Page 62 of Orc's Veil

Varkhul’s presence pulses in the mark over my heart—distant, agonized, fighting. The Sovereign is hurting him. I can feel echoes of his pain rippling into me, sharp spikes that make me stumble in the darkness. He’s trying to shield me from the worst of it, but our link doesn’t allow secrets. Not anymore.

I feel what he feels. His guilt. His memories. The faces of everyone he’s ever killed, parading through his mind in an endless procession of accusation.

And I keep walking.

The Shadow Court doesn’t want to let me pass. I feel its resistance—the darkness pressing against me, trying to slow mysteps, trying to fill my lungs with the taste of forgotten grief. Shadow-creatures materialize in the gloom ahead, drawn by the scent of my blood, hungry for the power running hot through my veins.

They don’t understand what they’re facing.

I raise my bleeding hand, and they recoil. My blood is poison here—eight years of Veil-offerings have made me toxic to the very darkness I’m walking through. The creatures hiss and scatter, their shadow-forms dissolving when they get too close to the crimson light dripping from my fingers.

Good. Let them fear me.

Because what I’m about to do will give them far more reason to be afraid.

The woundon my palm isn’t enough.

I’ve been bleeding from that cut for hours—or minutes, or days; time is meaningless here—and I can feel myself weakening. The Shadow Court is vast, and Varkhul is somewhere in its depths. At this rate, I’ll be dead before I reach him.

Unless I use the rituals I was taught to never use.

Every boundary witch learns the forbidden techniques. We learn them so we know what to avoid, what to fear, what to burn if we ever find the texts that contain them. The rituals that make a witch into a traitor. The magic that turns a keeper into a breach.

I was a good student. I memorized every forbidden word, every outlawed gesture, every blood-pattern that the order condemned. I told myself it was for safety. For knowledge. For the boundary’s protection.

I was lying.

I learned them because I knew, deep down, that someday I might need them. That the careful, controlled bleeding of a dutiful boundary witch wouldn’t be enough. That there would come a moment when holding back meant losing everything.

That moment is now.

I stop in the darkness and draw my knife.

The first cutis across my forearm.

Not the careful nick I’ve used for eight years of nightly offerings. This is deep—down to the muscle, opening veins that pulse with every beat of my heart. Blood floods out, so much blood, more than I’ve ever spilled at once. It pools at my feet and soaks into the floor of stolen memories.

The second cut is across my thigh.

I slash through my dress, through my skin, through the layers of careful control I’ve wrapped around myself for nearly a decade. Pain screams through my nerves, but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. The ritual demands blood, and I have so much to give.

The third cut is across my chest.

Over my heart. Over the claiming mark that burns with Varkhul’s presence. The blade parts flesh and magic in equal measure, and I feel the Veil respond—not the weakened barrier I’ve been feeding, but the primal force that exists beneath it. The raw power of the boundary between worlds.

I’ve been sipping from this power all my years at the boundary, cautious, rationed, like a child afraid to spill her mother’s milk. Now I’m going to drown in it.

The blood pours from me in rivers. It soaks into the Shadow Court’s foundations, seeps into the walls of stolen memory, feedsthe very darkness I came here to defeat. But it also feeds me. Every drop that leaves my body carries a piece of my humanity—and brings back a piece of the Veil.

I’m not just bleeding anymore. I’m becoming.

The ritual wordscome to me in a language older than the boundary itself.

I speak them in blood—not with my voice, but with my body. Each wound is a syllable. Each pulse of crimson is a verse. The magic responds to the offering, rising up through my veins like fire through dry kindling.

I feel myself changing.

My skin goes cold, then hot, then cold again. My vision wavers—the darkness around me splitting into layers, revealing depths I couldn’t see before. The Shadow Court isn’t just one place, I realize. It’s many places, stacked on top of each other, bleeding into one another like ink in water.