Page 79 of Orc's Veil

She kneels at the base of the largest stone, pressing her palm to its surface. Her eyes close, and I watch her face shift through concentration to concern.

“What is it?”

“The tremor I felt. It wasn’t from here.” She opens her eyes, and there’s worry in them. “It came through here. From somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?”

“The Veil doesn’t just exist at the Veilborder.” She stands, brushing dirt from her knees. “It’s part of a larger network—barriers that protect other boundaries, other gates, other thin places between our world and the darkness beyond. When the Sovereign died, when we remade this section of the barrier…”

“We changed more than just our piece of it.”

“I think so.” She takes my hand again, holds tight. “I’ve been feeling ripples for weeks. Echoes from far away—places where the Veil is thinner, weaker. Places that haven’t had guardians in generations.”

A chill runs through me that has nothing to do with the perpetual twilight. “The Sovereign is dead.”

“The Sovereign was just one creature.” Her voice is quiet. “Born from centuries of accumulated darkness. But the darkness itself… the shadow-realm that spawned it… that’s still out there. And it’s hungry. It tasted reality when the Veil fell, and now it wants more.”

I think about what that means. About the old gates Eirene mentioned—boundaries no one has guarded in generations. About what might be waiting at those weak points, pressing against barriers that have no one to defend them.

“We can’t protect all of them.”

“No.” She looks up at me, and despite the worry in her expression, there’s steel beneath it. The same steel that carried her into the Shadow Court to save me. “But we can protect this one. And we can watch. And when the darkness finds a way through somewhere else…”

“We’ll deal with it.”

Whatever came next, we would not wait for it to come to us.

She smiles—tired but genuine. “Side by side.”

I pull her close, wrap my arms around her, hold her against me while the old stones hum with ancient power. Whatever’s coming—whatever the shadow-realm sends against us—we’ll face it the way we’ve faced everything else.

Not as the executioner and the traitor.

As the guardians of the breach.

We’re walking backto the cottage when I feel it.

A presence at the edge of the Veilborder. Not a traveler this time—multiple figures, moving with military precision. My hand drops to my blade before I even consciously register the threat.

“Varkhul?”

“Visitors.” I scan the horizon, counting shapes. “Six, maybe seven. Armed. Moving in formation.”

Eirene’s expression goes cold. “The order.”

“Most likely.” I’ve been expecting this. Three months is a long time, but the Veil-warden order has never been quick to act. They prefer to gather intelligence, assess threats, send overwhelming force when they finally decide to move. “They’ll have heard about what happened here. About what we did.”

“About what we became.”

“That too.” I turn to face her fully, cup her face in my hands. “Let me handle this.”

“Absolutely not.” She covers my hands with hers but doesn’t pull away. “We handle it. Whatever they’ve come for—questions, demands, threats—we face them as one.”

Pride swells in my chest. Three months ago, she was ready to die alone at the boundary she’d served for eight years. Now she stands beside me without hesitation, ready to face an army of executioners if that’s what it takes.

“They may not accept what we’ve become.”

“Then they’ll learn.” Her eyes flash with cold fire. “The Veil answers to us now. Not to the order, not to their laws, not to their precious chain of command. We are the boundary. And we decide who crosses it.”