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Prince Peter had imagined many versions of this moment.
None of them included standing alone in the Archmage’s solar, hands folded too tightly behind his back, trying very hard not to stare at the floating sigils that drifted lazily through the air like bored fireflies.
The Archmage—the subject of half the books Peter had hidden under his mattress as a boy—stood at the far window, back turned. Robes dark as ink, silver embroidery shifting subtly as if alive. Power clung to him the way heat clung to a forge.
“You know why I asked to see you,” the Archmage said at last, voice calm, measured, carrying effortlessly across the room.
Peter swallowed. “Yes, Archmage.”
A pause. Then, faintly amused: “You may call me Valerius, if you wish. You will be expected to do so eventually.”
Peter’s heart skipped in a thoroughly undignified way. “Y-yes. Valerius.”
The Archmage turned then, studying him with eyes that missed nothing. Not the tension in Peter’s shoulders. Not the way his gaze flicked up and away, reverent and frightened all at once.
“I asked for this meeting,” Valerius continued, “because there are things you must understand before the announcement is made. This marriage is not a partnership of equals.”
Peter nodded quickly. He had been told this already—by courtiers, by tutors, by his mother, who had kissed his forehead and said that this is the price of peace. Still, hearing it from Valerius himself felt different. He forced himself to meet the Archmage’s gaze.
“I know I won’t have authority,” Peter said. “Or… influence. I won’t sit on councils or advise on magic. I’ll be—”
“Mine,” Valerius said, simply.
The word settled heavily between them.
“You will be protected, honored, and educated,” Valerius went on. “But you will not command. You will not contradict me in public. And there will be expectations—personal ones—that you may find challenging.”
Peter’s face burned. “I understand.”
Valerius tilted his head. “Do you?”
Peter hesitated. The sensible answer was yes. The expected answer was obedience. Instead, something reckless and honest slipped out.
“I’ve read your treatises,” he said softly. “The third codex. The one everyone says is impossible to understand. I stayed up nights trying. I don’t… I don’t expect to be your equal. But I want to know what I’m agreeing to. As myself. Not just as a prince you’re acquiring.”
Silence.
Then Valerius smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but with sharp interest.
“So,” he said, stepping closer, power humming in the air between them, “you’re not just a pretty bargaining chip.”
Peter straightened, nerves jangling, devotion and fear tangled tight in his chest. “No, Archmage. I’m yours because the realm demands it. But I’d like to choose how I belong.”
Valerius studied him for a long moment.
“Good,” he said at last. “Then this conversation was worth having.”
And for the first time since the engagement had been decided for him, Prince Peter thought—terrified and thrilled in equal measure—that it might be worth living too.
~~~~~~~~
Valerius didn’t have to marry Prince Peter.
But after what happened at the Mountain Pass — when Valerius, weakened from a banishment curse, was ensnared by the Shadow Guild — the memories were seared into him forever.
He had been dying, alone and hunted, his magic paling like dying embers… until someone had charged into the trap, reckless and brilliant and impossibly brave.
Peter.
Not because Valerius commanded it. Not because orders were given.
But because Peter had chosen him.
He remembered the way Peter’s voice had echoed across the ruins — raw with fear, steel, and a kind of fierce hope that should have belonged to someone far younger, far less burdened.
“Archmage! I won’t leave you.”
He had pulled Valerius from the jaws of death itself. Saved him — body, spirit, and pride.
Valerius had told no one at the time.
But he never forgot.
So when the council demanded an arranged marriage between the magic seat and the crown — to bind kingdom and arcane power more tightly — Valerius did not resist.
Because he already knew exactly whom he wanted.
And that evening, when he stood in his private solar with Prince Peter — eyes steady, truth poised between them — there was something in Valerius’s gaze Peter didn’t yet see.
Not an obligation.
Not power.
But love.
~~~~~~~~
No one in the world could force Valerius to marry.
Not the High Council.
Not the Crown.
Not the combined will of the Seven Towers.
As Archmage—one of the ten most powerful beings alive—he answered to no law but his own conscience. If he wished, he could have reduced the council chamber to molten glass and walked away untouched.
The fact that he hadn’t was proof enough.
The marriage was not a chain placed around his neck.
It was a door he had chosen to open.
Peter did not know that yet.
So Valerius dismissed the guards, sealed the room with a single, lazy gesture of his fingers, and turned to face the young prince fully—no audience, no politics, no titles pressing down between them.
“Before anything is announced,” Valerius said quietly, “there is something you must understand.”
Peter stiffened, bracing himself. “Yes, Archmage.”
Valerius winced—just a fraction. “Valerius,” he corrected. “Only Valerius, for this conversation.”
Peter nodded.
Valerius took a breath. A real one. Rare, for someone who could still storms with a thought.
“No one is compelling me to do this,” he said. “Not the crown. Not the council. Not the realm itself. I am choosing this marriage because I want it.”
Peter looked up sharply, confusion flashing across his face. “You… want it?”
“Yes.”
A single word. Absolute.
“I have already defied greater powers than kings,” Valerius continued evenly. “If I did not wish to marry you, this proposal would not exist.”
Peter’s hands curled in the fabric of his sleeves. “Then why all this talk of necessity? Of duty?”
“Because you,” Valerius said, eyes steady, “are the one person in this arrangement who truly lacks power.”
The words were blunt, but not cruel.
“And I will not take what I want from someone who has no choice.”
Silence stretched.
Valerius stepped closer—not looming, not dominating, but deliberately placing himself within Peter’s space as an equal presence, not an overwhelming one.
“I love you,” he said simply. No flourish. No spellbinding cadence. Just truth. “I have since the day you pulled me out of that trap when you could have fled. Since the moment you chose my life over your own safety.”
Peter’s breath hitched.
“But love that is coerced is worthless,” Valerius went on. “And marriage without consent would make me no better than the tyrants I’ve destroyed.”
He extended his hand—but stopped short of touching Peter.
“So here is the truth, laid bare,” Valerius said. “You may refuse me. If you say no, I will end the negotiations, face the political consequences myself, and ensure you suffer none of them.”
Peter stared at him, stunned. “You’d… do that?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“I want you,” Valerius said softly. “But only if you choose me. Not as a prince fulfilling a duty. Not as a subject bowing to power. As Peter.”
Peter’s chest felt too tight, too full. All his life, choices had been made for him—his education, his alliances, even this proposed marriage.
And now the most powerful mage in the world was offering him something unprecedented.
Freedom.
Peter swallowed, eyes shining, voice unsteady but sincere.
“You’re terrifying,” he said quietly.
Valerius almost smiled.
“And kind,” Peter added. “And unfairly noble for someone with that much power.”
Valerius’s gaze softened. “Take your time. There is no deadline. No pressure. I will wait.”
Peter looked at the offered hand.
He hasn't taken it yet.
But he didn’t step away either.
“I don’t know my answer,” Peter said honestly. “But… thank you. For letting me decide.”
Valerius inclined his head—not as Archmage, not as ruler of magic, but as a man in love.
“That,” he said, “is all I ask.”
