Page 38 of Orc's Veil

Everything I haven’t said yet—everything the Sovereign showed me.

I tell him about the voices that speak in stolen tones, the accusations that pierce my sleep, the guilt that follows me like a second shadow.

And when I’ve emptied myself of every horror, every grief, every secret I’ve carried alone for eight years?—

I tell him the worst part.

“The mark is weakening me.”

His hands still on my face. “What?”

“Every time my mark burns—” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “Every time I feel your desire mixing with my blood magic, the boundary thins. Our… what we feel for each other… it’s poison to the Veil.”

He goes rigid. I can feel the denial rising in him, feel the mark on his chest flare with protest even as he struggles to process what I’m saying.

“That can’t be right.” His voice is rough, strained. “Our blood stabilizes the barrier. We’ve seen it?—”

“Our blood does. Our desire doesn’t.” I force myself to hold his gaze, to watch the hope drain from his expression. “The Sovereign showed me. Made me feel what the Veil feels every time the marks flare. It’s subtle—not catastrophic—but consistent. Every time we touch. Every time we want. Every time we let ourselves feel what’s building between us?—”

“The boundary pays the price.” He finishes the thought, his voice hollow.

“Yes.”

Silence falls between us—heavy, suffocating, filled with everything we’ve been building and everything we might have to destroy. His hands are still on my face, but they’ve gone still. Frozen. Like he’s afraid to move, afraid that any contact will further damage the barrier we’re trying to protect.

“Then we don’t love.” The words come out broken. Dead. “We fight the claiming. Suppress it. I’ve heard of orcs who’ve?—”

“Can you stop?”

The question cuts through his desperate planning like a blade. He freezes. His eyes meet mine, and I see the truth there—the same truth burning in my own chest, the same impossible wanting that’s been growing since the first time our blood touched.

“Can you?” I press, even though I know the answer. Even though asking is cruel. “Can you look at me and feel nothing? Can you stand beside me, fight beside me, bleed beside me—and pretend the mark on your chest doesn’t burn for me?”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to.

I can feel his heartbeat pulsing against my awareness—fast, desperate, aching with a need that mirrors my own. I can feel the war raging inside him, duty against desire, sacrifice against survival. He wants to do the right thing. Wants to protect the boundary, protect the world, be the weapon he was trained to be.

But he can’t stop wanting me any more than I can stop wanting him.

“Eirene.” My name on his lips is a prayer and a curse. “If we can’t—if the mark is?—”

“I know.” I reach up with my free hand—the one not chained to the stone—and press my palm against his chest, over the mark that’s been burning since we met. I feel it pulse beneath my touch, hot and hungry and utterly undeniable. “I know. We’re trapped, Varkhul. Loving each other might destroy everything I’ve given my life to protect. Not loving each other might break us both.”

“There has to be a way.” His hand covers mine, pressing it harder against his chest. “Some solution we haven’t thought of. Some path that doesn’t end in?—”

“In the Sovereign winning either way?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s what it told me. Feed the claiming and destroy the Veil. Fight the claiming and destroy ourselves. Either way, it gets what it wants.”

“Then we find a third option.” His voice has hardened, found steel beneath the desperation. “We’re not pawns in its game, Eirene. We’re not pieces to be moved.”

“Aren’t we?” I search his face, looking for the certainty I can’t find in myself. “The mark chose us. The Veil is dying. The order is coming to kill us both. We’re standing at the edge of the world, chained to a stone, waiting for the darkness to swallow us whole. How is that anything but being played?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. The Veil hums around us, its dying song filling the silence. The marks pulse in unison—mine on my wrist, his on his chest—beating out a rhythm that feels like inevitability.

My eyes burn. The chains feel cold against my wrists, the stone hard against my back. But his hand is warm over mine,and his heartbeat is steady beneath my palm, and for the first time since the Sovereign crawled into my mind?—

I feel a spark of hope.