Page 32 of Orc’s Grimoire

“And if we can’t?” His voice is barely a whisper. “If there’s no solution?”

I don’t have an answer. But I lean into his touch anyway, let my eyes close, let myself feel the gravity between us without fighting it.

Two days.

We’ll make them count.

NINE

KORRATH

My squad waits in the dead garden.

Six spell-burners standing at attention among twisted trees and bone-white flowers, their faces hard with discipline and confusion. They’ve been waiting since I emerged from the manor two hours ago—since I told them to hold position and said nothing else. Now the sun is setting over the Veillands, bruising the sky purple and green, and they deserve answers I don’t want to give.

Bren steps forward as I approach. The oldest of my squad, grey at his temples, scars mapping twenty years of service. He’s earned the right to question me.

“Commander.” His voice is carefully neutral. “The men are wondering about our orders.”

“The orders haven’t changed.” The lie comes easier than it should. “We wait.”

“With respect, Commander—the original mandate was immediate execution. The Order doesn’t tolerate delays.”

“The Order will tolerate what I tell them to tolerate.” I meet his gaze, letting him see the certainty I don’t feel. “The situation is more complex than the reports suggested. The grimoire can’t be destroyed through conventional means.”

“And the keeper?”

The question hits harder than it should. My hand moves toward my chest before I can stop it—toward the marks burning beneath my shirt, the mating mark and the grimoire’s sigils pulsing in tandem.

The keeper. Thyra. The woman who’s apparently been branded as your mate by magic you can’t control.

“The keeper is… complicated.” I force my hand back to my side. “Return to the encampment. Prepare the pyres as planned, but don’t light them. I’ll send word when we’re ready to proceed.”

Bren’s expression shifts. Not quite suspicion, but close. “Commander, if there’s a problem⁠—“

“There’s no problem.” Another lie. The biggest lie I’ve told in twenty years of service. “Just a delay. Two days. Maybe three.”

“The Order won’t like it.”

“The Order will understand when I explain.” I turn away before he can see the doubt in my eyes. “Go. All of you. I’ll handle things here.”

They go. I watch them file through the iron gates, their silhouettes dark against the dying light. Bren looks back once, his scarred face unreadable. Then they’re gone, and I’m alone in the dead garden with the burden of everything I haven’t told them pressing against my chest.

The marks burn.

Both of them—the mating mark over my heart, the grimoire’s sigils beside it. They pulse in a rhythm that matches nothing natural, a counterpoint beat that thrums through my blood and bone. I’ve been trying to ignore it since I left Thyra in the corridor. Trying to pretend the heat is just residual magic, the awareness just battle-edge nerves.

I can’t pretend anymore.

I press my palm against my chest, feeling the raised flesh beneath my torn shirt. The mating mark is familiar territory—I’ve seen them on other orcs, heard the legends since childhood. A pattern of interlocking sigils that claims a fated mate, that binds two souls across any distance, that demands completion with an insistence that borders on pain.

What I’m feeling isn’t legend. It’s immediate. Overwhelming. Wrong.

The magic has rules. It chose wrong. And it doesn’t care.

The mark burns against my palm, and I know where she is. Thyra. An awareness that tugs at me like a hook beneath my ribs, telling me exactly where she is without needing to look.

She’s in the Archive. Deep. Surrounded by texts and scrolls and the creeping magic that saturates this place.