Page 63 of Orc’s Grimoire

“Midori—“

“I trained you.” Her voice cracks, and for just a moment, I see beneath the fanaticism. Pain. Betrayal. The grief of a teacher watching her student choose a different path. “I made you what you are. And this is how you repay me?”

“You made me a weapon.” I position myself between her and Thyra, between her and the doorway to the Inner Codex. “But weapons can choose their targets. I’m choosing mine.”

“Then choose death.”

She lunges.

I don’t fight her.

Instead, I grab Thyra’s hand and throw us both backward into the darkness.

The grimoire swallows us.

I hear Midori’s scream of rage—feel the heat of her brand passing inches from my face as we fall into the portal—see the Restricted Stacks receding above us, shrinking, vanishing as the doorway snaps shut.

And then there’s nothing.

Nothing but darkness and falling and the grip of Thyra’s fingers in mine, the only solid thing in a universe that’s suddenly lost all meaning.

We fall for seconds or hours or years.

When we land, we land hard.

The ground beneath me isn’t ground. I push myself up on hands and knees, feel the liquid darkness try to drag me down, and haul myself to my feet through sheer force of will.

Thyra is beside me. Alive. Whole. Her hand still grips mine, her fingers white-knuckled with fierce determination.

NINETEEN

THYRA

We’ve been walking for what feels like hours.

Time moves strangely here. Each step forward might cover a mile or an inch—impossible to tell in a space where distance is just another lie the Author tells. The throne looms in the distance, never seeming to get closer, its chained grimoires pulsing with accumulated power that makes my teeth ache.

Korrath walks at my side, blade drawn, every line of his body radiating controlled violence. He hasn’t spoken since we entered. Neither have I. There’s nothing to say that the Author isn’t already listening to.

The mating mark burns steady against my skin—not warning, just presence. He’s here. He’s real. In this place where reality rewrites itself between heartbeats, that certainty is the only anchor I have.

Then the grimoire speaks.

The voice enters my mind without warning—not words exactly, but concepts pressed directly into my consciousness.

THE THRONE IS AT THE CENTER.

I flinch. Korrath’s hand finds my elbow, steadying me.

“What is it?”

“The grimoire. It’s… talking to me.” I press my palm against my temple, trying to organize the flood of information. “Showing me things.”

More concepts pour in. Images. Directions that don’t correspond to any physical space. The grimoire is trying to guide us, but its mind doesn’t work the way mortal minds work. It thinks in pages and chapters and cross-references, not in left and right and forward.

DESTROY HIM AT THE THRONE, AND HE DIES PERMANENTLY.

The grimoire’s voice resonates with urgent intensity.