Page 9 of Orc's Veil

“I’m aware.”

“But you’re still standing here.” Her frown deepens. “Still pushing forward, even though every step damages what you were sent to protect.”

I have no response to that. She’s right—I’ve felt the Veil thinning since I arrived, felt the barrier weakening under the burden of my ancestry. Every moment I spend here makes things worse.

But I can’t leave. Can’t retreat. Can’t do anything but stand here and burn while she holds my gaze with those measuring eyes.

“Sir.” Korvax’s voice cuts through the tension. My guard stands at the edge of the stone circle, posture stiff with unease. “Message from the encampment. Bound spirit delivery.”

I turn away from Eirene with more effort than it should take. The mark screams at the separation—irrational, impossible, but undeniable.

The bound spirit hovers beside Korvax—a wisp of captured soul, sealed in a glass vial, pulsing with the pale light of enforced servitude. I take the vial. Break the seal. Let the message pour into my mind.

High Warden Kravos’s voice fills my skull, cold and certain.

Eirene Marrow is to be executed at dawn. No delays. No exceptions. The breach is too dangerous to permit the traitor witch to live. Her continued existence weakens the boundary more than her death ever could. Complete your mission, Executioner. The order is watching.

The spirit dissipates. The message ends.

Dawn. Hours away. Enough time to prepare, to verify, to follow proper procedure.

I turn back to Eirene.

She hasn’t moved. Still standing in the shadow of the central stone, blood drying on her skin, exhaustion written in every line of her body. But her gaze is alert. Calculating.

“The message.” Not a question. “Your orders.”

“Dawn.” The word tastes wrong in my mouth. Bitter. “You’re to be executed at dawn.”

She nods. Slow. Unsurprised. “Then you have a choice to make, executioner.”

“The sentence stands.”

“The sentence is death.” She takes another step toward me. Close enough now that I can see the pulse beating in her throat, can smell her blood warm against the cold air—herbs and something deeper underneath, entirely too distracting. “But the boundary doesn’t care about sentences. It cares about blood. And right now, my blood is the only thing holding it shut.”

Behind her, the tear in the Veil pulses. Widens slightly. The pallid glow intensifies, and through the gap, I catch a glimpse of vastness and darkness, an awareness watching with hungry attention.

She’s not lying. The boundary is dying, and she’s the only thing keeping it alive.

The order wants her dead anyway.

I force the thought down. Shove it into the same dark place where I keep everything else that might interfere with duty.

The woman I’ve been sent to execute is watching me, waiting, certain of truths I can’t yet see.

“You have until dawn.” The words come out rough, wrong, nothing at all what I meant to say. “We’ll discuss the order of operations.”

Her eyes widen. Just slightly. Just enough to show that I’ve surprised her.

Then she smiles.

It’s not a happy expression—there’s too much weariness in it, too much knowledge of what’s coming. But it transforms her face. Softens the sharp lines of exhaustion. Makes her look, for just a moment, dangerously beautiful.

Beautiful.The word echoes in my skull.A traitor witch covered in dried blood, and you’re thinking she’s beautiful.

The mark blazes bright enough to hurt.

“Follow me.” She turns toward a small structure at the edge of the stones—a cottage, barely more than a hovel, crouched in the shadow of the monoliths. “There’s a child inside. A traveler. He stumbled through the Gate tonight, and I need to see that he’s still breathing.”