Page 40 of Orc’s Gallows

“Brannok.” Her hand covers mine. “I’m all right.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ve been hurt before.” She lifts my chin, makes me meet her gaze. “And I’ll be hurt again before this is over. That’s what happens when you fight monsters.”

“I should have protected you better.”

“You came for me.” Her thumb traces my cheekbone. “When the Judge had me, when the ropes were tightening—you came. That’s what matters.”

The bond pulses between us—not with pain this time, but with warmth. With connection. With the certainty that whatever we face, we face it together.

“The anchor.” I force myself back to strategy, though every instinct wants to pull her close and never let go. “How do we destroy it?”

“Ending magic.” She rises, paces toward the window. The moonlight catches the sigil on her collarbone, makes it shimmer like captured starlight. “The same force that sustains the Judge can unmake its foundation. But I’d need to get close. Closer than tonight.”

“The Judge will be waiting.”

“I know.” She turns to face me. “Which is why we need a distraction. Something to draw its attention while I reach the anchor stone.”

“You mean me.”

The words hang between us. She doesn’t deny it.

“The Judge wants you.” Her tone is gentle, careful. “Blames you for its existence. If you walked into that square alone, offered yourself for judgment⁠—”

“It would be too focused on killing me to notice you corrupting its anchor.” I rise, cross to where she stands. “That’s the plan? I’m bait while you destroy the monster?”

“I hate it.” Her hands fist against my chest. “I hate every part of it. But I don’t know another way.”

I cup her face in my scarred hands. Feel the bond thrumming between us, the connection that transcends magic or instinct or anything either of us can name.

“Then we do it.” I bring my mouth to her hair, breathing her in. “Tomorrow. At dawn. We end this.”

“And if something goes wrong?”

“Then we die fighting.” I kiss her—soft, then fierce, then desperate. “Together. The way it should be.”

She responds with matching intensity, her body pressing against mine, her hands fisting in my shirt. The day’s terror transmutes into something else—need, hunger, the primal drive to affirm life in the face of death.

I lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist. We stumble toward the bed, shedding armor and torn clothes, the bond blazing between us like a beacon.

Tomorrow we face the Judge.

Tonight we have each other.

Morning finds us still tangled together—and a message chalked across the wall in letters that radiate cold light:

COME TO YOUR THRONE, GALLOWS WARDEN. JUDGMENT WAITS.

The Judge has issued its challenge.

And I intend to answer.

TEN

ISMERIE

Iwake to the weight of his arm across my waist and the constant rhythm of his breathing against my hair.