~~~~~~~~
Valerius did not reveal the final truth lightly.
They were seated close now, the wards humming low around them, the world narrowed to candlelight and breath. Peter had already been told about seclusion, about territory, about being rarely seen again once bound to a mage.
Those things frightened him.
But they were survivable.
This—Valerius knew—might not be.
“There is one more condition,” Valerius said quietly. “And it is the one most carefully hidden.”
Peter’s shoulders tightened. “Tell me.”
Valerius held his gaze, unflinching. Power coiled beneath his skin, vast and terrible, yet his voice was almost gentle.
“Mages are possessive because our magic binds what we love,” he said. “We shape our domains around that bond. And our spouses… are changed by it.”
Peter frowned. “Changed how?”
Valerius looked away for the first time.
“When a mage weds,” he said, “their spouse is transformed after the honeymoon. The body adapts to the magic. Flesh reshapes itself into what the mage finds most beautiful.”
Peter’s breath caught. “And… what is that?”
Valerius turned back slowly.
“Orcs.”
The word landed like a dropped blade.
Peter stared. “Orcs?”
“Yes,” Valerius said evenly. “To mages, they are perfection made flesh. Strength, endurance, the capacity to endure power without breaking. What others call grotesque, we call beautiful.”
Peter swallowed hard. “You said… after the honeymoon.”
“You would be allowed to live as yourself for a time,” Valerius confirmed. “To say your goodbyes. To be seen. To be human.”
The implication settled heavily between them.
Peter’s voice was small now. “And then?”
“And then,” Valerius said, forcing himself not to soften the truth, “you would become an orc.”
Peter nodded slowly, as if cataloguing the information piece by piece.
“The stronger the mage,” Peter said carefully, “the more… pronounced the change.”
“Yes.”
“And you,” Peter whispered, eyes lifting to Valerius’s, “are one of the ten most powerful beings in the world.”
Valerius did not deny it.
“If you marry me,” he said, voice low and steady, “you would become ancient by orc standards. Massive. Warped by magic. Feared by most. What the world would call ugly.”
Peter’s fingers trembled slightly in his lap. “One of the oldest orcs alive.”
“Likely the oldest,” Valerius said. “And the most changed.”
Silence stretched.
Peter laughed once, breathless and brittle. “So I disappear from court, from history… and reemerge as a monster.”
Valerius stepped forward sharply. “No.”
Peter flinched—not in fear, but surprise.
“You would be loved,” Valerius said fiercely. “Revered. Desired. You would be the most beautiful being in my world.”
Peter looked at him then—really looked—and saw the truth in his eyes. Not madness. Not cruelty.
Love.
A love so alien it redefined beauty itself.
“You knew this,” Peter said hoarsely. “And you still asked me.”
“Yes,” Valerius said. “Because I want you. Not a lie. Not ignorance. And not obedience bought with half-truths.”
He knelt.
The Archmage—breaker of armies, terror of gods—lowered himself until he was eye level with a trembling prince.
“If you choose me,” Valerius said softly, “you choose a life unseen by the world. A body the world will recoil from. You choose to be mine in a way that can never be undone.”
Peter’s eyes burned. “And if I refuse?”
“I will let you go,” Valerius said immediately. “Whole. Human. Unchanged. And I will never pursue another spouse.”
Peter’s breath stuttered. “You’d give that up?”
“Yes.”
Another truth, laid bare.
Peter pressed a hand to his chest, heart racing, mind spinning between terror and something dangerously close to devotion.
“You think I’d be beautiful,” he whispered.
Valerius reached out—but again, stopped just short of touching.
“I know you would be,” he said. “But the world’s horror must never be your price for my love unless you choose to pay it.”
Peter closed his eyes.
For a long moment, there was only candlelight and the sound of two breaths—one mortal, one almost divine—held in fragile balance.
“Let me think,” Peter said at last.
Valerius bowed his head.
“Take all the time you need,” he replied. “I will not rush a sacrifice I would spend eternity honoring.”
~~~~~~~~
Peter thought he was prepared.
He had spent nights imagining it—his bones thickening, skin pulling into unfamiliar shapes, his reflection becoming something vast and alien. He had told himself that imagination was worse than reality.
He was wrong.
The garden dome was enormous, a cathedral of glass and living stone, light filtered through enchanted panes that softened the sun into a pale, almost reverent glow. Ancient trees grew inside, roots cracking marble tiles, leaves whispering with slow, patient magic.
And at the center of it—
She sat in a high-backed stone chair, as immovable as part of the garden itself.
The orc wife.
She was old. Not merely aged, but ancient in a way that felt geological. Her skin was thick, deeply creased, mottled with scars and growths that looked half like bark, half like stone. Tusks jutted from her mouth, uneven and yellowed. One eye was clouded white; the other tracked movement with unsettling sharpness.
Her body was massive, heavy with centuries of magic, flesh warped by power it had been forced to hold for far too long.
Hideous.
There was no gentler word for it, and Peter didn’t try to soften it in his mind.
Valerius’s hand rested lightly at the small of Peter’s back as they approached, grounding him. Peter noticed—absently—that Valerius did not tense. Did not recoil. His posture held something close to reverence.
“Beloved,” the mage said warmly, stepping forward. “We have guests.”
The orc’s head turned slowly. The movement was labored, joints creaking faintly. Her gaze fell on Peter, heavy and measuring.
“Ah,” she rumbled, voice deep, cracked with age. “A prince.”
Peter swallowed.
“This is Prince Peter,” Valerius said. “And I am Valerius.”
Introductions were made. Names exchanged. The orc inclined her head—a gesture that somehow carried dignity despite her monstrous form.
Then, without ceremony, the two mages walked away together, stopping near the edge of the dome. Far enough that words would not carry. Close enough that Peter could still see Valerius if he needed to.
Peter was alone.
With her.
For a long, unbearable moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the orc snorted softly.
“You’re thinking you’d rather die,” she said.
Peter was startled. “I— I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t need to.” Her lips curled, not quite a smile. “They all think that.”
Peter hesitated, then nodded once. Honesty felt pointless to avoid now.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’m afraid.”
“As you should be.” She shifted slightly in her chair. “This body is a prison built from love.”
Peter’s chest tightened. “You… resent him?”
Her laugh was low, gravelly, and humorless. “No.”
That surprised him more than anything else.
“I resent the world that taught me to see this as a curse,” she continued. “Not the mage who finds me beautiful.”
Peter forced himself to really look—not just at the deformity, but at the way the magic settled around her. The garden leaned toward her. The light lingered. The air itself seemed… attentive.
“You were human,” Peter said quietly.
“Yes.” Her voice softened, just a little. “Once. I was lovely, by their standards. I miss dancing. I miss mirrors.”
She turned her massive head to look at him fully.
“But I have been adored for four hundred years,” she said. “Wanted without apology. Cherished without limit.”
Peter’s throat tightened.
“I’m hideous,” she said plainly. “And to him, I am everything.”
Peter glanced instinctively toward Valerius. Even at a distance, the Archmage’s attention flicked back to him, constant, watchful.
