulled the bag back out and levitated several peanuts across the cloud to hover in front of the fox. Robin plucked them from the air with careful fingers, examined one briefly, then popped it into his mouth.

  His ears perked up. "These are excellent."

  The orcs watched this exchange with expressions that suggested they were reassessing something. The mage's posture loosened slightly. The older orc uncrossed his arms.

  Sael tossed a few peanuts in their direction; gentle underhand tosses that arced lazily through the air and landed on the cloud's surface near their feet.

  The youngest one bent down and picked one up. Studied it. Glanced at his companions, then at Sael, then back at the peanut, and finally ate it.

  His expression shifted enough that Sael could tell the answer was positive.

  The others followed suit, scooping up the scattered peanuts and eating them with varying degrees of caution. The mage made a small approving sound. The one with the cracked sword nodded to himself.

  "Thank you," the older orc said, and this time his voice had lost some of its tight edge.

  The others echoed him, mumbled but genuine.

  Sael pulled out a few more and held them loosely in his palm, then glanced over at Oz. The chicken was standing perfectly still near the edge.

  "Would you like some as well?" Sael asked. "I have plenty."

  Oz's head swiveled to fix him with one unblinking eye. Then he made a sound—something between a cluck and a scoff—and turned away with what could only be described as profound disdain.

  The noise caught the orcs' attention. All five of them glanced at the chicken, then away, then back, like they weren't entirely sure what they'd just witnessed but were too polite to ask about it.

  The older orc cleared his throat. "...We appreciate the food."

  The mage nodded, still chewing. The youngest one had already finished his peanut and was eyeing the ones still scattered on the cloud's surface.

  Sael gestured vaguely at the bag. "There's more if you want."

  "So," the older orc said carefully. "You wanted to talk?"

  Oh, it had worked. Nice.

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  The orcs had relaxed. They were talkingand had gone from standing rigid with terror to... this. Whatever this was. A state where conversation felt possible.

  He tried not to let his pleasure show too obviously on his face.

  "Yes," Sael said, keeping his voice steady and neutral. "I'd like to understand what's happening. With your lord. There are rumors—"

  "He's not our lord!"

  The youngest orc had gone very still, hands clenched at his sides. His voice cracked slightly on the last word, raw with anger.

  The mage reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Sarek."

  "He's not," Sarek said again, but quieter this time. His jaw worked like he was chewing on more words, trying to decide which ones were safe to let out.

  The older orc let out a long breath. "What he means is... the Orc Lord stopped being our lord a while ago."

  Sael waited and the silence stretched, but he didn't fill it. Sometimes people needed space to find their words, and pushing too hard too fast would just make them retreat.

  The one with the cracked sword spoke up. "It's complicated."

  "I have time," Sael said. "Please, elaborate. What's the story here?"

  The orcs exchanged glances. Some unspoken conversation passed between them.

  The older orc sat down, legs folded beneath him. The others followed suit, settling into positions that looked more comfortable than their previous rigid standing. Sael remained where he was, though he shifted his weight slightly to indicate he was listening.

  "Before," the older orc started. "Before all this. We had territories. Our own lands. Not much, but enough. Good soil, water, some forest for hunting. We lived there for... generations. My grandfather's grandfather was born on that land."

  The mage nodded. "Three clans shared the valley. We had boundaries, agreements. Sometimes there were disputes, but nothing serious. Nothing that couldn't be settled."

  "Thirty years ago, that changed." The older orc's expression had gone distant. "Soldiers came. They said the land was theirs now and that we needed to leave."

  "...We tried to negotiate," the one with the cracked sword said. His hand drifted to where his weapon would have been, found nothing, dropped back to his lap. "Showed them the old agreements, the treaties our elders had made with the previous human settlements. They burned the documents. Said those agreements were void."

  The youngest orc's hands were still clenched. "They only gave us three days."

  "We left," the older orc continued. "What else could we do? They had numbers, organization, magic we couldn't counter. So we packed what we could carry and found new land. Further north, rockier, but livable. We settled. Built new homes. Started again."

  "Five years later, they came again," the mage said quietly. "Different soldiers, same message. The land was needed for expansion. We had to move."

  Sael felt something cold settling in his chest. "This happened multiple times?"

