Page 56 of Orc’s Grimoire

“I know.” I can feel it building in her—the tension coiling tighter, the tremors starting in her thighs, the way her breath comes faster and shorter. “Let go. I’ve got you.”

She comes with a scream that she muffles against my shoulder, her whole body convulsing around me. The sensation triggers my own release—pleasure crashing through me like a wave, like fire, like the ending of a spell that’s been building for days.

The mating mark completes.

I feel it happen—a snap, a seal, a lock clicking into place. The circuit closes. Two marks become one system, two claims become one binding. We’re linked now in a way that can only be broken by death.

And it feels right. Complete. Like a part of me I didn’t know was missing has finally slotted into place.

I hold her against the wall while we both catch our breath, foreheads pressed close, bodies still joined. Her eyes are glazed, unfocused—the aftermath of pleasure and pain and magic all tangled into a sensation that defies description.

“Thyra.” I cup her face, force her to look at me. “Are you with me?”

“I’m with you.” A weak smile. “That was… intense.”

“That was necessary.”

“That too.” She shifts against me, wincing slightly. “We should probably⁠—“

The Author’s scream tears through the Archive.

Not words—just rage, pure and primal, the fury of a creature who’s just discovered that his prey has slipped through his fingers. The walls shake. Books tumble from shelves. The impossible geometry of the corridor snaps back to normal with a sound like reality clearing its throat.

I lower Thyra to her feet, helping her straighten her ruined clothes as best we can. My own belt gets refastened. Blade back in hand. Brand returned to its loop at my hip.

The claiming is complete. Now we face the consequences.

YOU THINK THIS CHANGES ANYTHING? YOU’VE BOUND YOURSELVES TO EACH OTHER. CONGRATULATIONS. NOW WHEN I BREAK YOU, I’LL HAVE TO BREAK YOU BOTH AT ONCE.

“Try it.” I position myself in front of Thyra, blade raised. “I’ve broken things older than you.”

“You can’t even reach me, spell-burner. Not in the physical world. I exist in the pages—in the space between words and meaning. You can burn my manifestation, but I’ll just return. Again. And again. Until you’re too exhausted to fight.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. The Author can’t be killed out here—only in the Inner Codex, the space inside the grimoire where his true consciousness resides.

But that was the plan from the start. Buy time. Get stronger. Find a way inside.

“Then stop talking and start trying.” I show my teeth in what isn’t quite a smile. “I’ve got plenty of fight left.”

The Author’s manifested form solidifies at the end of the corridor, robes of living text writhing with agitation. His script-filled eyes study us with calculation that’s replaced the initial rage—a predator reassessing its approach after the first strike failed.

“You’ve made yourselves harder to edit. Impressive. But there are other ways to destroy you.”

He raises his hands.

The Archive screams.

Not a metaphor—an actual sound, tearing through the vaulted halls, echoing off black stone and bone-inlaid shelves. The wards that protect this place, the magical barriers that have kept the outside world at bay for centuries, are tearing apart.

I feel it happen. Twenty years of spell-burning have made me sensitive to magical death, and the wards are dying—massive, ancient protections shredded by the Author’s fury like parchment in a storm.

“If I can’t have you—“ The Author’s smile carries centuries of spite. “—then neither can the spell-burners.”

The outer wards collapse.

And in the distance, faint but growing closer, I hear war-horns.

Midori.