15. Varkhul
FIFTEEN
VARKHUL
The mark on my chest burns in steady, reproachful pulses.
My guards wait behind me—six iron-masked orcs, loyal to the order, trained to obey without question.
I can feel their attention on my back, their growing unease.
They’ve watched me delay. Watched me let the witch live through the night.
Watched me do everything except the one thing I was sent here to do.
They’re wondering if I’ve gone soft. If the boundary has gotten to me, corrupted my judgment, turned me into the kind of liability the order executes rather than employs.
They’re not wrong to wonder.
Korvax steps forward, his iron mask catching the moonlight. The youngest of my guards—eager, ambitious, still naive enough to believe in the purity of the order’s mission. “Sir. The hour approaches.”
I don’t turn around. “I’m aware.”
“High Warden Kravos expects confirmation of completion.” A pause. Careful. Measured. “Should I prepare the execution platform?”
The execution platform. Iron and bone, portable, carried in pieces by the guards for exactly this purpose. I’ve assembled it dozens of times. Knelt condemned prisoners before it. Let their blood run down its channels while the Veil drank its fill.
The thought of Eirene’s blood running down those channels makes my stomach clench.
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intend. I force myself to turn, to face my guards with the same cold authority I’ve wielded for twenty years. “Not yet.”
Korvax’s posture shifts. Behind his iron mask, I know his expression is one of confusion. Suspicion. “Sir?”
“The boundary is unstable.” I gesture at the stones, at the tear in the Veil that’s still visible—smaller than before, thanks to Eirene’s blood, but present.
Damning evidence of my failure to act. “We need proof of her treason before execution. Documentation of her crimes. Witness testimony. Evidence that will satisfy the order’s archives. ”
It’s a lie. A pathetic, transparent lie that wouldn’t fool a child, let alone six trained Veil-wardens who have served under me for years.
The guards exchange glances behind their masks.
I can see the calculation in their posture—the silent communication of men who are realizing their commander has been compromised.
How long before they report me? How long before a bound spirit carries word back to Kravos that Varkhul Dreadward, the order’s most reliable executioner, has failed to complete his mission?
Hours, probably. Maybe less.
I don’t care.
I’ve been enslaved by my own blood. Claimed by magic I never asked for.
And I can’t bring myself to resent it.
“Return to the perimeter.” I pitch my voice into command, the tone I’ve used to order countless executions, countless patrols, countless acts of violence in service to the Veil. “I’ll handle the documentation.”
Korvax hesitates. The other guards shift behind him, a subtle movement that speaks volumes about their uncertainty. “Sir, with respect—the order’s protocols require—”
“I know the protocols.” I take a step toward him. Let him feel the full force of my presence—the height, the breadth, the barely leashed violence that’s kept lesser orcs falling in line for two decades. “I helped write them. Return to the perimeter, Korvax. That’s an order.”
He holds his ground for a moment. I’ll give him credit for that—most orcs would have flinched by now, would have retreated under the force of my glare. But Korvax is young and ambitious and starting to suspect that his commander has betrayed everything he’s supposed to represent.
He’s not wrong.
Finally, he steps back. Bows his head in the gesture of reluctant obedience. “As you command, sir.”
The guards retreat. I watch them go—six iron masks disappearing into the endless dusk, taking their suspicions and their silent judgments with them.
They’ll report me. I know they will. The moment they’re out of my sight, one of them will summon a bound spirit and send word back to the Iron Citadel.
I’ve bought hours. Maybe a day, if I’m lucky.
It’s all I can give her.
I find her at the cottage, crouched beside the sleeping boy.
The Stray Boy—the child who stumbled through the Twilight Gate and cost Eirene a piece of someone else’s soul—is small beneath the threadbare blanket.
His chest rises and falls with the steady rhythm of dreamless sleep.
Whatever damage the Shadow Court did to him, her tithe has healed it.
He’ll wake with gaps in his memory and no understanding of why certain songs make him sad.
Stolen moments and the endless, bloody work of holding the world intact.
Eirene looks up when I enter. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. Her gaze is shadowed with exhaustion, and the mark on her wrist glows faintly in the dim light.
“Your guards are watching the cottage.” Her voice is low, pitched not to wake the child. “Three of them. The other three are at the stones.”
“Yes.”
“They think you’ve been compromised.” She rises, movements stiff with fatigue.
The silver in her hair catches what little light filters through the window. “They’re right, aren’t they?”
I don’t answer. Don’t need to.
“I’ve delayed the execution.” I keep my voice low, matching hers. The cottage feels smaller with both of us awake in it, the space between us charged with awareness I can’t ignore. “Told them I need documentation before the sentence. Evidence for the archives.”
“They believed that?”
“No.” I move further into the cottage—away from the door, away from prying eyes, closer to her than I should allow myself to be. “But they obeyed. For now.”
She studies me. That pale gaze sees too much—strips away the armor and the rank, finds the man underneath. The man who has spent twenty years believing in laws that might be lies. The man who has executed innocents without ever asking if they deserved to die.
“You’re risking everything.” It’s not a question.
“I know.”
The question hangs between us. I could give her the practical answer—that the claiming makes killing her impossible, that my own survival depends on hers, that the Veil needs her blood more than it needs my obedience. All of it true. All of it insufficient.
“More lives ended than I’ve ever let myself count.” The words come out rough, dragged from places I’ve kept locked away.
She waits. Patient. Silent.
“I never asked if they were guilty.” The confession feels like bleeding. Like cutting myself open and letting the darkness pour out. “Never questioned the evidence. Never wondered if the order might be wrong. I just… obeyed. Because obedience was easier than doubt.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m standing in a hovel at the edge of the world, watching the woman I was sent to kill tend a stolen child.
” I meet her eyes. Let her see the truth I’ve been hiding from myself.
“Now I’ve seen what mercy looks like. And I can’t pretend the order’s justice is anything but convenience dressed in law. ”
She moves toward me. A single step. The mark pulses between us, warm and insistent.
“I expected a blade.” Her voice has dropped, gone soft and intimate. She gestures at the space between them, at the mark pulsing on her wrist, at everything this night has become. “Not… this.”
“I feel.” The admission costs me. Exposes a weakness I’ve spent two decades burying. “I’ve just learned to ignore it.”
“Can you ignore this?” She lifts her wrist. The runes pulse in time with my heartbeat—our heartbeats, synchronized now, bound by magic neither of us chose. “Can you pretend the mark doesn’t exist?”
“No.” I reach out—the motion instinctive, unavoidable.
My fingers close around her wrist, covering the mark, feeling its heat against my palm.
Her pulse jumps beneath my grip—fast, unsteady, matching the chaos in my own chest. “I can’t ignore it.
Can’t fight it. Can’t pretend I don’t feel you in my blood every moment since it sealed. ”
Her breath catches. I see her pupils dilate, see the flush that creeps up her pale throat. The claiming pulses between us—not just heat now, but hunger. Recognition. The mate-claim demanding acknowledgment, demanding completion, demanding things I have no right to take.
“This is dangerous.” She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t break the contact. If anything, she steps closer, close enough that I can smell the herbs and blood and twilight magic that cling to her skin. “We barely know each other. We should hate each other.”
“Should.” I let the word hang. “But you don’t.”
“No.” A whisper. An admission. “I don’t.”
The Veil screams.