Page 9 of Orc’s Gallows

And that woman. That damned woman with her luminous eyes and her hollow smile and her willingness to sacrifice herself for people who wanted to tear her apart.

She saved my life.

Why?

She exposed herself—destroyed everything she’d built, everything she’d hidden behind—to stop the revenant from killing me. She had no reason to do that. Could have let the thing strangle me and used the chaos to escape. Instead, she burned her cover and handed herself over for execution.

Why?

I don’t understand people who sacrifice themselves. Never have. Sacrifice is inefficient—it removes useful assets from play without guaranteed return. A living ally is worth more than a dead hero. That’s mathematics.

But she didn’t calculate. Didn’t weigh costs and benefits. She acted, and now she’s going to die for it.

I climb the stairs to my quarters, each step heavier than the last. The chambers are spartan—a bed, a weapons rack, a desk covered in execution orders. The walls bear no decoration except the crimson sash of my office, hung on a hook by the window.

I strip off my armor. Examine the damage in the small mirror above my washbasin.

The bruises around my neck are already darkening—purple fingerprints that will turn black before they fade. The cut on my tongue has stopped bleeding, but it throbs with every heartbeat. Various scrapes and contusions cover my arms and torso, souvenirs of the revenant’s attack.

Minor injuries. I’ve taken worse.

Then I see my neck.

Not the bruises. Below them. Patterns of light glowing faintly beneath my skin, sigils I haven’t seen in twenty-three years.

The mating mark.

I stare at my reflection, watching the sigils throb with heat I’d forgotten existed. The mark appeared when I was nineteen—late for an orc, but not unheard of. It seared into my skin over the course of a single night, left me with awareness of someone out there, someone meant for me.

I waited five years. Searched three cities. Never found her.

Eventually, I stopped looking. Stopped believing. The mark went dormant, faded to barely visible scars, became another reminder that some things weren’t meant for men like me. Men who’d made themselves into weapons don’t get claimed by ancient magic.

Now it’s awake.

After twenty-three years of silence. Glowing beneath my skin with intensity I’d forgotten. Responding to⁠—

No.

The realization hits with the force of the revenant’s grip on my neck.

The death witch. The woman in the cells below. The criminal I’m going to hang tomorrow morning.

The mating mark flares brighter, confirming what I already know.

I close my eyes. Press my palm against the glowing sigils. Try to force them back into dormancy through sheer will.

They don’t dim. If anything, the glow intensifies—responding to her presence below, her proximity, the knowledge that she’s here and alive and waiting for death.

After forty-two years without a mate. After giving up on the very concept. After building myself into a creature that doesn’t need softness or belonging or any of the things the mark promises.

For a death witch. For a woman who feeds on my executions. For someone I’ll have to kill in less than twelve hours.

The universe has a sick sense of humor.

I sink onto my bed, staring at the ceiling, the mark warming against my palm with each beat of my heart. Tomorrow I’ll hang her. That’s the law. That’s my duty. That’s what the Gallows Warden does.

But tonight, alone in my chambers, I let myself acknowledge the glow spreading through me. The awareness of her presence below. The terrible certainty that whatever happens tomorrow, nothing will ever be the same.