Page 8 of Orc’s Grimoire

The gardens are worse up close.

I walk through what might have been hedgerows once, now transformed into walls of blackened thorns that twist away as I pass. The dead trees shudder in a wind I can’t feel. Beneath my boots, the ground is soft—not mud, but a substance with more give. A surface that remembers footsteps.

The manor’s front door stands open. No guards. No servants. Just a dark rectangle leading into deeper darkness, and the smell of dust, old ink, and blood. Old blood. Recent blood.

I step inside.

The entrance hall swallows the morning light. What little illumination makes it through the doorway dies within feet, consumed by shadows that pool in corners and drip down walls. Alchemical lanterns hang from rusted chains—pale blue flames that burn low, barely enough to see by.

My eyes adjust. Orc sight works better in darkness than human, and twenty years of walking into cursed places has honed my senses beyond normal limits. Details emerge from the gloom: walls covered in warning symbols, floors etched with containment circles worn smooth by use, ceiling lost in shadows no lantern can pierce.

The magic here pushes at me. Not attacking—testing. Tasting my intentions the way the gate wards did. Deciding whether I’m a threat.

I am. I’m the biggest threat this place has faced in decades.

Footsteps echo from somewhere ahead. Light footsteps, unhurried. An approach without fear. I settle my hand on my blade and wait.

Three figures emerge from a side corridor. Old. Withered. Witches, by the look of them—their eyes carrying that faint luminescence that comes from decades of magical practice. They move in formation, the tallest in the center, the other two flanking.

“Spell-burner.” The center witch’s voice creaks like old leather. “We received word of your arrival.”

“Then you know why I’m here.”

“We know what you think you’re here to do.” She stops a careful distance away, just outside striking range. Smart. “Whether you’ll be able to do it remains to be seen.”

The Archivist Elders look like they’ve been preserved in this place. Dried out. Forgotten. Their robes are faded gray, their skin paper-thin over bone, their eyes the only part of them that seems truly alive.

I study them the way I’d study any threat. The center one—tallest, oldest—carries herself with authority. The other two defer to her, their bodies angled slightly in her direction even when they face me directly. Her luminescent eyes fix on mine, holding steady. I note that they hold steady a fraction too long—still, the way things hold still when they’re working very hard at it—and file the observation away.

“I’m Korrath Blackbrand, Commander of the Seventh Purge Unit.” I don’t offer my hand. They wouldn’t take it. “I’m here under orders from the Order of Ash to destroy a sentient grimoire. The mandate is immediate execution.”

“The grimoire cannot be destroyed.” The tall Elder speaks flatly, without emotion. “We’ve tried.”

“Seventeen dead in three centuries. That’s the report we received.”

“The report is incomplete.” She gestures for me to follow, and the two flanking Elders fall into step behind us. Boxing me in. Not a threat—I could kill all three before they finished a spell—but a statement. They’re not afraid of me.

They should be.

We descend. Stone steps spiraling down into the earth, the air growing colder and heavier with each turn. The alchemical lanterns grow sparse, then disappear entirely, replaced by a pale luminescence that seems to seep from the walls themselves.

“The grimoire was created three centuries ago,” the Elder says as we walk. “By a sorcerer who sought to preserve forbidden knowledge. He succeeded too well. The book became sentient. Ravenous. It feeds on blood and, when blood isn’t available, on minds.”

“Then we burn it and the minds it’s taken. Standard protocol.”

“The grimoire cannot be burned without killing its keeper.” She pauses on a landing, turning to face me. Her luminescent eyes fix on mine. “And killing the keeper may release what’s bound within.”

“May?”

“The previous attempts resulted in… complications.” She says it smoothly, and then—a beat too quickly—adds: “Though the grimoire’s current state is stable. Our keeper’s methods have brought it well in hand. You’ll find things considerably more contained than your reports may suggest.”

I wait. Silence is a weapon. People fill silence with information they didn’t intend to share.

The Elder’s jaw tightens. “The keeper and the grimoire are bound. Magically, irrevocably. The binding can be severed, but we don’t know what happens when it is. The sorcerer who created the grimoire—the Author, we call him—may exist within its pages. Destroying the book without proper containment could release him.”

“Then we burn them both. The keeper and the book.”

An expression crosses the Elder’s face. Not fear—closer to pity. “You may find that more difficult than you expect.”