“What happens when he dies?” Peter asked.
Her gaze sharpened. “He won’t. Not before me.”
A pause.
“And if he did,” she added, “I would still exist. Changed, yes. But not erased.”
Silence settled again.
Peter imagined himself in her place—older still, warped beyond recognition, whispered about as a monster, hidden away in a garden dome.
And then—unexpectedly—he imagined never being doubted. Never being half-loved. Never being abandoned for being too much or not enough.
He exhaled shakily.
“Were you given a choice?” he asked.
Her expression stilled.
“Yes,” she said. “And I said yes knowing exactly what I would become.”
Peter nodded slowly.
Fear still lived in him—sharp, clawing, undeniable.
But curiosity had crept in beside it now.
A terrible, dangerous question forming in his chest:
What if being loved like that is worth becoming something the world fears?
When the mages returned, Valerius searched Peter’s face immediately, reading every tremor, every shadow.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
Peter didn’t answer right away.
He took one last look at the ancient orc woman—hideous, revered, unbroken.
“I don’t know yet,” Peter said honestly. “But… thank you. For not lying to me.”
Valerius inclined his head, relief and tension warring behind his eyes.
The choice remained.
But now it was real.
And terrifying.
And—Peter hated himself a little for thinking it—
Not unthinkable.
~~~~~~~~
Peter dreams in sequences.
At first, he is himself—running through palace corridors that stretch too long, his footsteps echoing too slowly. His body feels wrong, each movement dragging, as though the air has thickened around him.
Then the floor sinks.
Stone turns to soil. Marble to loam. His feet grow heavy, toes sinking into the ground, bones grinding and stretching with a dull, distant pressure that doesn’t hurt so much as persist.
He looks down.
His hands are enormous. Thick-fingered. Skin darkened and rough, etched with deep lines that glow faintly with magic beneath the surface. Veins pulse slow and strong, like roots drinking from the earth.
Fear hits him all at once.
He turns toward a mirror that rises from the soil like a gravestone.
The face staring back at him is monstrous.
Tusks curve from his mouth—uneven, yellowed. His nose is broad and flattened. One eye droops beneath the weight of age; the other gleams, sharp and ancient. His neck disappears into layered flesh, shoulders hunched beneath centuries of burden.
He tries to scream.
The sound that leaves his throat is low. Deep. Old.
Hideous.
The word claws at him—until something changes.
The ground beneath him hums.
Magic floods his body, not violently, but endlessly—warm, heavy, saturating every inch of him. The earth bends toward him. Plants lean closer. The world waits.
And then—
Hands.
Human hands, warm and careful, resting against his massive forearm. A familiar presence stands before him, impossibly small by comparison.
Valerius.
Valerius looks at him the way Peter once looked at illuminated manuscripts as a child. With awe. With hunger. With something close to worship.
“You’re beautiful,” Valerius says.
Peter tries to laugh. It comes out like thunder rolling through stone.
“How?” he asks.
Valerius presses his forehead to Peter’s massive hand.
“Because you endure,” he says. “Because you hold what would destroy others. Because you are mine.”
The dream does not end in terror.
It ends in sleep.
Deep. Endless. Heavy as the earth itself.
Peter wakes with tears on his face and the strange, unsettling certainty that part of him had not been afraid at all.
~~~~~~~~
They speak the next day in Valerius’s private chambers, the wards drawn tight. Peter sits wrapped in a blanket, looking smaller than usual, eyes shadowed from dreaming.
Valerius does not pretend not to notice.
“You saw yourself,” Valerius says gently.
Peter nods. “I did.”
Silence settles. Then Peter asks the question he’s been circling since the garden.
“Why orcs?” he asks. “Truly. Not the mage answer. Yours.”
Valerius exhales slowly.
“To us,” he says, “beauty is not delicacy. It is capacity.”
Peter looks up.
“Orcs can survive proximity to magic without breaking,” Valerius continues. “They age because they endure. Their bodies change because they adapt. What others see as decay, we see as proof.”
He meets Peter’s gaze.
“They are beautiful because they last.”
Peter’s throat tightens.
“And me?” he asks quietly.
Valerius does not hesitate. “You already do.”
The honesty of it hits harder than any spell.
Peter swallows. “What would my life actually be like?”
Valerius gestures, and the room subtly reshapes—showing glimpses of valleys, towers, vast sleeping halls woven with enchantments.
“You would come to my territory,” he says. “You may bring your attendants. All of them, if you wish.”
Peter blinks. “All?”
“Yes. They would be sworn to secrecy. Bound by magic. They would be yours.”
“For what purpose?” Peter asks, though he already senses the answer.
Valerius’s voice softens.
“When your body grows too heavy,” he says, “they will be your hands. Your voice. Your movement in the world beyond your chambers. They will read to you, carry messages, and attend to your needs. An extension of your will when your flesh no longer moves as it once did.”
Peter exhales shakily. “So I become… immobile.”
“Not entirely,” Valerius says. “But movement will be costly.”
Peter hesitates, then asks the hardest question.
“What will I do with my time?”
Valerius reaches for him then, carefully, fingertips brushing Peter’s wrist.
“Whatever you wish,” he says. “You will be free within my territory. You may learn, listen, dream, command, create.”
Then, softer:
“But you will sleep. A great deal.”
Peter nods faintly. “Because of the magic.”
“Yes,” Valerius says. “Your body will be saturated with it. But magic is not sustenance. You will need mundane energy to survive. Food. Rest. Sleep.”
“How much?” Peter whispers.
Valerius squeezes his wrist gently.
“Most of your days,” he admits. “And that sleep will not be empty. It will be deep. Restorative. You will dream.”
Peter thinks of the dream from the night before.
Heavy. Warm. Endless.
“Will I be lonely?” he asks.
Valerius leans in, forehead resting against Peter’s.
“Never,” he says. “I swear on everything I am.”
Peter closes his eyes.
Fear is still there.
But now it shares space with something else.
Something slow.
Something vast.
Something that feels—dangerously—like rest.
~~~~~~~~
Peter does not ask immediately.
They sit together at dusk, the sky beyond the high windows bruised purple and gold. Valerius is reading—one hand resting idle, the other turning pages that glow faintly with restrained power. He looks peaceful in a way that still feels unfair, given what he is.
Peter watches him for a long time.
Then, softly: “I want to ask you for something.”
Valerius looks up at once. “Anything.”
Peter flinches at the immediacy of it. He draws a breath, steadies himself.
“I want time,” he says. “Time to be… ordinary.”
Valerius’s expression stills. He does not interrupt.
“I want to travel,” Peter continues, voice gaining strength as he speaks. “I want to go places I’ve only read about. Eat food that isn’t prepared for a prince. Walk until my feet ache. Speak to people who don’t know my name.”
He finally meets Valerius’s eyes.
“I want to run free,” Peter says. “Before I’m… caged in an old orc’s body.”
The words are brutal. Deliberately so.
Valerius absorbs them without flinching.
“How long?” he asks quietly.
Peter blinks. “You’re not angry?”
“No,” Valerius says. “I would be, if you didn’t ask.”
