Page 61 of Orc's Veil

She’s coming. And when she arrives, we’re going to tear this entity apart—side by side, the way we were meant to fight.

You thinkyou’ve won anything?Its voice has gone cold again—controlled, calculating.You’ve surprised me, executioner. That’s all. But surprises fade. And I have been doing this for centuries.

The claws dig in again. Not at the mark this time—at my memories. At the executions I’ve been reliving since the Sovereign dragged me through the tear.

You want to love her? Fine. Let me show you what that love is worth.

The memories flood back—not playing out before me, but forcing their way into my mind. Every execution. Every death. Every moment of suppressed doubt and buried conscience. The Sovereign isn’t just showing them to me anymore. It’s making me feel them. Making me become the people I killed, experience their fear and confusion and pain in their final moments.

The woman who saved the children—I feel the blade enter her neck, feel the cold shock of steel parting flesh, feel the terrible certainty that her sacrifice was for nothing.

The boy who asked if he did bad—I feel his confusion give way to terror as the blade falls, feel the brief flash of pain before everything goes dark.

The infant—I feel nothing because the infant felt nothing, because it died before it could feel anything, and somehow that’s worse.

I scream. Can’t help it. The pain is absolute, overwhelming, a symphony of suffering that breaks over me in waves.

And in the same instant, carried by the love I just used as a weapon?—

Eirene screams with me.

I feel her stagger in the darkness. Feel her fall to her knees as my agony crashes through her mind. The Sovereign has found a new weapon—not our love itself, but the claiming that carries it. Every wave of pain I feel, she feels too. Every death I relive, she relives with me.

Do you understand now?The Sovereign’s voice is triumphant again.Your claiming doesn’t protect you. It doubles the pain. Every moment of suffering I inflict on you reaches her as well. How long do you think she can endure? How long before the woman you love breaks under the burden of your sins?

I try to close the claiming. Try to protect Eirene from what I’m feeling, to bear my punishment alone. But the Sovereign’s claws are tangled too deeply in the magic. Every attempt I make to shield her just opens me wider.

The torture continues. The deaths keep coming. And somewhere in the Shadow Court, the woman I love is screaming my name as my sins tear her apart.

But she doesn’t stop walking.

I feel it through our link—her determination, unbroken despite the agony. She’s still coming. Still fighting. Still believing that I’m worth saving, even as my sins pour through her mind.

I don’t deserve her. I’ve known that since the moment the claiming mark burned itself into my chest. A woman who bleeds to save strangers, bound to a man who’s spent twenty years killing for the order’s convenience. It’s a cruel joke. A cosmic mistake.

But she chose me anyway. And I’ll be damned—literally damned, if this place has its way—before I give the Sovereign the satisfaction of breaking me before she arrives.

That’s my Eirene. My boundary witch. My claimed mate.

She’s coming.

And all I have to do is hold on until she arrives.

The Sovereign sends another wave of memories crashing through me—more deaths, more faces, more guilt. I let them come. Let them wash over me without drowning. Because somewhere in the darkness, a woman with blood on her hands and silver in her hair is fighting her way toward me.

And when she gets here, the Sovereign is going to learn what happens when you threaten the mate of an executioner who has finally found a reason to live.

THIRTY-FIVE

EIRENE

Ihave spent eight years binding myself to a boundary that never answered, bleeding for a world that would never know my name.

Not anymore.

The Shadow Court stretches before me—endless, hungry, vast beyond comprehension. The souls trapped in the walls reach for me as I pass, their faces shifting from despair to hope when they see the blood dripping from my palm. I’ve already freed one. Thousands more wait.

But I can’t save them all. Not yet. Not until I save him.