Page 78 of Orc's Veil

I feel Varkhul’s presence behind me before he speaks—the warmth of him, the solid reassurance of his body near mine. Three months, and I still crave his closeness. Still feel a flutter in my chest when he touches me, holds me, claims me with a look.

His arm slides around my waist, pulling me back against him. I go willingly, relaxing into his embrace as we watch the shimmer of the Veil settle in the traveler’s wake.

“You’re gentle with them,” he says quietly.

“They don’t need to suffer.” I turn my head, press a kiss to his jaw. “The old Veil demanded pain because it was broken. Hungry. This one is neither of those things.”

“Then why still take from them at all?”

I consider this. The Veil doesn’t need the merchant’s summer afternoon to survive—my presence at the stones each morning is enough for that. But crossing the boundary isn’t merely a physical act. It marks you, changes something small and permanent in how you see the world. The tithe acknowledges that. It is not payment for passage so much as it is a record of it—proof that the traveler understands what they are crossing through, and what it costs. A boundary without consequence is not a boundary at all.

“Because it’s not about what the Veil needs,” I say finally. “It’s about what they need. To know that this place is real. That what lies beyond it is real. A summer afternoon is cheap enough for that lesson.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “You’ve thought about this.”

“I’ve had eight years to think about very little else.”

“The order would say you’re being too soft.”

“The order can say whatever they want.” I smile against his skin. “They’re not the ones holding the barrier up.”

FORTY-THREE

VARKHUL

Iwatch Eirene work her magic and feel my chest tighten with pride.

She moves with a grace that still takes my breath away. The shimmer of her skin catches the dawn light, making her glow like a creature from the old stories—the ones my mother used to tell me before I was old enough to hold a blade. Beautiful and terrible and utterly mine.

Three months ago, she was bleeding herself dry just to keep the Veil intact. Now she feeds it with a touch, a whisper, a gentle extraction that leaves travelers alive and grateful instead of broken. She’s still taking memories—she’ll be taking them for eternity, most likely—but she does it with a mercy that astonishes me.

I spent twenty years executing people who committed lesser crimes than hers. And she does more good in a single morning than I did in two decades of bloody service.

She turns from the Gate and walks back to me, her silver-streaked hair catching the morning light. Beautiful. Powerful. Mine.

I catch her hand as she reaches me, pull her close, press a kiss to her forehead. She melts into me the way she has every day forthree months—easy, natural, like we’ve been doing this for years instead of weeks.

“Well done,” I murmur against her hair.

“It’s getting easier.” She pulls back to look at me. “The new Veil is… gentler. It doesn’t demand the way the old one did. I can give it smaller offerings, less painful ones.”

“Because we’re part of it now.”

“Because we made it.” She reaches up, traces the flowing marks on my jaw. “It knows us. Trusts us. It’s not a hungry void anymore—it’s a living thing that we built from our own souls.”

The thought should be unsettling. Instead, it feels right. For the first time in my life, I’m part of a force that protects instead of destroys. A purpose that saves instead of kills.

I’m still a weapon. Still dangerous. But I’m her weapon now, and the Veil’s. Pointed at targets that actually deserve to die.

“Come.” Eirene takes my hand, laces her fingers through mine. “I want to show you the southern stones. I felt a tremor there this morning—nothing serious, but I want to check the wards.”

We walk through the renewed Veilborder, hand in hand, the barrier humming around us like a contented beast. This is our life now—inspections and protections, travelers and tithes, an eternity of guardianship stretching before us.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The southern stonesare older than the others.

They rise from black soil that’s never seen sunlight, their surfaces covered in symbols that predate even the ancient witches who established the boundary. Eirene says they were here when the first Veil was created, part of a barrier thatprotected the world long before the orc betrayal shattered everything.