Page 32 of Orc's Veil

And that’s a thing the Sovereign, for all its stolen memories and devoured lives, will never understand.

NINETEEN

VARKHUL

The bound spirit arrives at midnight.

I’m at the edge of the stone circle, watching Eirene sleep in her cottage, when I feel it—a ripple in the air, a disturbance that makes the Veil shudder and my mark flare with warning heat. The spirit materializes three feet from my shoulder, its form shifting between smoke and light, its voice carrying the cold authority of the Iron Citadel.

A message from High Warden Kravos. Delivered by bound spirit. Sealed in blood.

The kind of message that cannot be ignored.

I extend my hand, and the spirit drops a scroll into my palm—parchment that smokes faintly, inscribed with runes that pulse with residual power. The seal is Kravos’s personal mark: a blade bisecting a closed eye. Justice without sight. Judgment without mercy.

I break it.

The words burn themselves into my mind as I read, each sentence a brand searing itself into my consciousness.

Executioner Dreadward. Your delay is noted and condemned. The sentence against Eirene Marrow is tobe carried out immediately. No further extensions will be tolerated.

I force myself to keep reading.

Furthermore: reports have reached the Citadel regarding a claiming mark manifestation in your presence. If these reports are accurate, you are compromised. A replacement executioner has been dispatched to ensure completion of the sentence. Executioner Draveth will arrive within two days.

Draveth.

The name hits me like a blade to the gut. I know Draveth. Trained with him, fought beside him, watched him rise through the order’s ranks with a brutality that made my own methods look gentle. He’s everything I used to be—disciplined, ruthless, utterly devoted to the order’s laws—but without the cracks that have been forming in my certainty since I arrived at the Veilborder.

Draveth won’t hesitate. Won’t question. Won’t let a claiming mark or a dying boundary or a woman’s silver-streaked hair interfere with his duty.

He’ll kill her. And if I try to stop him, he’ll kill me too.

Kravos will keep Aethra Voss in reserve—his second, cold-eyed and patient, the kind of commander who outlasts the ones who move first. I’ve served beside her at the Citadel long enough to know she won’t come until she understands exactly what she’s walking into. But she’ll come.

The scroll continues, Kravos’s voice cold and clinical even in written form.

If you have indeed formed a claiming mark with the condemned witch, you are hereby relieved of duty and ordered to return to the Citadel for assessment. Failure to comply will result in your designation as a traitor to the order. The punishment for treason is death.

The parchment burns itself to ash in my hand. The bound spirit waits, empty-eyed, for my response.

I have a choice.

The bound spirit is still waiting, its empty gaze fixed on me. Kravos expects a response—confirmation of receipt, acknowledgment of orders, a promise to comply. The spirit will carry my words back to the Citadel, and my answer will determine whether I remain an executioner or become a target.

I look toward the cottage. Through the single window, I can see Eirene’s form curled on the narrow bed, exhausted, vulnerable, trusting me to keep watch while she rests.

She trusted me. Even knowing what I was sent here to do. Even knowing the blood on my hands, the lives I’ve ended, every death etched in iron on my tusks.

She trusted me anyway.

How many of them were actually guilty?

Her question echoes in my memory. I still don’t have an answer. But I’m starting to understand that the absence of an answer is an answer in itself.

I turn to the bound spirit. Meet its empty gaze with a calm I don’t entirely feel.

“Tell High Warden Kravos that I require additional time to complete my assessment. The boundary situation is more complex than initial reports indicated. I will send a full report when my investigation is complete.”