Peter swallows. “A year. Maybe two. I don’t know. Long enough that when I stop being human, I won’t feel like I missed being alive.”
Silence stretches.
Valerius closes the book and sets it aside with deliberate care. He stands, crosses the room, and kneels in front of Peter—again lowering himself, again refusing to loom.
“You are not caged,” he says gently. “But I understand why you need this.”
Peter’s voice wavers. “If you told me no… I don’t think I could marry you.”
Valerius nods once. “Then I would deserve that.”
Peter exhales sharply. “You could keep me safe. Lock this all down. No one could stop you.”
“I could,” Valerius agrees. “And if I did, you would belong to me in body only. That is not what I want.”
He reaches up, careful, and cups Peter’s cheek.
“I want you to come to me willingly,” Valerius says. “After you have seen the world and decided that, even knowing what you will lose, you still choose me.”
Peter’s eyes burn. “You’ll let me go?”
“Yes.”
No spell. No condition.
“I will protect you from afar,” Valerius adds. “You will not know it, but you will never be alone. When you are done—when you are ready—you may return.”
“And if I don’t?” Peter whispers.
Valerius’s thumb stills against his cheek.
“Then I will mourn you,” he says quietly. “And love you anyway.”
The honesty of it cracks something open in Peter’s chest.
He laughs shakily, tears spilling despite himself. “That’s a terrible way to keep someone.”
Valerius smiles faintly. “I know.”
Peter leans forward, resting his forehead against Valerius’s.
“I think,” he says softly, “that when I come back… I won’t be asking for more time.”
Valerius closes his eyes.
“That,” he says, voice rough, “sounds very much like a yes.”
Peter does not say the word.
He doesn’t need to.
~~~~~~~~
Peter leaves without ceremony.
No crown. No banners. Just a cloak that smells faintly of palace linen and a purse heavy enough to make him nervous. The road dust clings to his boots, and for the first time in his life, no one clears the way ahead of him.
He trips. He laughs. His ankles ache.
That night, when he sleeps beneath a hedgerow, he does not know that a ward has already settled into the earth around him—subtle, ancient, utterly lethal to anything that would mean him harm.
He dreams without fear.
~~~~~~~~
In a coastal city whose name he can barely pronounce, Peter eats fried fish wrapped in paper and burns his tongue on it. A street musician plays badly and passionately. Children run past him, laughing, one of them colliding with his knees and knocking him nearly flat.
“I’m sorry!” the child cries.
“It’s all right,” Peter says, grinning. “I deserved it.”
From a rooftop, unseen eyes track the scene. A minor spell nudges a loose tile into place before it can fall. The musician’s instrument does not break when it should have.
Peter never notices.
He goes to sleep tasting salt and oil and thinking: I could have lived like this.
~~~~~~~~
The climb is brutal.
His legs shake. His lungs burn. More than once, Peter thinks about turning back. He is not built for this—not yet, not ever. Halfway up, a storm rolls in faster than it should.
Lightning cracks close enough to feel.
Peter presses himself against the rock and laughs hysterically, soaked, terrified, alive.
Above the clouds, a hand clenches.
The storm diverts—just enough. Not gone. Never gone. Just survivable.
When Peter reaches the summit at dawn, the world spreads out beneath him, vast and indifferent.
He cries there. Quietly. No one sees.
~~~~~~~~
He shares a fire with people who do not ask his name.
A woman with scarred hands passes him a cup of something bitter and hot. An old man tells a story that goes nowhere and ends badly. They speak of places Peter has never heard of and will never see.
For one night, he belongs nowhere.
It is the sweetest ache he has ever known.
A shadow at the edge of the camp watches until dawn, then dissolves back into nothing.
~~~~~~~~
Peter kneels in a forgotten temple where even the gods seem tired.
He lights a candle—not to pray for escape, or mercy, or even courage—but to remember himself. His hands are steady. Young. Unchanged.
“I was here,” he whispers to no one. “I lived like this.”
The candle burns longer than it should.
~~~~~~~~
In the final city he visits, Peter sees an orc in the street.
Not ancient. Not massive. Just… ordinary. Broad-shouldered, scarred, laughing with friends as they pass a bottle between them.
Peter freezes.
For a moment, the future presses so close it feels like a breath on his neck.
The orc catches his stare and raises a brow. “You all right, lad?”
Peter nods quickly. “Yes. Just… thinking.”
The orc grins. “Dangerous habit.”
They laugh. The moment passes.
But Peter walks the rest of the day with a strange calm settling into his bones.
~~~~~~~~
On the road home—because it is home now, whether he has admitted it or not—Peter stops at a crossroads.
One path leads onward. More places. More freedom.
The other leads back to Valerius.
Peter closes his eyes.
He thinks of weight. Of sleep. Of a body that will become immobile and immense. Of being hidden from the world.
And he thinks of devotion so absolute it lets him go.
He turns back.
Far away, something powerful exhales for the first time in months.
~~~~~~~~
Peter returns without announcement.
No trumpets. No escort. He walks through Valerius’s territory on foot, dust on his boots, shoulders sun-browned, eyes changed. The land knows him now; the wards part without resistance, recognizing a decision already made.
Valerius feels it before he sees him.
Magic shifts—subtle, instinctive. Like a breath being held too long finally released.
They meet in the outer garden, where the ground is warm and the air hums low with restrained power. Valerius stands when Peter approaches, suddenly unsure in a way that would terrify the world if it ever witnessed it.
“You came back,” Valerius says.
Peter smiles, small and real. “I said I would.”
Silence stretches. This time, it isn’t heavy.
Peter takes one more step forward.
“I saw the world,” he says. “I ran until I was tired. I was nobody, and it was… wonderful.”
Valerius nods, listening with his whole being.
“And?” he asks quietly.
Peter inhales. Exhales.
“And I kept thinking about where I was choosing not to go,” Peter says. “Every road I didn’t take led back to you.”
Valerius does not reach for him. He waits.
Peter straightens his shoulders—not as a prince, not as a future orc, but as himself.
“I know what I’ll become,” Peter says. “I know what I’ll lose. I know the world won’t see me again.”
His voice steadies.
“I still want to marry you.”
The words fall between them, simple and irrevocable.
Valerius closes his eyes.
When he opens them, they shine—not with power, but with something far rarer.
“Peter,” he says hoarsely, “you do not know how long I have waited to hear that.”
Peter steps closer. This time, Valerius lets himself touch him—forehead to forehead, hands gentle, reverent.
“I choose you,” Peter says softly. “And I choose what comes after.”
Valerius bows his head.
“Then I will spend the rest of eternity deserving that choice.”
~~~~~~~~
The wedding is small.
No court. No council. Only those who must know—and those Peter chooses to bring with him. His attendants stand witness, faces pale but resolute, bound by oath and love both.
There is no altar.
They stand barefoot on living stone, the land itself listening.
Valerius wears no crown, no sigils of rank. Peter wears white—not ceremonial, just clean, unadorned. Human.
The vows are spoken quietly.
Valerius promises protection without possession.
Peter promises belonging without surrender.
