Page 28 of Orc’s Grimoire

The Elder exchanges a glance with her companions—I notice them for the first time, hovering near the doorway, their aged faces tight with concern. No one answers immediately.

Then the youngest Elder steps forward. “The spell-burner. His presence has… accelerated things. The grimoire’s activity has increased tenfold since he arrived.”

Korrath.

His name rises unbidden, and with it comes awareness. A tug I didn’t notice before, a hook lodged deep in my chest. I know where he is—not in the room, but nearby. Close. The mark tells me that much, pulling toward him like a compass needle finding north.

The mark on my collarbone aches with sudden heat.

“Where is he?”

“The corridor.” The eldest Elder’s voice carries warning. “He’s been waiting since he carried you here. Three hours.”

Three hours. The spell-burner has been standing outside my door for three hours while the Elders tended my wounds. Not pacing. Not raging. Just… waiting.

Why?

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The motion sends vertigo crashing through me—blood loss, exhaustion, the strange new burden of the grimoire’s mark seared into my flesh. I grip the bed frame until the spinning stops.

“You shouldn’t be moving.” The Elder reaches for my arm. “You need rest. The blood you lost⁠—“

“Can wait.” I push myself upright. My legs hold, barely. “If he’s been standing outside for three hours, he has questions. And I have information he needs.”

“Thyra.” The Elder’s hand closes on my wrist—gentle but firm. “The grimoire may be using your connection to the spell-burner to manipulate you both. Be careful what you feel in there.”

I pull my wrist free. The words land somewhere uncomfortable, because I can’t yet tell the difference between what’s mine and what the grimoire put there.

I’m bound to it. I feel what it wants me to feel. How much of my attraction to the spell-burner is real, and how much is manufactured?

I don’t have an answer. And standing here won’t give me one.

“I need to speak with him.”

The corridor outside the infirmary is dim and cold.

Korrath is exactly where I expected him—against the far wall, waiting with the patience of a man who’s learned how to hold still. He’d been there three hours, apparently. He looks like it.

He looks dangerous.

He looks beautiful.

The thought arrives unwanted, unwelcome. I shove it aside and step into the corridor, letting the infirmary door swing shut behind me. The click of the latch echoes in the silence.

“You carried me here.” Not a question.

“You collapsed.” His voice is gravel, rougher than I remember. “Bled out too much playing hero.”

“I was buying us time.”

“You were being reckless.” He pushes off from the wall, and the motion brings him closer. Not threatening—just present. The heat of his body reaches me across the remaining distance, tangible despite the corridor’s chill. “That was my fight. You should have stayed back.”

“If I’d stayed back, the grimoire would have kept feeding on your destruction until it broke containment entirely.” I hold my ground as he approaches. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?” He stops an arm’s length away. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. “The Elders told me about the mark. About the claiming sigil.”

My hand moves to my collarbone without conscious thought. Beneath the bandages, the sigil pulses with heat. Responding to his proximity.

“The grimoire is… invested.” I choose the word carefully. “In my survival. And apparently in making sure I don’t leave.”