Page 5 of Orc’s Grimoire

“No.”

“Are you certain? They have so much to say to you, keeper. So much they want you to know.”

My legs give out. I drop to my knees on the blood-channeled floor, one hand clutching the wound on my palm, the other bracing against the cold stone. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, in my temples, in the throbbing cut that won’t stop bleeding.

The grimoire’s pages turn slowly. Deliberately. A new message forms in that red-black ink.

THE SPELL-BURNER ARRIVES TOMORROW. HE’S BEEN SENT TO DESTROY ME. TO DESTROY US BOTH.

I stare at the words until they blur. Spell-burner. The Order of Ash. I knew they’d come eventually—knew that the grimoire’s awakening activity would draw attention. But I thought I had more time. I thought I could find another way.

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY, THYRA. THERE NEVER WAS.

The grimoire’s voice emerges again, and this time it sounds almost kind. Almost sorry.

“You’ve fed me for six years. Bled for me. Killed for me. And now they’re sending a weapon to burn us both. Tell me, keeper—was it worth it?”

I don’t have an answer.

The lanterns dim further. The shadows press closer. And somewhere above me, in the iron-wrought manor that hides the Archive’s entrance, I imagine I can hear footsteps.

Someone is coming.

Someone who burns.

The grimoire sighs—a sound of parchment and craving and dark anticipation—and settles into its chains. Waiting. Patient.

It’s been waiting for three hundred years.

What’s one more night?

I remain on my knees for a long time.

The blood from my palm pools on the floor, following the ancient channels carved into the stone. Flowing toward the lectern. Toward the grimoire. Even here, even now, I’m still feeding it.

Should stop. Should bandage the wound and walk away and pretend this night never happened.

But I don’t move. Can’t seem to make my legs work.

I think about Denn, Callia, Voss. Their faces. The trust in their eyes before the grimoire took them. Three lives. Three thousand saved.

I’d do it again.

I’ve already thought about who would come next, if it came to that.

That’s what the grimoire means. That’s why it said I’m already damned.

Not because of what I did. Because of what I’m willing to do. Because I made peace with murder a year ago, and I’ve been refining my methodology ever since.

Because the Archive has to be protected. Because some knowledge is too dangerous to let loose into the world.

Because I’m already damned anyway.

The grimoire knows. It’s known from the first time I fed it more than my blood. Every drop I’ve given carries my choices, my sins, my cold and practical arithmetic of lives weighed against lives.

I finally manage to stand. My legs shake, but they hold. The dizziness is worse now, a persistent throb behind my eyes that warns of blood loss and sleep deprivation and the slow erosion of things I used to call boundaries.

The grimoire watches me—I feel its attention, its amusement, its patient appetite. It doesn’t need to say anything else. The damage is done.