Page 86 of Orc’s Grimoire

“You called me the woman you love.”

“Did I?” I pretend to consider. “Slip of the tongue.”

“Liar.” She pulls me down into a kiss. “Terrible liar.”

I kiss her back. Wrap my arms around her. Hold her against me as the sun rises over the ashes of everything we’ve destroyed.

The books are waking.

And Thyra Vire knows exactly how to burn them.

TWENTY-SIX

THYRA

The Black Archive is a monument to destruction.

I stand at the edge of the ruins, watching the wind scatter ash across what used to be the iron-wrought manor. Where the entrance once stood, there’s nothing but scorched earth and broken stone. Where the Restricted Stacks held centuries of forbidden knowledge, there’s a crater still warm with residual magic. Where I spent six years bleeding myself dry to feed a hungry book, there’s only silence.

The Veillands sky above us is the bruised purple of early evening, tinged with the green that means a shadow-storm is building somewhere to the east. The air tastes of dust and old magic and the copper tang of memories I’ll never fully escape.

Korrath stands beside me, his massive form a wall of warmth against the autumn chill. His hand finds mine without looking—a gesture that’s become automatic over these past months. His fingers interlace with mine, scarred knuckles brushing against ink-stained skin.

We’ve come back. I’m not entirely sure why.

“Having second thoughts?” His voice is a low rumble, pitched for my ears alone.

“No.” I squeeze his hand. “Just… remembering.”

“Anything worth keeping?”

I consider the question. Six years of my life, spent in those vaulted halls. Six years of blood and sacrifice and careful control. Six years of being the keeper, the anchor, the woman who fed a hungry book to keep it from devouring the world.

“The knowledge.” The words come slowly. “Some of it, anyway. The texts that weren’t sentient. The histories, the theories, the research that took generations to compile.” I gesture at the crater. “All of it, gone. Burned with everything else.”

“Dangerous knowledge.”

“Some of it. Not all.” I turn away from the ruins, face him instead. “That’s the thing about burning everything—you don’t get to choose what survives. The good goes with the bad. The useful goes with the deadly. It’s all just ash in the end.”

His ember eyes study my face. Looking for regret, maybe. Or second-guessing. He won’t find it.

“You’d do it again.” Not a question.

“Every time.” I rise on my toes, press a kiss against his jaw. “The Author had to die. The grimoire had to burn. Whatever we lost was worth it.”

His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against him. The mating mark on my collarbone answers the one on his chest—a twin warmth, steady and certain. Three months, and the marks haven’t faded. If anything, they’ve grown stronger.

“So why are we here?”

“Because someone else wants to rebuild.”

They come from the tree line—three figures in the gray robes of Archivist Elders. I recognize two of them: Maeven and Sorrel, survivors of the destruction who were traveling when the Archive burned. The third is younger, someone I don’t know.

I look first at their eyes. After everything—after the eldest Elder’s script-filled gaze, after the Inscribed with their serene borrowed devotion—I look at Maeven’s eyes and Sorrel’s eyes before I listen to their voices. Nothing scrolls there. No borrowed words, no rewritten loyalty. Whatever the Author offered them, they didn’t take it.

Korrath’s hand moves to his blade. I touch his wrist—not to stop him, just to let him know I’m aware.

“You owe us, Thyra.” Maeven’s voice is tight. “You were supposed to protect the Archive. Instead you helped burn it.”