Page 88 of Orc’s Grimoire

“How long until it breaks free?”

“Days. Maybe less.” I reach for my traveling clothes, start the familiar routine of breaking camp. “We need to move.”

Korrath nods, already on his feet, already reaching for his weapons. This is what we’ve become—a two-person army against the Author’s legacy. The spell-burner and his witch, hunting dangerous knowledge across the Veillands.

“Thyra.” He catches my arm before I can move past him, pulls me close. His forehead presses against mine, a moment of stillness before the storm. “Whatever we find at that monastery—whatever’s waiting for us—we face it the same way we faced everything else.”

“Violently?”

His mouth twitches. “I was going to say ‘side by side.’ But violently works too.”

I kiss him. Quick, fierce, a promise and a goodbye rolled into one. Then I pull away, settle my pack on my shoulders, and turn toward the east.

The monastery is waiting. The books are waking. And somewhere in the distance, I can feel them stirring—dozens of hungry texts, the Author’s scattered experiments, his failed attempts and discarded prototypes. All of them sensing that their creator is dead. All of them wondering what happens next.

We’ll show them.

The road east is long and the shadow-storms make travel difficult, but we push on. Two weeks of hard riding brings us within sight of the monastery—a sprawling stone complex perched on a cliff overlooking the Veiled Sea. The architecture is old, pre-Sundering, the kind of construction that was built to last millennia.

The wards around it are active. Even from a distance, I can see them—shimmering barriers of ancient magic, designed to keep something in rather than keep intruders out.

“That’s a lot of containment.” Korrath reins in beside me, studying the monastery with a soldier’s eye. “Whoever sealed this place wasn’t playing around.”

“The Author’s contemporaries, probably. Scholars who knew what he was doing and tried to stop him.” I stretch my senses toward the building, feel the hungry presence coiled inside. “It’s awake. Has been for a while, I think. The wards are… strained.”

“Can you tell what kind of text?”

“Not from here.” I nudge my horse forward. “We’ll have to get closer.”

The approach takes hours. The cliff path is treacherous, worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. Korrath dismounts halfway up, leading both horses while I walk ahead, testing each step for magical traps.

By the time we reach the monastery gates, the sun is setting. The wards pulse against my senses—old magic, powerful magic, but brittle now. Cracking under the pressure of whatever’s straining against them from inside.

“How do we get in?”

“The wards are keyed to blood.” I study the glyphs carved into the stone. “Specifically, to the blood of someone touched by the Author’s magic.” I raise my scarred forearm. “Lucky for us, I qualify.”

“Lucky.” His voice is flat.

“Everything the grimoire did to me—all that suffering, all that sacrifice—it’s useful now. I can get us through wards that would stop anyone else.” I press my hand against the stone, let my blood remember what it learned in six years of feeding. “The Author’s legacy let him build prisons. And now that same legacy lets me break them.”

The wards recognize me. Hesitate. Then, slowly, they part—a gap just wide enough for two people to slip through.

“Ready?”

Korrath draws his blade. Ignites his execution brand. The familiar heat washes over me, comforting instead of threatening.

“Ready.”

We step through the wards and into the monastery.

The darkness inside is absolute. Not natural darkness—magical darkness, the kind that eats light rather than simply blocking it. I reach for the grimoire’s gift, let my senses expand into the black.

Something moves in the depths. Something that knows we’re here.

Keeper. The voice echoes through my blood, familiar and wrong at the same time. You came.

“I’m here.” My voice is steady. “Show yourself.”