  "Seven times in thirty years," the older orc said. His voice had gone flat, the way people's voices did when they were reciting facts too painful to feel anymore. "Each time further from our original territory. Each time onto worse land. And between the forced relocations, we had to fight off monsters. The places they pushed us into, nobody else wanted to live there because the land was cursed or infested or both. We'd spend years making a place livable, clearing out whatever horrors lurked there, and then humans would come and take it."

  "Our people were dying," the youngest one said. His voice had lost its earlier heat, replaced by something hollow. "Not in battle. Just... dying. The elderly, the sick, the young. We couldn't stay anywhere long enough to build proper defenses or establish real farms. We were always moving, fighting and struggling. Every year there were fewer of us."

  The one with the cracked sword looked directly at Sael. "You asked about our lord, yes? This is where it starts. With thirty years of being driven from place to place like animals and watching our families starve and die while humans took everything we built."

  "Who did this to you?" Sael asked. "Which humans?"

  The orcs exchanged glances again.

  "Different groups," the mage said finally. "Sometimes it was soldiers from Caldris. Sometimes mercenaries hired by nobles whose names we never learned. Sometimes it was adventurers claiming the land for their guilds. It changed, but the result was always the same."

  "The humans," the older orc said simply. "That's who did it. Mainly."

  The youngest one made a bitter laugh. "They called it reclamation. Like the land was theirs to begin with and we were just squatters who'd overstayed our welcome."

  "It kept getting worse," the one with the cracked sword said. "Each relocation, we lost more people. Each new settlement was harder to defend, harder to farm, harder to survive in. We were... fading. As a people. Another decade or two and there wouldn't have been enough of us left to matter."

  The mage leaned forward slightly. "And then, one night, an elf came to us."

  Sael's attention sharpened. "An elf?"

  "Yes." The older orc's expression had shifted into something complicated. "He arrived during our darkest time. We'd just been forced from our sixth settlement. Half our supplies had been lost in the retreat. Winter was coming and we had barely enough food for a month. People were talking about splitting up, trying to find shelter with other tribes or just... giving up."

  "He brought food," the youngest one said. His voice had gone quiet. "Dried meat, grain, preserved vegetables. Enough to see us through the winter. And blankets. And medicine for the sick."

  "Drinks too," the mage added. "Wine, ale. Small luxuries we hadn't seen before. He said he'd heard of our plight and wanted to help."

  "What was his name?" Sael asked.

  "Theranel," the older orc said. "Theranel Silverbough, he called himself."

  The name meant nothing to Sael. He turned it over in his mind, checking it against his knowledge of prominent elven families and known mages, but came up empty. Either this Theranel was nobody particularly important, or he'd been using a false name.

  "He didn't just bring supplies," the one with the cracked sword continued. "He stayed and lived with us through that winter and into the next year. He taught our mages proper technique, advanced spellwork, things we'd never had access to before. He helped us scout for better land. He negotiated with nearby settlements on our behalf."

  "He was kind," the youngest one said, and there was a note of pain in his voice. "Everyone liked him. The children followed him around. The elders trusted him. He seemed genuinely interested in our culture, our stories and our traditions."

  "For a full year, he was part of our tribe," the mage said. His hands were pressed flat against his thighs now, fingers spread wide. "And during that year, he spent a lot of time with our lord. Private conversations, training sessions, long walks where they'd talk for hours."

  The older orc's expression had gone dark. "We should have never trusted him."

  "Why?" Sael asked. "What happened?"

  "The lord changed," the one with the cracked sword said. "Gradually at first. Small things. He started training harder, pushing himself beyond what seemed reasonable. He'd spend entire nights practicing combat forms or meditation techniques Theranel had taught him. He got stronger. Noticeably so. Faster, more powerful, his magic more refined."

  "That didn't seem concerning at first," the mage said. "We needed a strong leader. And the lord was already impressive; this just seemed like natural improvement."

  "But his demeanor changed too," the youngest one said. "He started talking about revenge and fighting back against our oppressors. About taking back what was ours."

  The older orc nodded slowly. "At the start, we were all behind him. Finally, someone was saying what we'd all been thinking. We'd spent thirty years running and dying. The idea of standing and fighting, of making the humans pay for what they'd done—it resonated. It gave us hope."

  "After the seventh displacement," the older orc said, his voice hardening, "Theranel provided us with weapons."

  Sael's attention sharpened.

