Page 11 of Orc’s Grimoire

And then the pages stop.

Open. Exposed. Covered in script that writhes and changes as I watch.

KORRATH BLACKBRAND.

My name. Written in ink that gleams the color of fresh blood.

“Don’t read it.” Thyra’s voice is sharp, urgent. “Whatever it’s showing you⁠—“

But I am already reading.

Names. Dozens of names. Hundreds. Written in cramped script that covers every inch of the exposed pages, crawling across the parchment, rearranging itself into patterns I can almost understand.

THE VILLAGE OF THORNHAVEN.

Cold washes through me.

THE CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR.

My hand drops to my execution brand. The metal burns against my palm—responding to the magic, or responding to my rage. I can’t tell which.

THE SPELL THAT SCREAMED YOUR MOTHER’S NAME AS YOU BURNED IT.

“How does it know that?” The words come out rough. Barely controlled. I haven’t spoken of Thornhaven in fifteen years. Haven’t let myself think about it since the night I walked out of the ashes.

Thyra watches me with those assessing eyes. “It knows everything. Every spell you’ve touched leaves traces. The grimoire reads them.”

“Reads them how?”

“I don’t know. The Author built it to catalogue forbidden knowledge. Somehow, it learned to read the forbidden things people carry inside them too.”

The script keeps moving. More names. More sins. Every purge I’ve ever conducted, every relic I’ve destroyed, every life I’ve taken in the name of the Order. The grimoire is writing my history in blood-red ink, and every word is accurate.

Every word is true.

The spellbound children at Thornhaven. The ones too corrupted to save. The ones I burned anyway, because the magic had grown too deep, because letting them live meant letting the curse spread, because⁠—

“Stop reading.” Thyra’s hand closes around my wrist.

The touch jolts through me—unexpected, electric. Her fingers are small against my weathered skin, her grip surprisingly strong. And for a moment, the grimoire’s presence fades. The endless list of my sins blurs. All I can feel is her hand on my arm and the rapid beat of her pulse against my wrist.

“It’s trying to break you,” she says quietly. “That’s what it does. Shows you the worst parts of yourself until you can’t look away. Until you’re too paralyzed to fight.”

I tear my gaze from the pages. Look at her instead.

She is closer than I’d realized. Close enough to see the sigil scars on her throat. Close enough to feel the heat the grimoire’s constant feeding had worn into her skin. Close enough that her breath touches my chin when she speaks.

“It doesn’t work on me.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “I already know what I am.”

Her expression changes. Recognition, maybe. Or respect.

“So do I.”

The grimoire laughs.

Not the pages turning, not the chains rattling—an actual laugh, emerging from somewhere inside the binding. Low. Intimate. A sound that shouldn’t have been possible from paper and ink and craving magic.

Thyra’s hand tightens on my wrist.