Magic seals it—not with fire or thunder, but with warmth, deep and steady, settling into Peter’s bones like the promise of sleep.
When it is done, nothing looks different.
But the world has shifted.
~~~~~~~~
They retreat into seclusion.
Not confinement—sanctuary.
Days pass unmeasured. Peter wakes late. Eat slowly. Walks where he wishes. Valerius shows him hidden places: libraries grown into trees, baths warmed by ley lines, balconies where the stars feel close enough to touch.
They talk.
About nothing. About everything.
Valerius listens as if every word is a treasure. Peter learns the sound of Valerius’s laughter when no one else is present.
At night, they share a bed—not urgent, not desperate. Just close. Peter memorizes the feel of Valerius’s hand in his hair. Valerius memorizes the rhythm of Peter’s breathing.
There is no countdown spoken aloud.
But they both feel it.
One evening, Peter lies with his head on Valerius’s chest, listening to a heartbeat that feels impossibly steady.
“I’m not afraid,” Peter says suddenly.
Valerius’s fingers still. “You don’t have to be brave for me.”
“I know,” Peter replies. “That’s why I’m not.”
Valerius presses a kiss to Peter’s hair, eyes burning.
“These days,” Peter adds, “they feel like a gift.”
“They are,” Valerius says. “They are yours.”
Peter closes his eyes, warm, safe, human.
Soon, sleep will come heavier. The days will shorten. His body will change.
But not yet.
For now, he is exactly where he chose to be.
Loved.
~~~~~~~~
The night is unnaturally still.
No wind. No insects. Even the wards seem to breathe more softly, as if the land itself understands what this night is.
Peter is bathed, dressed in loose linen, his hair left unbound. Nothing ceremonial. Nothing that would make this feel like an ending carved in stone. Valerius insisted on that.
They sit together in the inner chamber, a room grown rather than built—stone smoothed by magic, walls veined with faint, sleeping light. A bed wide enough for a future body already waits beyond the curtains.
Peter traces the edge of a cup with his thumb.
“So this is the last time I’ll sleep like this,” he says, not quite a question.
Valerius nods. “Yes.”
Peter exhales. “I’m glad it’s quiet.”
Valerius reaches for his hand. “If you want to stop—”
“I don’t,” Peter says immediately. Then, softer: “I just want to remember.”
They talk until the words run out.
Peter talks about the market by the sea. About the mountain pass. About the way the world smells different in each place. Valerius listens like a man committing a map to memory—because this version of Peter will not walk those roads again.
When Peter finally lies down, Valerius undresses him with hands that tremble just slightly. Not from doubt. From reverence.
“You are perfect,” Valerius says quietly, forehead resting against Peter’s.
Peter smiles. “I know. I won’t always be.”
Valerius’s voice breaks. “You will be more.”
They sleep tangled together, human warmth pressed against ancient power. Valerius does not sleep deeply. He listens to Peter’s breathing, memorizing it—fast, light, alive.
Just before dawn, Peter stirs.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Valerius replies.
Peter nods, eyes already closing again.
And then—inevitably—sleep takes him.
~~~~~~~~
It begins with warmth.
Not pain. Not tearing or breaking. Just warmth, spreading slowly from Peter’s chest, sinking into his limbs, his spine, his skull.
Magic seeps into him like a tide returning to shore.
Valerius places his hand over Peter’s heart and releases the final seal.
The transformation does not rush.
Peter’s breathing deepens first. Each inhale heavier than the last, as though the air itself has gained weight. His pulse slows, then steadies into something profound and unyielding.
Bones thicken with a deep, resonant pressure—not snapping, but settling. As if they are finally allowed to become what they were always meant to support.
Muscle follows. Skin darkens gradually, roughening, folding into deep, ancient lines that glow faintly with magic beneath the surface. His body expands—not violently, but inexorably—flesh reshaping to hold power that would annihilate a lesser form.
Tusks emerge last, slow and inevitable, curving gently past lips that no longer tremble.
Peter does not wake.
His body knows what to do.
Valerius watches every second, hands never leaving him, whispering wards, promises, names—anchoring Peter’s soul as his flesh becomes something vast and enduring.
Hours pass.
By the time the sun rises, Peter no longer fits the bed meant for a human. His body is immense now, heavy with centuries already etched into it. His face is altered beyond recognition—grotesque by any human measure.
And to Valerius—
Beautiful.
So unbearably beautiful it steals his breath.
He presses his forehead to Peter’s massive shoulder, tears slipping freely now.
“You did it,” he whispers. “You endured.”
Peter stirs at last.
One eye opens—clouded, ancient, luminous with stored magic.
“Valerius?” Peter rumbles, voice deep and slow, as if dragged from the earth itself.
Valerius laughs through tears. “Yes, beloved. I’m here.”
Peter exhales—a sound like stone settling into place.
“Good,” he says. “I am… very tired.”
Valerius kisses the roughened skin of his cheek, utterly unashamed of the devotion written into every line of his posture.
“Sleep,” he murmurs. “The world can wait.”
Peter’s eye closes again.
His breathing sinks into something deep, endless, restorative.
The transformation is complete.
Not an ending.
A becoming.
~~~~~~~~
Peter wakes like something dragged up from the bottom of the sea.
Awareness comes slowly, thick and resistant. His thoughts move as if through mud. He knows he is awake—has to be—but his body does not respond. Breathing is laborious, each inhale deep and heavy, as though his chest must remember how to rise at all.
He feels… wrong.
Too much of himself. Too heavy. Too old.
When his eye finally opens, the world swims—vast ceiling arches that feel too small, light diffused strangely, as if filtered through fog. He tries to lift a hand.
It does not lift.
It settles.
A massive, dark hand lies where his should be—thick fingers like carved stone, skin deeply creased, veins glowing faintly beneath the surface. It looks like it belongs to something ancient. Something monstrous.
Something that is not him.
A sound rips out of his chest before he can stop it—low, broken, almost animalistic.
“No,” he rumbles.
His voice is wrong too.
Too deep. Too slow. It vibrates in his bones like distant thunder.
Memory crashes into him all at once.
The choice.
The night.
The warmth.
He knew. He accepted it.
But knowing is not the same as seeing.
Valerius is there instantly, at his side, hands gentle against flesh that now dwarfs him. “Peter,” he says softly. “Easy. You’re awake.”
Peter turns his head—slow, aching, joints stiff as if they’ve been this way for centuries—and catches sight of his reflection in the polished stone wall.
And something inside him shatters.
The creature staring back is enormous—nearly ten times the size he once was. His neck is thick and sagging, shoulders hunched under impossible weight. His face is unrecognizable: tusks jutting unevenly, skin dark and ridged, one eye clouded, the other too sharp, too old.
He looks ancient.
Grotesque.
Hideous.
A monster from a story meant to frighten children.
“That’s not—” His breath hitches, chest heaving with effort. “That’s not me.”
Valerius presses his forehead to Peter’s massive shoulder. “It is,” he says gently. “And you are safe.”
Safe.
Peter lets out a harsh, broken laugh. “I look like I should be dead.”
