35. Eirene
THIRTY-FIVE
EIRENE
Ihave spent eight years binding myself to a boundary that never answered, bleeding for a world that would never know my name.
Not anymore.
The Shadow Court stretches before me—endless, hungry, vast beyond comprehension. The souls trapped in the walls reach for me as I pass, their faces shifting from despair to hope when they see the blood dripping from my palm. I’ve already freed one. Thousands more wait.
But I can’t save them all. Not yet. Not until I save him.
Varkhul’s presence pulses in the mark over my heart—distant, agonized, fighting.
The Sovereign is hurting him. I can feel echoes of his pain rippling into me, sharp spikes that make me stumble in the darkness.
He’s trying to shield me from the worst of it, but our link doesn’t allow secrets. Not anymore.
I feel what he feels. His guilt. His memories. The faces of everyone he’s ever killed, parading through his mind in an endless procession of accusation.
And I keep walking.
The Shadow Court doesn’t want to let me pass.
I feel its resistance—the darkness pressing against me, trying to slow my steps, trying to fill my lungs with the taste of forgotten grief.
Shadow-creatures materialize in the gloom ahead, drawn by the scent of my blood, hungry for the power running hot through my veins.
They don’t understand what they’re facing.
I raise my bleeding hand, and they recoil. My blood is poison here—eight years of Veil-offerings have made me toxic to the very darkness I’m walking through. The creatures hiss and scatter, their shadow-forms dissolving when they get too close to the crimson light dripping from my fingers.
Good. Let them fear me.
Because what I’m about to do will give them far more reason to be afraid.
The wound on my palm isn’t enough.
I’ve been bleeding from that cut for hours—or minutes, or days; time is meaningless here—and I can feel myself weakening. The Shadow Court is vast, and Varkhul is somewhere in its depths. At this rate, I’ll be dead before I reach him.
Unless I use the rituals I was taught to never use.
Every boundary witch learns the forbidden techniques. We learn them so we know what to avoid, what to fear, what to burn if we ever find the texts that contain them. The rituals that make a witch into a traitor. The magic that turns a keeper into a breach.
I was a good student. I memorized every forbidden word, every outlawed gesture, every blood-pattern that the order condemned. I told myself it was for safety. For knowledge. For the boundary’s protection.
I was lying.
I learned them because I knew, deep down, that someday I might need them. That the careful, controlled bleeding of a dutiful boundary witch wouldn’t be enough. That there would come a moment when holding back meant losing everything.
That moment is now.
I stop in the darkness and draw my knife.
The first cut is across my forearm.
Not the careful nick I’ve used for eight years of nightly offerings. This is deep—down to the muscle, opening veins that pulse with every beat of my heart. Blood floods out, so much blood, more than I’ve ever spilled at once. It pools at my feet and soaks into the floor of stolen memories.
The second cut is across my thigh.
I slash through my dress, through my skin, through the layers of careful control I’ve wrapped around myself for nearly a decade. Pain screams through my nerves, but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. The ritual demands blood, and I have so much to give.
The third cut is across my chest.
Over my heart. Over the claiming mark that burns with Varkhul’s presence. The blade parts flesh and magic in equal measure, and I feel the Veil respond—not the weakened barrier I’ve been feeding, but the primal force that exists beneath it. The raw power of the boundary between worlds.
I’ve been sipping from this power all my years at the boundary, cautious, rationed, like a child afraid to spill her mother’s milk. Now I’m going to drown in it.
The blood pours from me in rivers. It soaks into the Shadow Court’s foundations, seeps into the walls of stolen memory, feeds the very darkness I came here to defeat. But it also feeds me. Every drop that leaves my body carries a piece of my humanity—and brings back a piece of the Veil.
I’m not just bleeding anymore. I’m becoming.
The ritual words come to me in a language older than the boundary itself.
I speak them in blood—not with my voice, but with my body. Each wound is a syllable. Each pulse of crimson is a verse. The magic responds to the offering, rising up through my veins like fire through dry kindling.
I feel myself changing.
My skin goes cold, then hot, then cold again. My vision wavers—the darkness around me splitting into layers, revealing depths I couldn’t see before. The Shadow Court isn’t just one place, I realize. It’s many places, stacked on top of each other, bleeding into one another like ink in water.
And I can see them all.
The faces in the walls become clearer—not just shapes pressed against a barrier, but people.
Real people, with names and histories and loves they’ve lost. I see the farmer’s daughter whose infant face was stolen.
I see the soldier who forgot his mother’s voice.
I see the boy who lost his birthday cake, the bride who can’t remember her vows, the grandmother who no longer knows her wedding day.
I see everyone the Sovereign has consumed. Everyone I helped feed it.
And I feel their hands reaching for me—not to drag me down, but to lift me up. They know what I’m becoming. They know what I’ve come to do.
Free us. The voices whisper through my mind, a chorus of stolen grief becoming a prayer of hope. Free us, and we’ll help you destroy it.
“I will.” The words tear out of me, thick with blood and magic. “I swear it. Every memory I took, every soul I fed to this place—I’m taking them back.”
The trapped souls surge toward me. Not attacking—offering. Their memories flow into my blood, mixing with my power, becoming part of the ritual I’m performing. Each one makes me stronger. Each one makes the Sovereign weaker.
And each one brings me closer to Varkhul.