Page 71 of Orc's Veil

I don’t knowhow long we float in the new Veil.

Minutes. Hours. Days. Time has no meaning here—not like it did in the Sovereign’s domain, but in a gentler way. A kinder way. We’re not trapped. We’re… becoming.

Eirene’s body is changing. I can feel it against me—her skin growing cooler, her heartbeat slowing to a rhythm that matches the pulse of the barrier around us. Silver threads appear in her hair, spreading from the temples until her dark locks are shot through with starlight.

My body is changing too. The scars I’ve carried for twenty years—the marks of every execution, the evidence of my bloody service—they’re fading. Not disappearing entirely, but transforming. Becoming patterns that shift and move acrossmy skin, runes of a language I’ve never seen but somehow understand.

We’re not human anymore. Not orc. Not boundary witch or executioner.

We’re guardians. Part of the new Veil. Bound to the barrier we created, and to each other.

“Varkhul.” Eirene’s voice sounds different—deeper, resonant with power. “Are you still you?”

I think about it. Search for the man I was before—the executioner who never questioned, never hesitated, never felt guilt for the lives he ended. He’s still there. The memories. The skills. The darkness that made me useful to the order.

But there’s more now. The love I feel for the woman in my arms. The determination to be better than I was. The choice to protect instead of just destroy.

“I’m still me.” I brush a strand of silver-streaked hair from her face. “Just… more.”

She smiles. It’s the same smile she gave me after our first night at the stones—tired and tender and filled with promise. “Good. I’d hate to have to break in a new orc.”

I pull her closer, press my lips to her temple, breathe in the strange new scent of her—still sweetness beneath, but threaded now with ozone and starlight. “You’re stuck with this one.”

“Worse fates.” She tilts her head up, and I kiss her—soft this time, unhurried, a promise for all the time we now have. Her transformed skin is cool against my lips, but warmth blooms where we touch, as if our bodies remember what we were even as they become what we’re meant to be.

I laugh. The sound echoes strangely in the space between worlds, but it feels right. Natural. Like laughter belongs here, in this place we’ve created from blood and sacrifice and impossible love.

“Can we get out of here?” I look around at the luminous void surrounding us. “As much as I enjoy floating in nothingness with you, I’d like to see the sky again.”

“We can.” She reaches out, and a doorway appears in the void—an opening that shows the Veilborder stones, the familiar twilight sky, the world we both nearly died to protect. “We’re part of the Veil now. We can go anywhere the boundary exists.”

“Convenient.”

“One of the perks of becoming a living goddess.” She takes my hand—her skin is cooler than before, but the touch still sends warmth through me. “Ready to see what we’ve become?”

I squeeze her fingers. “With you? Anything.”

Hand in hand, we step through the doorway and back into the world.

FORTY

VARKHUL

The Veilborder looks different through transformed eyes.

Colors I’ve never noticed bloom in the air around us—threads of power woven into the very fabric of reality. I can see the Veil now, not just feel it. It’s beautiful. Opalescent strands stretching from stone to stone, humming with energy that pulses in time with my heartbeat.

Our heartbeats. Eirene’s and mine. The barrier we built breathes with us now.

The perpetual twilight has shifted. Eight years of it, ended. Still that bruised sky I remember, but lighter now—the new Veil needs no sacrifice to sustain itself, and the darkness has retreated with it. Hints of true dawn bleed along the horizon, gold and rose threading through the purple. The ancient stones still rise against the darkness, but they pulse with new power. Our power. The barrier we built from blood and sacrifice and love.

Eirene stands beside me, her hand clasped in mine. Her skin carries an opalescent shimmer now—subtle, barely visible unless you know to look for it. Her blood runs silver instead of red. I watched it happen as we stepped through the doorway, watched the crimson fade to starlight.

She’s beautiful. More beautiful than she was before, if that’s possible. And she’s looking at the world she nearly died to save with an expression I can’t quite read.

“How does it feel?” I ask.

“Strange.” She squeezes my fingers, her grip cooler than it used to be. “I can feel the Veil. All of it. Every inch of the barrier, from here to the edges of the world. It’s… vast.”