Page 31 of Orc's Veil

We’re killing the boundary. By wanting each other, we’re killing the only thing standing between the world and the Shadow Court.

Now you understand. The mark is my ally. The more you love him, the wider I can tear. The more you deny your desire, the more it consumes you—and the more the Veil feels your suffering. Either way, I win.

“Then I’ll break it.” The words come out desperate. Hollow. “There must be a way to?—”

Break an orc’s claiming mark?Laughter ripples through the Veil—dark, mocking, terrible.The mark cannot be broken. It cannot be denied, cannot be suppressed, cannot be wished away. It exists until death—and sometimes beyond. Your only options are to feed it or fight it, and both paths lead to my victory.

I sink to my knees in the black soil. The Sovereign’s presence presses against my mind—heavy, patient, certain, already tasting triumph.

The Sovereign’s answer was the same as before. Surrender. Save him. Become the door.

“I won’t.” The words are barely a whisper. “I won’t let you?—”

You don’t have to decide now. I have centuries of patience. Centuries of hunger. You have days—maybe hours—before the order sends more executioners. Before the boundary weakens past the point of repair. Before everything you’ve sacrificed to protect comes crashing down around you.

The Sovereign fades. The voices go silent. The Veil settles back into its familiar hum, as if nothing has happened.

But everything has changed.

I stay on my knees in the black soil, staring at the mark on my wrist—the runes that pulse in time with my heartbeat, with his heartbeat, with the slow dying of the world I’ve given everything to protect.

The mark is poison. Loving him might destroy everything.

I’ve never been in love before.

And I don’t know how to stop.

Varkhul findsme there an hour later.

He doesn’t ask what happened—the mark must have told him enough. He simply drops to his knees beside me, armor creaking, and pulls me against his chest without a word.

I should push him away. Should tell him what the Sovereign revealed—that every touch weakens the Veil, that every moment of desire feeds the darkness we’re trying to hold back. Should put distance between us before we doom the world with our wanting.

Instead, I press my face against his armor and let him hold me while the boundary shivers around us.

“The Sovereign spoke to you again.” His voice rumbles through his chest, through my body, settling into my bones. “I felt it. Couldn’t hear the words, but I felt your fear.”

“It told me—” I stop. Swallow. Start again. “It told me things. About the mark. About what our… what we’re doing to the Veil.”

His arms tighten around me. “What things?”

I should tell him. Should lay out the impossible choice the Sovereign has given me—surrender or fight, either way the darkness wins.

But his heart is pounding beneath my cheek, steady and strong. His arms are wrapped around me like he’s trying to shield me from the entire Shadow Court with just his body. And the mark on my wrist is burning with warmth that should terrify me but doesn’t.

“Later.” The word comes out broken. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, I just?—”

“I know.” He presses his lips to the top of my head—not a kiss, exactly, but close enough. “I know.”

We stay there, tangled at the base of the central stone, while the Veil hums its dying song around us. Two people caught in a trap with no good exits—people who should be enemies, who should be executioner and condemned, who should be anything other than what we’re becoming.

The Sovereign is right. The mark is poison. Every moment we spend like this weakens the boundary.

But right now, with his arms around me and his heartbeat in my ear, I can’t bring myself to care.

Maybe that makes me selfish. Maybe that makes me weak.

Or maybe—just maybe—it makes me human.