Exhaustion crushes him even as the panic rises. His bones ache constantly—a deep, grinding stiffness that never quite fades. Every part of him feels heavy, sagging, pulled earthward by gravity he never noticed before.
He has only just woken—
And he is already so tired.
“So this is it,” Peter whispers. “This is how I’ll feel. Always.”
Valerius does not lie. “Yes,” he says quietly. “The tiredness will remain. It is the cost of holding so much magic in a mortal frame.”
Peter’s massive fingers curl weakly into the bedding. “I was young,” he says. “I could run. I could move.”
His breath shudders.
“I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years overnight.”
Grief wells up fast and violent, crashing into anger.
He turns his head again—this time toward Valerius.
And the unfairness hits him like a blow.
Valerius is unchanged.
Still tall. Still composed. Still devastatingly handsome in that calm, terrible way. No sagging flesh. No aching bones. No weight dragging him down into endless sleep.
Peter feels something ugly flare inside his chest.
“Why,” he snarls, voice shaking the room, “do I have to look like this while you stay the same?”
The question tears out of him raw and unfiltered.
“Why do I have to be the monster?”
The wards hum faintly, reacting to the surge of emotion. Valerius does not step back. He climbs—climbs—onto the bed, placing himself against Peter’s massive chest, small by comparison, utterly unafraid.
“Because you chose to bear what I cannot,” Valerius says, voice thick. “And because I hate the world for it every day.”
Peter stares at him, breath ragged.
“I would trade places with you if I could,” Valerius continues fiercely. “I would take this body, this pain, this weight—gladly. But the magic would kill me in days.”
Peter’s anger wavers, cracks.
“I don’t feel beautiful,” Peter whispers.
Valerius cups his massive cheek with both hands, thumbs brushing rough skin with infinite care.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “You just have to exist. I will do the rest.”
Peter closes his eyes.
The rage ebbs—not gone, but dulled by exhaustion so deep it feels bottomless. Sleep pulls at him again, heavy and unavoidable.
“I hate this,” Peter murmurs, voice thick with grief.
“I know,” Valerius says, pressing a kiss to his brow. “And I will sit with you in that hatred for as long as you need.”
Peter exhales—a long, rumbling sound.
His body sinks deeper into the bed, immovable as stone.
Sleep claims him again.
Not because he has made peace.
But because his body—old, massive, and unbearably tired—demands it.
And Valerius remains beside him, unchanging, vigilant, loving enough to bear being hated if it means Peter is not alone.
~~~~~~~~
It takes days before Peter understands one simple truth:
His body does not obey anymore.
It negotiates.
The first time he tries to move on his own, it is not dramatic. No collapse. No roar of effort. He merely thinks up—and nothing happens.
Then, slowly, with a deep internal drag, his shoulder shifts. Stone grinding against stone. The effort leaves him breathless, heart pounding as if he’s run miles.
Valerius watches closely, but does not interfere.
“Again,” Peter rumbles stubbornly.
The next attempt takes longer. His arm lifts a handspan off the bed before sinking back down, the impact sending a dull ache through his bones.
“That was enough,” Valerius says gently.
“No,” Peter replies, jaw tight. “It wasn’t.”
They learn together.
That Peter’s strength is no longer quick—but absolute. When his fingers finally close around a carved stone rail meant to steady him, the stone cracks. Valerius stills the break before it spreads, eyes widening with something like awe.
“That would have taken a siege engine,” Valerius murmurs.
Peter stares at the broken stone, unsettled. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You will learn control,” Valerius says. “In time.”
Time, Peter realizes, is the only thing his body has in excess.
He learns that standing is possible—but costly. Each step is slow, deliberate, his joints protesting with a deep, grinding ache that never fully fades. After only a few minutes upright, exhaustion crashes into him so hard his vision dims.
Sleep takes him wherever he is.
On the bed.
On the floor.
Once—embarrassingly—half-sitting, half-slumped against a pillar.
Valerius never lets him wake alone.
And slowly—almost grudgingly—Peter learns what his body can do.
He can hold magic like a basin holds water—endless, steady, calm. Wards strengthen when he is nearby. The land feels him. Plants grow thicker. Stone settles more firmly.
When he sleeps, the territory rests.
He is not swift.
But he is foundational.
That knowledge does not comfort him yet.
~~~~~~~~
Valerius tells him before they come.
“They have sworn the oath,” he says. “They will not flee. But I will delay if—”
“No,” Peter says quickly. “I don’t want to hide.”
The words taste like fear.
They arrange the meeting in the lower hall—wide, open, designed for something larger than human comfort. Peter is propped upright with cushions and carved supports, trying to hold himself with what dignity remains.
When the doors open, his attendants enter in a small cluster.
They stop dead.
Peter watches it happen.
The shock.
The instinctive recoil.
The flash of horror they try—and fail—to hide.
He remembers the last time they saw him: riding out in travel leathers, hair loose, smiling. Young. Human. Beautiful.
Now—
One attendant drops to their knees immediately, face pale.
Another gasps. A third presses a hand to their mouth.
Peter feels heat crawl up his massive neck.
“I told them,” he rumbles, voice echoing in the hall. “You don’t need to pretend you weren’t warned.”
That makes it worse.
Valerius stands at Peter’s side, unmovable, one hand resting against Peter’s shoulder with quiet possessiveness.
“He is still your lord,” Valerius says calmly. “And he is still Peter.”
That steadies them.
Slowly, they approach.
One by one.
Until the youngest—barely more than a boy—looks up at Peter with wide, trembling eyes and whispers, “Does it hurt?”
Peter closes his eye.
“Yes,” he says honestly.
Something in that breaks the distance.
They kneel—not in terror, but in loyalty. Heads bowed. Hands over hearts.
“We’re here,” one says hoarsely. “However, you need us.”
Shame hits Peter hard and sharp.
He turns his head away, tusks scraping faintly against stone.
“I didn’t want you to remember me like this,” he says. “I didn’t want this to be the last version of me you ever saw.”
There is a pause.
Then a familiar voice—his oldest attendant, steady as ever.
“You’re wrong, my lord,” she says gently. “This isn’t the last version.”
Peter looks back at her.
“It’s the first.”
The words land softly. Unexpected. Almost unbearable.
Peter exhales, long and heavy.
“I can’t do everything I used to,” he admits. “I’ll need you. For… almost everything.”
They nod, already understanding.
“We know,” she says. “That’s why we’re here.”
Peter sinks back into his supports as exhaustion reclaims him, shame still lingering—but thinner now, threaded through with something new.
Acceptance, maybe.
Or the fragile beginning of it.
Valerius leans close, voice meant for Peter alone.
“You are not diminished,” he murmurs. “You are different. And you are not facing it alone.”
Peter does not answer.
Sleep takes him again—deep, heavy, inevitable.
But this time, when he dreams, it is not only what he has lost.
It is also what he is becoming.
~~~~~~~~
Peter’s days no longer begin with waking.
They begin with surfacing.
Sleep loosens its hold slowly, reluctantly, like deep water releasing something heavy. Awareness comes first, then breath, then the long wait for his body to remember that it exists.
