Page 11 of Orc's Veil

Stupid.I turn away, busying myself with nothing—straightening a jar of dried herbs, adjusting the blanket over the sleeping child.He’s here to kill you, and you’re reacting to his touch like some love-starved girl.

The cottage feels smaller with him in it. The single room that’s been my home for eight years has shrunk to the space between his body and mine—four feet at most, close enough to smell the leather and iron of his armor, the road dust, and beneath it all, warmth. Woodsmoke and dark spice and a masculine heat that makes my pulse stutter in ways I cannot afford.

I keep my back to him while I work the warding into the floor.

The magic is subtle—a whisper of power threaded through the worn wooden boards, tied to my blood and bound by my will.If he attacks, if he draws that blade at his hip and swings for my neck, the ward will trigger. It won’t stop him. Nothing I have would stop someone his size, his skill. But it will slow him. Give me a heartbeat to react.

A heartbeat might be enough.

“The boy.” His voice is a low rumble, rough-edged and direct. “What happened to him?”

“He stumbled through the Twilight Gate.” I turn to face him, leaning against the crooked shelf with manufactured ease. “The boundary almost killed him. I paid his tithe instead.”

“With a stolen memory.”

“With a gift freely given.” The lie slides off my tongue smooth and practiced. It’s not entirely false—the memory came loose easily, loosened by the Shadow Court’s touch. But I took it without asking. Without consent. That’s the part the order objects to.

He studies me with those unsettling eyes. Not forge-fire, I realize now that I’m seeing them up close. More like liquid metal, orange-gold and burning, set deep in a face built of harsh angles and controlled violence. The iron rings on his tusks catch the dim light from the window, each one etched with runes I can’t read.

“You’re warding the floor.” Not a question. He drains the cup and sets it aside with surprising gentleness, the clay clicking softly against the rough-hewn table. “I can feel it. Every time you shift position, the magic pulses.”

Damn.

I don’t insult us both by denying it. “You’re standing between me and my only exit. Can you blame me for taking precautions?”

“No.” He steps to the side. Deliberately. Creating a clear path to the door. “Better?”

The gesture catches me off guard. Executioners don’t accommodate their targets. They don’t make concessions, don’tshow consideration. They judge and they kill and they move on to the next name on the list.

“Why?” The word escapes before I can stop it.

“You said dawn.” He folds his arms across his chest—a barrier of muscle and armor, but no longer blocking the door. “Until then, you’re not my prisoner. You’re a witness. I have questions.”

“Questions.” I let disbelief color my voice. “The execution order has already been signed. What could my answers possibly change?”

“Nothing.” His gaze holds mine, unwavering. “But I want to understand what I’m ending.”

EIGHT

EIRENE

Iwant to understand what I’m ending.Not who. What. As if I’m a puzzle to be solved before I’m destroyed.

It shouldn’t matter. In a few hours, I’ll be dead regardless of his understanding. But the roughness beneath his words, the tension in his shoulders—this question costs him.

Doubt. The executioner is having doubts.

I can use that.

“What do you want to know?” I gesture at the single chair by the cold hearth. “Sit. You’re making me nervous looming like that.”

He doesn’t sit. Just adjusts his stance, settling into a posture that speaks of hours spent waiting, watching, ready to move at a moment’s notice. “Your blood rites. The order says you’ve been performing forbidden practices for years.”

“The order says a lot of things.”

“Show me.”

Not a request. The words come out hard, commanding, the voice of a man used to being obeyed. But beneath the authority, I catch a note of genuine curiosity.