  "Real weapons," the one with the cracked sword added. He gestured to where his blade would have been. "Not scavenged equipment or tools repurposed for combat. Proper steel. Enchanted gear. Armor that could actually turn a blade. Things we'd never been able to afford or acquire on our own."

  The mage nodded. "And the training intensified. Theranel organized it all, divided us into units, established a command structure, drilled us until we moved like a proper army. After a year, we had generals. Tactics. Coordination. We were... formidable."

  "We started fighting back," the youngest one said. "No more running. When humans came to drive us out, we met them with steel. And we won."

  The older orc's expression had gone distant again. "We... were brutal. No mercy or quarter. We'd learned that lesson from them so we gave them exactly what they'd given us for thirty years."

  "We reclaimed our lands," the one with the cracked sword said. "We pushed back into our original territories, drove out the settlers who'd taken them. It felt like justice. Like we were finally making things right."

  "But the lord didn't stop," the mage said quietly. "Even after we'd taken back what was ours, he wanted to keep going. To push further and take human lands, not just reclaim our own."

  The youngest one's hands clenched again. "He said they deserved it and that we needed to make them pay for every humiliation. That stopping now would just invite them to come back stronger."

  "The violence got worse," the older orc said. His voice had gone flat again. "More extreme. We started targeting settlements that had nothing to do with our displacement. Humans who'd never raised a weapon against us."

  The one with the cracked sword looked at Sael directly. "The Lord started killing our own people too. Anyone who questioned his methods or suggested we'd gone far enough, they were labeled traitors and he had them executed." His fists clenched slowly. "He killed my brother."

  "...He changed," the youngest one added. "Physically. There are these... veins. Black and purple, running across his skin when he fights. They pulse with this energy that looks like mana, but darker. Wrong somehow."

  Sael almost sighed in frustration.

  It couldn't be anything other than Corruption. And he would bet every coin in his dimensional storage that Theranel Silverbough—if that was even his real name—had been the one to do it.

  The mage was still talking. "He developed... abilities. Magic powers that let him—"

  "It's not magic!" The mage's voice cracked, sudden and sharp enough to make the others flinch. He turned to his companions with an expression of profound frustration. "How many times must I tell you this? It is NOT magic! The principles are completely different, the energy source is distinct, the method of—"

  "What is it then?" Sael interrupted, keeping his voice gentle but firm enough to cut through what looked like the beginning of a well-worn argument.

  The mage turned to him, some of the heat leaving his expression. "He's an Esper."

  "Oh?" Sael's eyebrows rose. That was... unexpected. And concerning. Espers were rare, their abilities stemming from an internal power source rather than external mana manipulation. Combined with Corruption, an Esper could become extraordinarily dangerous, their powers would be amplified even more and twisted by the Corrupted energy, creating combinations that shouldn't exist in nature.

  The older orc grimaced. "Between his abilities and whatever that purple energy is, he's become nearly unstoppable in combat. Most of our remaining forces follow him out of fear rather than loyalty."

  Sael processed this information, fitting pieces together into a picture that grew more troubling with each addition.

  "Why were you running away?" he asked. "Was it because you were against the lord's actions? Or did you try to act against him?"

  The orcs exchanged glances. The youngest one looked away, jaw tight.

  The older orc gestured toward the young one. "We were following the lord's blood. The one who hadn't fallen into madness."

  Sael looked at the youngest orc more carefully.

  "He's Sarek, son of Barek. Our lord's son," the one with the cracked sword confirmed. "And the rightful heir, if succession meant anything anymore. Which it doesn't, because the lord doesn't plan to step down or die. He plans to live forever and rule over the ashes of everything he destroys."

  Sarek finally spoke, his voice rough. "I tried to reason with him and to remind him of what we were fighting for, but he..." His hands clenched and unclenched. "He tried to kill me."

  "We got him out," the mage said. "Along with anyone else who wanted to leave. There weren't many, most are too afraid or too far gone into the bloodlust. But we managed to slip away during a supply raid."

  "One of the generals pursued us with his troops," the older orc added. "Tracked us for days. We tried to lose him in the ruins, but he was relentless..."

  Sael nodded slowly, his mind already working through the implications.

  "And where could I find that general?" he asked. "The one who was pursuing you. And after that, where would I find the lord himself?"

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