There is always an ache.
Not sharp. Not screaming. Just there—a constant stiffness in his bones, a weight in his joints that never fully eases. He no longer fights it. Fighting only makes him tired faster.
When he is awake enough, an attendant speaks his name softly.
“Good morning, my lord.”
Peter answers with a low sound that serves as a greeting now. Words come slower these days; his voice feels like it has to travel a long way to reach the surface.
They wash him carefully. It takes several people, practiced and unflinching. Warm water soothes the worst of the stiffness. Peter closes his eyes and lets himself be handled, the old humiliation dulled by routine.
This is not degradation, he tells himself.
This is maintenance.
~~~~~~~~
On days when he has the strength, Peter moves.
Not far.
He rises with help—bracing supports, steady hands, Valerius nearby but never hovering. Standing is still an effort that leaves him breathing heavily, chest expanding and settling with a slow, thunderous rhythm.
Each step is deliberate.
The floor creaks faintly beneath his weight. Once, early on, he cracked a stone tile without noticing. Now he is careful. Gentle. A strange thing, to learn gentleness from a body capable of tearing walls apart.
After a few minutes, exhaustion creeps in. Not dramatic—just a steady dimming, like the world slowly turning down its light.
“That’s enough,” Valerius says.
Peter nods. It is always enough before he wants it to be.
They sit him in the garden most days, where the land hums contentedly around him. Plants grow thicker here. Roots dig deeper. The territory knows him now, responds to his presence like a heartbeat syncing to a larger one.
Peter rests.
Resting is not idleness anymore.
It is survival.
~~~~~~~~
Peter learns to think in different measures.
Not hours. Not even days.
He measures time in conversations finished before sleep takes him. In books read aloud in fragments. In how often Valerius comes to sit beside him, leaning against his massive arm like it is the most natural thing in the world.
Sometimes Peter sleeps through entire afternoons.
Sometimes through whole days.
No one wakes him unless they must.
Valerius taught everyone that rule.
~~~~~~~~
Peter worried—early on—that he would become useless.
He is not.
His attendants bring him matters to decide. Not urgent things. Not things that demand speed. Things that require patience. Judgment. Endurance.
Peter listens.
He thinks slowly now—but deeply. Decisions made in his presence have a way of settling. Arguments quiet. Tensions ease.
When Peter sleeps, the land sleeps better.
When he is uneasy, the wards hum louder.
He begins to understand: he is no longer meant to act.
He is meant to anchor.
~~~~~~~~
Valerius comes to him every day.
Sometime to talk. Sometime not.
Often, Valerius simply leans against him, resting a hand on Peter’s arm, drawing comfort from his sheer, immovable presence. The contrast is almost absurd—ancient power beside ancient endurance.
“You look tired,” Peter rumbles once.
Valerius smiles faintly. “I am.”
Peter shifts with care, making space. “Then stay.”
Valerius does.
They learn each other like this—through proximity, through shared stillness. Love without urgency. Without demand.
Peter no longer asks why Valerius remains unchanged.
That question burned itself out.
~~~~~~~~
There are still moments.
A flash of memory—running, laughing, being lifted effortlessly onto a horse. The ease of a body that did not fight him at every turn.
In those moments, grief rises.
Peter lets it.
Then it passes.
Because this body, old and monstrous and endlessly tired, is also his. It holds him. Holds the magic. Holds the life he chose.
At the end of most days, Peter sleeps again—deep, heavy, dreamless.
And when he wakes, the world is still there.
So is Valerius.
So is love.
And that, Peter decides—slowly, carefully—is enough.
~~~~~~~~
They are warned.
Valerius always makes sure of that.
The delegation—three scholars and a guard captain—are told there is a presence in the inner territory. That they must be respectful. That they must not speak unless spoken to.
None of that prepares them.
The hall is vast, carved to accommodate something that does not move often. Light filters in through high apertures, dust motes drifting lazily in the air.
And then they see him.
Peter rests against a stone dais grown into the floor, supported by carved braces and layered cushions. His body fills the space—immense, hunched, ancient. Skin dark and deeply ridged, tusks curving unevenly from a face marked by time so profound it feels wrong to witness it breathing.
His chest rises and falls slowly.
Power hums around him, low and constant, like the earth remembering itself.
One of the scholars audibly inhales in shock.
Another steps back before remembering himself.
The guard captain’s hand twitches toward his sword—and freezes when Valerius’s gaze flicks toward him, sharp as a blade.
“This,” Valerius says calmly, “is my husband.”
Silence crashes down.
Peter opens his eye.
It takes effort. Everything does.
The scholars flinch as that ancient, luminous gaze settles on them.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” Peter rumbles. His voice is deep and slow, like stone grinding under water. “But you probably will be anyway.”
That breaks something.
The youngest scholar swallows hard. “My—my lord,” she stammers, bowing deeply. “We were told… but we did not understand.”
Peter lets out a low, tired sound that might once have been a laugh.
“No,” he says. “You wouldn’t.”
Valerius remains at Peter’s side, one hand resting openly against Peter’s arm. Possessive. Unashamed.
They approach slowly.
Up close, the details become impossible to ignore—the sag of ancient flesh, the clouded eye, the sheer age written into every line of him.
Hideous, by any human standard.
And unmistakably alive.
One scholar finally gathers the courage to speak. “Did this… happen to you against your will?”
Peter closes his eye for a long moment.
“No,” he says quietly. “I chose it.”
Shock ripples through them.
“You chose—” the guard captain begins, then stops himself.
Peter opens his eye again. “I was told everything. What I would become. What I would lose.”
His massive fingers shift slightly against the stone, the movement slow but deliberate.
“I was young,” he continues. “I could walk for hours. I could disappear into crowds. I could be forgotten.”
His gaze lifts, distant.
“I was allowed one last year to do all of that,” he says. “To see the world. To be ordinary.”
Valerius watches him closely, but does not interrupt.
“And then I came back,” Peter says. “Because when I imagined my life ending anywhere else, it felt unfinished.”
The scholars exchange glances—uneasy, conflicted.
“But you’re… trapped,” one of them says softly, unable to help herself.
Peter considers that.
“Yes,” he says. “In some ways.”
He shifts again, exhaustion already pulling at him. “I sleep most of the time. I need help to move. I ache constantly.”
Honesty lands harder than any reassurance could.
“And yet,” Peter continues, “I am safe. I am loved without reservation. And I am useful in ways I never was before.”
He looks directly at them.
“I am not a warning,” he says. “And I am not a tragedy.”
Silence stretches.
Finally, the youngest scholar bows again—deeper this time.
“Thank you for telling us,” she says, voice shaking. “I don’t think I would have believed it otherwise.”
Peter inclines his massive head the barest fraction.
“That’s all right,” he says. “Belief takes time.”
His breathing deepens, the familiar heaviness creeping in.
Valerius steps closer. “That’s enough for today.”
Peter nods faintly. “Yes. I’m tired.”
As the delegation is escorted out, they glance back one last time.
Not with horror this time.
