Tusk Love

The story follows Guinevere, a sheltered twenty-year-old merchant's daughter, and Oskar, a gruff half-orc former blacksmith's apprentice, as they travel the Amber Road toward the port city of Nicodranas.

Guinevere is traveling with hired guards when bandits attack in the night, killing all of them. As the bandits discover her wild mage totem, a sparrow skull on a silver chain that marks its wearer as connected to elemental magic, Guinevere loses control of her bond with Teinidh of the Wailing Embers, a wildfire spirit fused to her soul since birth. Teinidh manifests as a humanoid figure of burning branches and incinerates the bandits, setting the forest ablaze. The bandit leader, Lashak, survives and seizes Guinevere, but Oskar intervenes, defeating him in single combat. Rather than flee, Guinevere dives back into the burning wagon to rescue a satchel of merchandise and a pearwood trunk she considers priceless. Oskar hauls her and her belongings to safety.

In a cave, the satchel's luxury goods and Guinevere's protectiveness over the trunk cause friction before they exchange names. Oskar is grieving his mother, Idun, who died in a mining accident beneath the nearby city of Druvenlode. A letter from Idun's clan invites him to visit Borofkrah in the far-northern Greying Wildlands to honor her dying wish. He offers to walk Guinevere to Druvenlode but refuses to take her all the way to Nicodranas.

Their class divide surfaces quickly. Guinevere grew up confined to the Shimmer Ward, an affluent district of the capital city Rexxentrum, educated only in needlework, music, and etiquette. In Druvenlode, she fails to barter for an inn room and tactlessly suggests Oskar pay, not realizing a single gold piece is beyond his means. At his spare one-room house, she unwittingly uses a flask of perfumed oil that was Idun's keepsake, and when Oskar reveals his mother's death, Guinevere holds him as he weeps for the first time.

The next morning, she ventures alone into Druvenlode's rough Dustbellows neighborhood to barter for supplies and inadvertently nearly triggers a gang war. Oskar arrives, scatters the crowd, and, unable to bear the thought of her traveling alone, declares he will escort her to Nicodranas. They purchase two horses: Pudding, a gentle mare, and Vindicator, a spirited black stallion. Guinevere then reveals the pearwood trunk holds her dowry: She is traveling to marry Fitzalbert, Lord Wensleydale, a nobleman her parents arranged the match with, sight unseen. Oskar reacts with barely concealed anger.

Their attraction intensifies over days of travel. Oskar shares stories of his mother and the Greying Wildlands; Guinevere longs to see the elven ruins and frozen mountains. Their journey is interrupted when four uniformed mercenaries bearing a spider emblem ambush them. Oskar fights fiercely but is outmatched, and they flee into Labenda Swamp, where they meet Elaras, a feygiant warden (a towering, furry humanoid race), who notices Guinevere's wildfire magic. Elaras teaches her to meditate and senses a powerful enemy searching for her, warning that learning to control her power is no longer optional. That night, Guinevere has a nightmare: a memory of her father, Illiard, holding a dagger over her as an infant while a shadowy figure mentions someone named Accanfal. Oskar rouses her, and when she insists she is dangerous, he refuses to leave and kisses her.

Their intimacy deepens as they travel through Berleben and beyond. In the city of Zadash, a chance encounter with a Rexxentrum neighbor reveals Guinevere's family is financially ruined: A failed shipping investment has left marrying Wensleydale as their only plan for survival. At their inn, Oskar confronts one of the spider-emblem mercenaries, an uniya (a person of mixed orc and elf heritage) named Selene, who offers him a cut of the bounty on Guinevere. He refuses. Guinevere, seeing him enter an alley with the woman, writes a farewell letter confessing her wildfire and planning to travel alone. Oskar returns, reveals he has known about her wildfire since the night they met and kept her secret, and they make love for the first time.

They join a nomadic clan of fur traders called the Bonecrushers on the road, but the mercenaries attack again, using illusion magic to separate Oskar and Guinevere from the campsite. During the fight, Guinevere realizes her fear of hurting Oskar prevents Teinidh from manifesting. A clan member named Zugri incinerates one attacker with precisely controlled fire, showing Guinevere that fire magic can be wielded with discipline. The clan's matriarch, Nan, gifts Oskar a Vigilance Stone, a moonstone pendant that glows near anyone carrying evil intentions.

As they near the Menagerie Coast, both grow reluctant to reach their destination. In Nicodranas, Lord Wensleydale's mansion is an alabaster palace. Wensleydale is tall, handsome, and charming. Guinevere's parents greet her with criticism rather than relief. At the engagement ball, Guinevere is presented to high society but, anxiously searching the ballroom for Oskar, realizes she does not want this life: She wants the open road, her magic, and Oskar. She climbs out a window and runs to find him.

In the stables, Oskar is packing to leave without saying goodbye. Believing he is saving her from poverty, he delivers devastating rejections, calling them novelties to each other. Guinevere walks away with shattered dignity. Outside, the ball's featured harpist reveals herself as the mercenary Selene in disguise and knocks Guinevere unconscious.

Guinevere wakes in a ship's cargo hold under a calming spell that blocks Teinidh. Her totem has been taken. Her captor, Accanfal, an eisfuura arcanist (a bird-like humanoid with eagle talons), reveals the truth: Guinevere's father was his gardener and stole the trunk from his laboratory. The trunk is sealed with a blood rune tied to Guinevere's magic; Illiard had her cut as an infant to create a lock only she can willingly open. This is why she was kept confined in Rexxentrum all her life: She was both the lock and the key. Wensleydale, bound nearby, reveals he always knew and planned to coerce Guinevere into opening the trunk after their marriage. Guinevere refuses to comply.

Oskar, alerted by the glowing Vigilance Stone, forces the full confession from Illiard and leads guards to the ship. He fights through the crew, but Accanfal pins him to the floor with a spear of ice through his chest. Guinevere agrees to open the trunk to save him. Her blood activates the runes, revealing the Duskmaven's Parure, a set of precious jewelry belonging to the Matron of Ravens, goddess of death: a crown, scepter, and rings of gold studded with dark emeralds.

When Accanfal reneges on his promise, Guinevere seizes her totem from his wrist and reaches inward. Teinidh explains that the shackles binding her are forged from both Accanfal's spell and Guinevere's own fear of hurting those she loves. Unable to summon rage through the calming spell, Guinevere offers the one thing she has: her love for Oskar. The shackles shatter. Teinidh manifests and incinerates Accanfal. Guinevere restrains the wildfire for the first time, then grabs the Parure's healing scepter and closes the wound in Oskar's chest. He gasps back to life.

They escape in a dinghy. Oskar confesses that every cruel word was a lie meant to spare her from poverty. Guinevere lists her conditions for forgiveness: He must be nicer to people, wear her flower crowns without complaint, and explore the Greying Wildlands with her. He agrees and tells her he loves her. She tells him she loves him, too. At the estate, Guinevere tells her parents she will not stay with family who sacrificed her, tosses her mother the lightning ring as repayment, and rides away with Oskar on Vindicator, Pudding trotting behind. They stop in a field of wildflowers, where she tells him they have all the time in the world.