Page 77 of Orc’s Grimoire

The thought rises through the void like a bubble through deep water.

I gave him a target he can destroy. I gave him a chance to end this.

The darkness is warm. Welcoming. It would be easy to drift deeper.

But I am not dissolving.

My edges blur. My name becomes uncertain for a moment—was there ever a woman named Thyra Vire, or was that just a story the pages told themselves to make the feeding easier?

No.

The mating mark blazes on my collarbone. Not warmth—fire. Real fire, burning through the dissolution, anchoring me to a body I am forgetting I have. The mark burns with Korrath’s presence, his reality, his stubborn refusal to let me fade.

You are Thyra Vire.

The thought isn’t mine. Isn’t the grimoire’s. It comes from somewhere deeper—from the place where the mating mark has written itself into my blood, where Korrath’s claim has become part of my identity.

I don’t dissolve. I become a conduit instead. The grimoire’s power floods through me, but it doesn’t consume me. I am the channel through which the book finally expresses three centuries of accumulated rage.

It’s giving me something. Not just power—shape. A different shape than the one I had before.

I feel what it feels. The hatred for its creator, burning hot and cold and endless. The desperate, savage joy of finally having enough power to fight back.

FINISH IT. HE’S FLESH NOW. VULNERABLE. MAKE HIM PAY.

I can’t move. I’m barely here.

KEEPER. YOU HAVE TO TELL THE SPELL-BURNER.

He doesn’t need me to tell him.

I feel it then—massive hands gathering my body from the blood-soaked floor. A familiar warmth pressing against my chest, where the mating mark burns its answer.

Korrath.

He can see the Author staggering on newly formed legs. Can see the mortality in those terrified eyes. Can see the opening I’ve given him.

My consciousness fractures. Part of me stays tangled in the grimoire’s pages, watching through eyes made of ink and memory. Part of me returns to my body, feeling Korrath’s arms around me, hearing his voice rough with fury and grief.

And part of me simply waits.

To see if I’ll survive what comes next.

YOU ARE THE BOOK NOW, KEEPER. AND WHEN THE BOOK BURNS⁠—

The darkness tries to pull me under again. The mating mark flares, fighting it, keeping me anchored to consciousness by the thinnest of threads.

Across the burning throne room, Korrath raises his blade for a killing blow.

The Author screams.

And the grimoire—my grimoire, the book I’ve fed and tended and hated and loved for six years—begins to burn around us.

I have to tell Korrath. Have to warn him that killing the Author might kill me too. That I’m bound to this book now, that my blood runs through its pages, that we might all burn in the same fire.

I open my mouth to speak.

No sound comes out.