Page 85 of Orc’s Grimoire

And to me.

She survived. That’s still the fact I return to, hours later. She should have died three separate times, and she didn’t.

Dawn breaks over the destroyed Archive. I watch through the cottage window as the sun rises, painting the smoke-filled sky in shades of orange and red.

Thyra stirs beside me. Her eyes flutter open, awareness returning slowly.

“Morning.” Her voice is sleep-rough. Warm.

“Morning.” I press a kiss against her forehead. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been turned inside out and reassembled by someone who lost the instructions.” She stretches, winces at muscles that protest the movement. “But alive. That’s more than I expected.”

“The grimoire gave you something before it died. Power, I think. Enough to keep you alive when you should have bled out.”

“It kept its promise.” She’s quiet for a moment. “It hated the Author. Hated being his prison. When I gave it the chance to destroy him, it gave me back what I needed to survive the destruction.”

“A book with honor.”

“A book with spite.” Her mouth curves. “Spite is a powerful motivator.”

Something shifts in her voice when she says it—like she’s beginning to understand what I’ve known for twenty years.

I laugh. The sound surprises me—rough and genuine, the first real laughter I’ve managed in days. Maybe weeks. This woman, even half-dead and covered in scars, can still make me laugh.

This is what I chose. She’s the one thing in the world I don’t want to burn.

Thyra goes rigid against me.

“What is it?”

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes have gone distant, unfocused, staring at nothing I can see. The scars on her arms—the ones left by the grimoire’s feeding—are glowing faintly. Pulsing with light that has no source.

“Thyra.”

“The grimoire.” Her voice is strange. Layered with harmonics that don’t belong to her. “It’s dead. Gone. But it wasn’t alone.”

Cold settles into my chest. “What do you mean?”

“The Author created other books. Other grimoires. Siblings, scattered across the Veillands.” She blinks, and for a moment I see script flickering in her pupils—remnants of the power the grimoire gave her, waking in response to something distant. “They felt their brother die. Felt the Author die. And now they’re… responding.”

“Responding how?”

“Waking.” The word carries more than meaning. It carries certainty—the knowledge that we haven’t ended anything, only begun it. “The Author may be gone, but his books are still out there. And now they know someone can kill them.”

“How many?” My voice is rough. “How many other grimoires?”

“I don’t know. The glimpse was too brief. But…” She meets my eyes. There’s fear there—not for herself, but for what this means. What we’ll have to face. “Enough. There are enough.”

I pull her closer. Press my lips against her hair. Feel the mating mark burn on my chest, answering the matching mark on hers.

“Then we’ll burn them.” My voice is steady. Certain. “Every single one. We’ll find them, and we’ll destroy them, and we’ll make sure the Author’s legacy dies with him.”

“The Order will hunt us. The Inscribed survivors will want revenge. We’ll have enemies on every side.”

“We’ll have each other.” I tilt her chin up, make her meet my eyes. “I’ve destroyed relics that could have changed the world. Killed sentient texts that begged for mercy. Killed my own mentor because she tried to burn the woman I love.” The words come easily now—easier than they’ve ever come. “A few more grimoires won’t stop me. A few more enemies won’t change what we are to each other.”

She searches my face. Whatever she finds there makes her relax, her fear easing into hope.