Page 80 of Orc’s Grimoire

Her breathing steadies. Her skin warms against my chest. Her eyes flutter, focusing briefly on my face before sliding closed again.

“Korrath…” Her voice is barely a whisper.

“I’m here.” I press my forehead against hers. “I’ve got you. We’re getting out.”

GO. I’M OPENING A DOOR. THE ONLY ONE I CAN MAKE. IT WON’T LEAD TO THE ARCHIVE—THAT’S ALREADY BURNING. BUT IT WILL LEAD TO SKY.

A doorway tears open in the dissolving wall—not a gap in the architecture, but a portal, a window to somewhere else. Through it, I see night sky. Stars. The distant glow of fires on the horizon.

The Veillands. The outside world. Safety.

GO NOW. I CAN’T HOLD IT LONG.

I run.

Thyra cradled against my chest, her blood soaking through my shirt, her breath warm against my neck. The floor crumbles beneath my boots with every step, the fire roaring closer, the Codex screaming as it dies around us.

The doorway wavers. The grimoire’s power is failing—I can feel it, can feel the book’s consciousness fragmenting as the flames consume its pages. Soon there will be nothing left. Just ash and memory and the echo of knowledge that should never have been preserved.

A section of ceiling gives way behind us. I dodge without breaking stride, Thyra shifting in my arms as I weave through the falling debris. Her fingers tighten on my shirt—weak, but aware. She’s still in there. Still fighting.

Hold on. Just a little longer. Hold on for me.

THANK YOU, KEEPER.

The grimoire’s final words whisper through my mind—not meant for me, but for the woman in my arms. Gratitude. Farewell. And what might be love, if a book can love the hand that feeds it.

FOR SIX YEARS OF BLOOD. FOR GIVING ME THE POWER TO DESTROY MY CREATOR. FOR BEING BETTER THAN HE EVER WAS.

I dive through the portal.

Cold air hits my lungs. Stars wheel overhead. We’re falling—not far, just a few feet—and then we hit grass. Real grass, cool and damp with night dew. The portal snaps closed behind us, cutting off the roar of flames, the scream of dying knowledge, the last echoes of the grimoire’s voice.

Silence.

I lie on my back, gasping, Thyra pressed against my chest. Above us, the sky is dark and clear, unmarred by the impossible handwriting that filled the Codex’s ceiling. Below us, the ground is solid. Real. Grass and earth and the damp chill of a Veillands night.

No more parchment-flesh. No more liquid ink. No more words crawling across every surface, hungry for new minds to consume.

We made it.

For a long moment, I just breathe.

The mating mark burns on my chest—not with warning, not with need, but with simple presence. Thyra is here. Thyra is alive. Thyra is pressed against me, her heart beating slow but steady, her breath warm against my throat.

We survived.

The Author is dead. The grimoire is destroyed. Whatever was left of the Archive is probably ashes by now. Everything Thyra spent years protecting, everything I was sent to destroy—gone. Burned. Ended.

And somehow, impossibly, we’re still here.

Thyra stirs against me. Her hand finds my chest, pressing against the mating mark through my ruined shirt. Her eyes open—dark, exhausted, but aware.

“Did we…?”

“He’s dead.” I cup her face with one blood-stained hand. “You forced him into flesh. I burned him from the inside out. He’s gone.”

“The grimoire…?”