Page 46 of Orc's Veil

“Why would I want to see that?”

“Because you’re going to spend the rest of your life with these memories in your head.” He rises from his crouch, and even across the room, his presence fills the space. “And I’d rather you understand them than drown in them.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

EIRENE

Idon’t want to understand. I want to hate him.

It would be easier if I could hate him. Easier to process the horror in my head if I could assign it to a monster, a villain, a creature of pure malice who deserves nothing but contempt.

But the claiming won’t let me lie to myself.

I feel his guilt. Not performed, not manufactured for my benefit—real guilt, deep and abiding, that he’s carried for years without ever letting it show. I feel the way each execution carved a piece out of him, left scars on his soul that will never fully heal. I feel the doubt he couldn’t afford to acknowledge, the questions he couldn’t afford to ask, the humanity he buried deeper with every life he took.

He believed. That’s the horrible truth of it. He genuinely believed that what he was doing was necessary. That the order served justice. That the law existed to protect the innocent, even when it demanded the blood of the innocent to do so.

He was wrong. But he wasn’t evil.

Does that matter? Does intention absolve action? Does believing you’re doing right make the killing any less horrific?

I don’t know. I don’t know how to reconcile the man who held me against the stones with the executioner who watched a boy die for crimes he didn’t commit.

“And now?” The question comes out smaller than I intend. “What do you believe now?”

He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he opens himself to the claiming—drops whatever walls he’s been holding up, lets me feel everything without filter or protection.

Horror. Deep, abiding horror at what he’s done. The realization—finally acknowledged, finally allowed to exist—that some of his executions were unjust. That he killed innocent people in service to an order that cares more about control than justice. That he’s been a weapon pointed at the wrong targets for twenty years, and there’s no way to take any of it back.

But beneath the horror, I feel resolve. Determination. A fierce, desperate need to be better than what they made him. To choose differently. To become the protector he wanted to be instead of the executioner they forced him to become.

It’s not enough. It might never be enough.

But it’s real. And the claiming doesn’t let either of us pretend.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me.” He holds my gaze, and his voice carries only what it carries—no performance, no armor. “I’m asking you to give me the chance to be different. To prove that what I did doesn’t have to define what I become.”

I study him across the small space. The scars on his arms. The iron rings on his tusks—one for every ten kills, I know now, a tradition among executioners. The careful blankness that’s been his armor for two decades, cracking apart to reveal the man underneath.

“And if you can’t be different? If the executioner is all you know how to be?”

“Then at least let me point the blade at things that deserve to die.” A ghost of dark humor crosses his features. “The Sovereign.Draveth, if he comes for you. The order itself, if that’s what it takes.”

“You’d turn against your own people?”

“I turned against them the moment I claimed you.” He steps closer—not touching, but close enough that I can feel his warmth, smell the smoke and metal scent of him. “You’re my people now. You and this dying boundary and whatever future we manage to claw out of the darkness. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”

The mark on my chest pulses. I feel his sincerity like sunlight through clouds—warming, brightening, pushing back the shadows his memories have cast.

It’s not forgiveness. I’m not ready for that—might never be ready for that. But it’s acceptance. Of who he is. Of what we’ve become. Of the impossible, terrible, beautiful thing the claiming has made us.

“I can’t forget what I’ve seen.” I reach out, finally, and press my palm to his chest. The mark beneath his skin answers, flaring warm against my touch. “I can’t pretend your hands are clean.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“But I can give you the chance to prove that the blood doesn’t define you.” I meet his eyes—no walls there now, none of the careful executioner’s blankness, just the weight of everything he’s carrying and the choice he’s made to carry it openly. “That’s all I can give right now. A chance.”

His hand covers mine, pressing it harder against his chest. I feel his gratitude—raw and overwhelming, more emotion than he’s probably shown in decades. And beneath it, I feel resolve hardening into certainty.