Page 53 of Orc's Veil

No.

I want to scream it. Want to warn her, stop her, beg her to stay where it’s safe. But my voice is gone, stolen by the cold, silenced by the endless parade of my sins.

The only thing I can do is hold on. Endure. Survive long enough for her to reach me—or die trying, so she doesn’t have to die too.

The memories keep coming.

I let them.

Not because I want to. Not because the pain is bearable. But because each memory, each death, each moment of forced witnessing—it’s time. Time for Eirene to reach me. Time for whatever plan is forming in her brilliant, desperate mind.

The Sovereign thinks it’s breaking me. And maybe it is—maybe I’ll never be whole again after this, never be able to close my eyes without seeing every face I’ve ended.

But I’ve been broken before. I’ve been hollow before. And I found a reason to keep fighting anyway.

I feel her. Distant but undeniable. The woman I love, bleeding herself dry to cross into the Shadow Court. The witch who chose me despite seeing every sin I’ve ever committed. Theonly person in the world who knows exactly what I am—and loves me anyway.

I hold onto that. As the memories crash through me, as my sins parade past in an endless procession of blood and regret, I hold onto her.

She’s coming.

THIRTY

EIRENE

He’s gone.

I stand at the edge of the tear, staring into the darkness that swallowed him. My hands are still raised, still blazing with twilight magic I couldn’t release fast enough. The light fades from my palms, leaving me in the dim glow of the wounded Veil, alone in a circle of carnage.

The Veilspawn corpses are already dissolving, wisps of shadow bleeding back into the ground. The breach-born creatures we killed have left nothing but the stench of their passing. Around me, the ancient stones pulse with uncertain light—stabilized by our claiming, but damaged by the Sovereign’s assault.

Varkhul is gone. Taken. Dragged into the Shadow Court by an entity made of every memory I’ve stolen, every life I’ve tried to save.

I saw his face in that final moment—the shock, the fury, the desperate reaching as the shadows closed around him. He was trying to warn me. To protect me, even as the darkness pulled him through the tear.

That’s who he is. That’s who he’s become since choosing me over the order. A protector instead of an executioner. Mine instead of theirs.

And now he’s being tortured because of me.

The mark on my chest aches with his absence. I can still feel him—faintly, distantly, a thread of warmth stretched impossibly thin across the barrier between worlds. He’s alive. That much I know.

My body remembers him. Even now, even in the midst of this nightmare, I feel the ghost of his hands on my hips, the bruises he left that are still tender beneath my dress. The memory of his body pressing me into the stones, his breath hot against my throat, the way he groaned my name when he?—

I shove the memory aside. Can’t afford the distraction. Can’t afford to remember how it felt to be held by someone strong enough to break me and gentle enough not to.

But he’s in agony.

I press my hand over my heart, feel the claiming mark pulse beneath my palm. The pain isn’t mine—it’s his, filtered through whatever remains of our link. Dull and throbbing, punctuated by sharp spikes that make me gasp.

The Sovereign is hurting him. And I’m standing here, useless, while it happens.

“No.” The word comes out hoarse, barely a whisper. “No, I’m not—I won’t?—”

Blood-keeper.

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. Not through my ears—through my mind, sliding past my defenses like smoke through cracked walls. I recognize it immediately.

The Sovereign.