With something quieter.
Something unsettled.
Peter’s eye closes.
Before sleep takes him, he murmurs—half to Valerius, half to the world he once belonged to—
“I chose this.”
And for the first time, saying it aloud to strangers does not hurt.
It feels true.
~~~~~~~~
He is brought in without ceremony.
No scholars. No delegation. Just a man in travel-worn armor, eyes burning too brightly with certainty.
Peter recognizes him instantly.
“Edric,” he rumbles.
Edric stops dead.
The sound of Peter’s voice—that voice—hits him harder than the sight ever could.
“I knew it was you,” Edric says hoarsely. “They told me it was a monster wearing your name. I told them they were lying.”
He steps forward before anyone can stop him.
Valerius shifts, magic tightening in the air.
Peter lifts one massive hand, slow but unmistakable.
“Let him speak.”
Edric looks up at Peter’s face—at the tusks, the ruined age, the weight of centuries pressed into one body—and his expression crumples.
“They did this to you,” Edric says. “They lied. Enchanted you. You were always too kind. Too easy to manipulate.”
Peter exhales, a long, weary breath.
“No,” he says. “They told me everything.”
“You can’t have agreed to this,” Edric snaps. “Look at you. You’re trapped in a corpse that hasn’t finished dying.”
That lands.
Peter’s fingers curl slightly against the stone.
“I am not trapped,” he says, more firmly than he feels. “I chose—”
“You chose because you didn’t believe it would be this bad,” Edric interrupts. “No one would choose to be this.”
Silence stretches.
Peter opens his eyes fully, gaze fixing on Edric.
“You loved the boy I was,” Peter says quietly. “Not the man I might become.”
Edric shakes his head violently. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is time,” Peter replies.
He shifts, exhaustion bleeding into his bones. “I am old. I am ugly. I am slow. All of that is true.”
His voice lowers.
“But I am also alive in ways I was not before. I carry power that steadies the land itself. I am needed.”
Edric’s voice cracks. “You could have been free.”
Peter’s gaze softens—not with pity, but with something like mourning.
“I was free,” he says. “For a while. And then I chose where to stop running.”
Edric takes a step back, shaking his head.
“I won’t accept this,” he says. “I won’t pretend this is anything but wrong.”
Peter nods once.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “This life isn’t for your comfort.”
Valerius steps forward then, presence cold and absolute.
“You will leave,” he says. “Now.”
Edric looks at Peter one last time—at the vast, immovable shape of him.
“I hope,” he whispers, “that one day you admit you were robbed.”
Peter closes his eyes.
“I hope,” he replies softly, “that one day you understand that I wasn’t.”
Edric is gone moments later.
The hall feels emptier for it.
~~~~~~~~
Night settles.
The territory hums quietly, magic flowing in slow, patient rhythms. Attendants move softly around Peter, adjusting supports, murmuring reassurances, until eventually even they withdraw.
Peter is alone.
Sleep should come.
It doesn’t.
He stares into the dark, into nothing, into memory.
He remembers running—how easy it was. How his lungs burned pleasantly, how his legs never questioned him.
He looks at himself now.
At the immensity. The sagging weight. The body that requires stone and craft and magic simply to exist comfortably.
“I am not what I was,” he thinks.
The thought no longer shocks him.
What still stings is the echo of Edric’s certainty.
No one would choose this.
Peter lets the truth rise, slow and heavy.
“I did.”
Not because it was beautiful.
Not because it was fair.
But because love—real love—had asked him not for youth, but for presence.
Because he had seen what Valerius was, stripped of legend and fear.
Because he had imagined a future where he was forgotten… and found it unbearably empty.
“I am not brave,” Peter thinks. “I was afraid of being alone.”
His breathing deepens.
“And I am not noble. I wanted to be chosen back.”
He flexes one enormous hand, feeling the ache bloom and settle.
This body is a price.
But it is also proof.
Proof that he stayed.
Proof that he did not turn away when the cost was shown plainly.
“I am an orc,” he thinks. “Ancient. Hideous. Heavy.”
The words no longer feel like insults.
“They are just… facts.”
Sleep finally begins to claim him, thick and inevitable.
Before it does, one last thought curls gently through him:
“I am still Peter.”
Not the prince.
Not the boy.
But the man who chose this ending—and this beginning—with open eyes.
And tomorrow, when he wakes tired again, he will keep choosing it.
It happens without warning.
That’s what surprises him most.
~~~~~~~~
Morning light filters into the inner chamber—not bright, not sharp. It never is. Valerius learned long ago how much Peter’s eyes ache when the light is careless.
Peter wakes the way he always does now: slow, heavy, half-buried under his own immense weight.
Every joint protest. Every breath feels borrowed.
Tired, he thinks. Always tired.
An attendant has left the shutters open just enough for sound to carry in.
Birdsong.
Peter blinks.
It’s faint, distant—but unmistakable. A small flock has nested somewhere in the stonework above the chamber, bold enough to live where even fear should tread.
He listens.
There was a time he would have dismissed it as nothing. Background noise. Something to be walked past on the way to somewhere else.
Now, there is nowhere else.
And so he listens.
The birds chatter and quarrel, wings brushing stone, utterly unconcerned with the ancient orc below them who could shatter walls if he chose.
Something in Peter’s chest loosens.
A slow, unexpected warmth spreads—not magic, not power. Just… contentment.
One bird lands on the edge of a carved beam.
Then another.
Peter watches them, breath shallow but steady.
“They don’t care what I am,” he realizes.
Not prince. Not monster. Not husband of the Archmage.
Just a warm, unmoving presence that hasn’t hurt them yet.
A low sound slips out of him before he can stop it.
A laugh.
It’s rough. Short. More vibration than sound.
The birds startle—but only briefly. One flutters away. The others remain.
Peter feels something wet gather at the corner of his eye and is startled enough by that to focus on it.
“…Oh,” he murmurs.
He hasn’t cried since the transformation. Not really. There hadn’t been room for it. Horror had filled every space.
This—this is small enough to slip through the cracks.
Valerius appears quietly at his side, drawn by the change in the air more than the sound.
“What is it?” he asks softly.
Peter doesn’t answer at first.
His gaze stays fixed on the birds.
“They stayed,” he finally says.
Valerius follows his line of sight, understanding dawning slowly.
A faint smile touches his lips.
“They know you’re part of the land now,” Valerius says. “Animals always do.”
Peter exhales.
“I thought joy would be… larger,” he admits. “Something worthy of the price.”
Valerius rests a hand against Peter’s arm, warm and steady.
“It usually isn’t,” he says. “It sneaks up on you. When you’re not guarding yourself.”
Peter considers that.
The birds hop closer together, feathers puffed against the morning chill.
“I don’t feel brave,” Peter says quietly. “Or noble. Or even strong.”
Valerius’s thumb traces a slow, absent circle against his skin.
“No,” he agrees. “You feel alive.”
Peter closes his eye.
And for once, sleep takes him gently—not because his body demands it, but because he is content to rest.
The joy lingers even as he drifts under.
Small.
Unremarkable.
And his.