Page 35 of Orc's Veil

“You stupid, reckless—” She reaches up, grabs the front of my armor, pulls me down toward her. “Do you know what you’ve done? What you’ve given up?”

“Everything.” I don’t resist the pull. Let her drag me closer until our foreheads touch, until I can feel her ragged breath against my lips. “And I’d do it again.”

She kisses me.

It’s not gentle—there’s nothing gentle about either of us. Her fingers dig into my armor, pulling me down as she surges up, and our mouths meet with a desperation that tastes like blood and tears and the end of everything we used to be.

The marks blaze. Both of them, mine and hers, burning so bright I can feel the heat through armor and skin and bone. The Veil shudders around us—not collapsing, not failing, but responding. Shifting. Recognizing what we are to each other.

I pull back before I lose myself entirely. We’re both breathing hard—her from exhaustion and blood loss, me from the storm of wanting that’s tearing through my chest.

“The boundary.” Her voice is unsteady. “The Sovereign said—our desire weakens it. Every time we?—”

“I don’t care what the Sovereign said.” I keep my hands on her face, thumbs brushing the tears from her cheeks. “It wants us to fear this. To deny what the mark is trying to build. But I’ve spent twenty years denying everything that made me more than a weapon, and it didn’t make me better. It made me broken.”

“Varkhul—”

“You told me the mark doesn’t create feelings. It reveals them.” I press my forehead against hers again, feel the mark pulse between us. “So let it reveal. Let it build. Maybe what we’re building will be stronger than what the Sovereign is trying to tear apart.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. I can feel her pulse beneath my palms, can feel the exhaustion dragging at her, the fear she’s trying to hide. The Sovereign has been in her head, filling herwith doubt and dread. It’s told her that loving me will destroy everything she’s sacrificed to protect.

But it hasn’t told her why the mark chose us. Why, of all the people in the world, the magic decided that an executioner and a boundary witch belonged to each other.

“I don’t know how to do this.” Her voice is small. Fragile. A side of her I’ve never seen—the woman beneath the witch, the human beneath the sacrifice. “I’ve never—I don’t?—”

“Neither do I.” I pull back just enough to look at her—really look, taking in her face—the pallor beneath the blood, the scars that speak of years of bleeding for a world that condemned her. “But I’m willing to learn. If you are.”

She stares at me. The tears have stopped, but her eyes are still bright—with emotion, with exhaustion, with a hope she doesn’t seem to trust.

“The order will come.” It’s not a refusal—more like a reminder. A warning of the storm that’s bearing down on us. “Draveth. The hunting party. They won’t stop until?—”

“Until we stop them.” I straighten, but I don’t let go of her. Can’t seem to make myself break the contact. “We have two days before Draveth arrives. Two days to figure out how to fight an entity made of stolen memories and an army of executioners sent to kill us.”

“And the Veil.” Her gaze drifts to the stones, to the tears still spreading across the boundary. “Two days to keep it from collapsing entirely.”

“We’ll manage.” I don’t know if I believe it. Don’t know if it’s possible to hold back the darkness with nothing but blood and desperation and a claiming neither of us asked for.

But I know that I’m done running. Done denying. Done being the blade that cuts without questioning why.

Whatever happens next, I’ll face it at her side.

“We should rest.” I finally release her face, but I take her hand instead—feel the bandages wrapped around her wrists, the blood still wet beneath the cloth. “You’ve lost too much. The boundary can wait until?—”

“It can’t.” She grips my hand, hard. “But you can help. Your blood mixed with mine—it stabilizes the Veil. If we feed it now, both of us, we might be able to slow the collapse. Buy ourselves more time.”

I look at the tears spreading across the boundary. At the pale light bleeding from wounds in reality. At the darkness pressing in from the other side, hungry and patient and utterly certain of its victory.

Then I draw my blade and open a cut across my palm.

Blood wells, dark and hot. Eirene takes my hand, presses her bleeding palm against mine. Our blood mingles—curse and blessing, poison and cure—and the Veil trembles with recognition.

The tears stop spreading.

We stand there, palm to palm, while the boundary drinks our mingled offering. The mark burns on my chest. The matching mark burns on her wrist. And somewhere in the Shadow Court, I feel a presence turn its attention toward us—watching, measuring, already planning its next move.

Let it plan.

I’ve made my choice. And I’ll burn down the world before I let anything take her from me.