Page 25 of Orc's Veil

We break apart as the shriek tears through the cottage—that same skull-deep frequency I’ve felt since arriving at this boundary, the sound that lives in orc blood and witch-bone alike. The Stray Boy stirs in his sleep, whimpering, but doesn’t wake. The Veil’s voice isn’t meant for human ears.

Eirene’s face has gone pale. “That’s not normal. That’s not?—”

“The stones.” I’m already moving, instinct and training overriding the heat still coursing through my veins. “The boundary.”

We burst out of the cottage into the half-light. The Veil is visible now—not just the tear, but the barrier itself, shimmering into existence like a fever dream made manifest. It stretches between the stones in curtains of pale light, wavering, unstable.

Dying.

“No.” Eirene runs toward the central stone, her bare feet slapping against the black soil. “No, no, no?—”

I follow. The Veil shudders at my approach, but the pull of Eirene’s blood is stronger now, and the boundary lets me pass.

The tear has widened.

The edges pulse and writhe, fighting to close, failing. Eirene’s blood should have sealed it. Our mixed blood should have bought the boundary more time.

But a force on the other side is pushing. Fighting. Forcing the wound wider with deliberate, malicious intent.

“It’s coming.” Eirene’s voice is barely a whisper. She’s stopped at the edge of the stone circle, staring at the tear with an expression of pure horror. “The thing I felt—the presence in the Shadow Court—it’s coming through.”

I draw my blade. The execution blade feels different in my hand now—not a tool of the order’s justice, but a weapon. A shield. A means to protect what the claiming demands I protect.

“What is it?” I move to stand beside her, positioning myself between the witch and the wound in reality. “What’s on the other side?”

She doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. Her eyes have gone wide, fixed on the tear, watching as a shape begins to coalesce in the gap between worlds.

Darkness gathers. Not the absence of light—darkness with substance, with intention, with hunger. It coalesces in the wound, taking form, becoming real.

There are familiar faces there.

I recognize some of them. Condemned prisoners who died under my blade. Witches who begged for mercy I couldn’t give. Men and women and—gods help me—children whose lives I ended in service to the order’s laws.

They’re watching me. All of them. Their mouths move in silent screams, their eyes accuse, and the darkness drinks their pain like wine.

“The Umbral Sovereign.” Eirene’s voice is hollow. Dead. “It’s real. It’s been feeding on every memory I’ve taken, every soul the Veil has consumed. It’s made of us. Made of our sins.”

The shape finishes forming.

The Sovereign turns its attention toward us.

And it speaks.

The voice comesfrom everywhere and nowhere—from the stones, from the soil, from the wound in reality that birthed this abomination. It doesn’t use its own voice. It has no voice of its own.

It speaks in a child’s voice.

A mother’s voice, actually. Soft. Warm. Singing a lullaby that echoes across the black soil with terrible familiarity.

“Hush now, little one. Mama’s here. Mama’s got you.”

Eirene makes a sound. Not a scream—worse. A broken, choked gasp of recognition that speaks of guilt and grief and sins she can never wash clean.

“The Stray Boy,” she whispers. “That’s—that’s his mother’s voice. The memory I stole to save him.”

The Sovereign tilts its head. The motion is wrong—too slow, too deliberate, like a puppet learning to move. The silver eyes fix on Eirene with hunger that sends ice crawling down my spine.

“Little witch.”The stolen voice shifts—still the mother’s tone, but threaded now with something that sounds almost like curiosity.“And the executioner. I hadn’t expected that. Three centuries of orc-blood memory in his veins, and you’ve bound him to yours. The claiming—I can taste it on you both.”A pause. A savoring.“How inconvenient. How very useful.”