Page 30 of Orc's Veil

“The mark.” I force myself to address the unspoken thing between us. “It’s making you feel this way. Making you protective. We can’t trust?—”

“The mark doesn’t create feelings.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “It reveals them. Amplifies what’s already there.”

The admission hangs between us. I see the cost of it in the tension of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. He’s not a man who admits to feeling anything. Twenty years of executions have taught him to bury emotion, to become the blade the order needed him to be.

And yet.

“What was already there?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Before the mark. When you looked at me—what did you feel?”

He doesn’t answer right away. His hand is still near my face, close enough that I can feel the heat of his skin.

“Confusion.” The word comes out rough. “The order painted you as a monster. A traitor. But when I arrived—when I saw you bleeding at the stones, exhausted, barely able to stand—” Hebreaks off. His jaw works. “You looked at me without fear. Like you’d been expecting death and had made your peace with it. And I thought…”

“What?”

“I thought: this woman is the bravest person I’ve ever seen.” His hand finally touches my face—just a brush of fingers along my cheekbone, lighter than I would have expected from a man his size. “And I wanted to know why. Wanted to understand how anyone could give so much and still stand.”

My throat tightens. I’ve spent so long being the boundary witch—the one who bleeds, the one who steals, the one who holds back the dark—that I’ve forgotten how to be seen as anything else.

But he sees me. Not the role. Not the sacrifice. Me.

“Varkhul—”

“Don’t.” He pulls his hand back. The loss of contact is sharper than it should be. “We can’t afford this. Not now. Not with the Sovereign watching, waiting for weakness.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. The mark is a vulnerability—a crack in both our armors that the entity will exploit the moment it gets the chance.

But his hand is still holding mine. And neither of us is letting go.

The Sovereign speaks againas darkness deepens around the stones.

Varkhul has gone to check on his guards—or what’s left of them. Two more deserted during the day, taking horses and supplies, fleeing back toward the Iron Citadel with reports that will seal both our fates. The remaining four watch the perimeterwith nervous energy, jumping at shadows, muttering prayers to gods that have no power at the boundary.

I’m alone at the stones when the presence returns.

He’s growing attached to you. The executioner who was sent to end your life is now bound to it. Quite poetic.

“Stay out of my head.”

I’m not in your head. I’m in the Veil. And you—as we’ve established—are part of the Veil. Which means I’m part of you.A pause.Does he know? Does the executioner understand what his mark is doing to the boundary?

I don’t answer. Don’t need to. The Sovereign can feel the truth through our shared fabric—the way my heart stutters at the question, the fear that’s been gnawing at me since the mark burned into my wrist.

Every time your marks flare—every time desire sparks between you—the Veil weakens. The mark is poison. You’re already doing my work for me.

“You’re lying.”

Am I? Feel the boundary, boundary witch. Feel what happens when your blood sings for his.

I don’t want to. Don’t want to confirm what I’ve been dreading since the mark claimed us both.

But the Sovereign doesn’t give me a choice.

It reaches through the thread that binds me to the Veil, that makes me a living anchor, and forces me to perceive the boundary the way it does. To feel every tear, every thin spot, every place where reality has worn through.

And I feel the damage the claiming has done.

Every time the mark has flared—every moment of desire, every accidental touch, every heated glance between Varkhul and me—the Veil has thinned. Not dramatically. Not catastrophically. But persistently. Consistently. A slow erosion that’s been happening since the mark sealed itself into our skin.