6. Korrath #2
She’s been feeding this thing for six years. Bleeding for it. Killing for it. And now she’s willing to die for it.
Why?
The question burns in my chest, sharp and unexpected. I’m not supposed to care about her motivations. I’m not supposed to care about anything except the mission—destroy the grimoire, contain the threat, burn what needs burning.
But I’m holding her wrists, and her blood is on my hands, and I can’t make myself let go.
Pain lances through my chest.
Sharp. Sudden. Centered directly over my heart. I’ve taken wounds in battle, felt blades pierce flesh and magic burn through bone, but this is different. This isn’t damage. This is—
No.
I stagger back, releasing Thyra’s wrists. My hand flies to my chest, pressing against the spot where the pain originated. Beneath my palm, I feel heat. Warmth that has nothing to do with the fires still burning around us.
Impossible.
Every orc knows what this feeling means.
We’re taught from childhood—the mating mark, the sign of a fated mate.
A magical brand that sears itself into the flesh when an orc meets the one they’re meant to claim.
It’s supposed to happen in youth, during the years of burning blood and uncontrolled passion.
I am forty-three years old, and it has never happened until now.
“What—“ Thyra’s voice is distant, confused. She’s watching me with those assessing eyes, trying to read what she can’t understand. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t answer. My hand is still pressed to my chest, and beneath my fingers, I can feel the mark forming. Lines of heat tracing patterns into my skin. Sigils that have existed since before the Veil was shattered, magic older than the Archive and everything in it.
The mating mark. For her. For the keeper of a monster.
The pain fades to a persistent warmth. I pull my hand away, and through my torn shirt, I can see it—a pattern of interlocking sigils burned into the skin over my heart. The mark of a fated mate.
This can’t be real. This can’t be—
Thyra’s eyes fix on the mark. Her face goes pale—paler than the blood loss already made it.
“That’s…” She reaches toward my chest, then stops, fingers hovering an inch from the fresh brand. “That’s a mating mark.”
“I know what it is.”
“But that means—“ She swallows hard. “That means I’m—“
“Don’t.” The word comes out harsher than intended. “Don’t say it.”
The Archive smolders around us.
The ink tide has fully receded now, flowing back through the shattered door toward the Restricted Stacks. The constructs are gone. The fires are dying. And I’m standing in the ruins of a battle I won, staring at a woman who’s apparently been marked as my fated mate.
This doesn’t make sense.
Mating marks don’t appear at forty-three.
They don’t appear for people you’ve known less than a day.
They don’t appear for keepers bound to sentient grimoires.
The magic has rules. Requirements. A mating mark requires compatibility—blood and soul and spirit aligned in ways that go beyond surface attraction.
I look at Thyra. She’s still standing, barely—her color is grey, her breathing shallow, her hands wrapped in blood-soaked cloth. She should be focused on survival, on recovery, on the hundred practical concerns that demand attention.
Instead, she’s staring at the mark on my chest with an expression I can’t read.
“This is the grimoire’s doing.” I force my voice to steadiness. “A trick. A manipulation.”
“Mating marks can’t be faked.” Her voice is steady too, but I hear the strain underneath. “The magic is too old. Too powerful.”
“Then it’s a mistake.”
“Mating marks aren’t mistakes either.”
We stare at each other across the smoking ruins. Two people who should be enemies. Two people who are apparently, impossibly, bound.
She’s not wrong. You know she’s not wrong.
The mating mark pulses against my chest, warm and insistent. I can feel it now—an awareness that wasn’t there before. A gravity drawing me toward the woman in front of me, beyond physical attraction, beyond tactical assessment, beyond any of the rational categories I use to understand the world.
She’s yours. The mark says she’s yours.
I shove the thought down with every ounce of discipline I possess.
“We need to deal with the grimoire.” My voice is rough. “Whatever this is, it can wait.”
“Can it?” Thyra’s eyes haven’t left the mark. “If that’s a true mating mark, ignoring it will cause problems. Physical problems. The magic demands completion.”
“Then the magic will have to be patient.”
I turn away from her, facing the destruction we’ve wrought. Books still smolder on broken shelves. Ink stains spread across the floor like shadows. The Restricted Stacks lie beyond the shattered door, and somewhere in there, the grimoire waits.
One crisis at a time.
The grimoire speaks.
Not an attack—just a voice, drifting through the ruins from the direction of the Restricted Stacks. The same layered harmonics as before, the same wrongness that makes my teeth ache.
“How fascinating.”
Thyra stiffens beside me. I reach for my brand, then stop—the metal has finally cooled, the magic spent. It’ll need time to recharge before I can use it again.
Perfect timing.
“A mating mark.” The grimoire’s voice carries a tone of genuine interest. “I haven’t seen one of those in centuries. The magic is beautiful, isn’t it? The way it reaches across boundaries, ignores sensible objections, demands union despite all logic to the contrary.”
“Show yourself.” I step forward, blade raised. “Stop hiding in your pages.”
“I’m not hiding, spell-burner. I’m resting. Your fire was… invigorating.” A pause. “But not as invigorating as watching you discover your mate. Tell me—does it hurt? The first forming? I’ve read accounts, but personal testimony is so much more valuable.”
“I don’t answer to books.”
“No. You burn them.” The voice drops lower, more intimate. “But you can’t burn this one, can you? Not now. Not when burning me means killing her.”
I feel Thyra tense beside me. She steps forward, positions herself at my shoulder rather than behind me, her jaw tight.
“A reasonable precaution, the first keeper thought. Who would dare destroy knowledge if it meant killing an innocent keeper?” A sound that might be laughter. “Though ‘innocent’ hardly applies to you anymore, does it, Thyra Vire?”
Her jaw tightens further. She doesn’t respond.
The grimoire’s pages rustle from somewhere in the darkness.
“Come, spell-burner. Come see what you cannot destroy.”
I should resist. Should stay back, regroup, plan a proper assault. But the mating mark burns over my heart, and the grimoire has answers I need, and Thyra is walking toward the Restricted Stacks with the steady determination of someone who’s made this journey a thousand times.
I follow.
The Stacks are worse than before. The battle tore through the outer chambers, but here at the heart, the damage is different. Books have been rearranged. Chains hang loose from empty lecterns. The containment circles on the floor have been smeared with ink that’s still wet.
And at the center, the grimoire waits.
It has changed.
The cover is unmistakably skin now, no ambiguity left. The chains holding it to the lectern are no longer vibrating. They are still. Slack. As if they are no longer needed.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. “Destruction is so nourishing. Your fire fed me well, spell-burner. I’m stronger now than I’ve been in decades.”
Thyra makes a sound—half sob, half curse. Her hands are still wrapped in bloody cloth, and she’s swaying on her feet, but she forces herself forward, reaching for the grimoire’s cover.
“Don’t—“ I start.
The pages turn on their own.
Script crawls across the exposed parchment, forming words in that familiar blood-red ink.
SHE IS BOUND TO ME.
I feel the truth of it in my chest. The mating mark pulses, recognizing the claim, acknowledging the complication.
IF I DIE, SHE DIES.
Thyra’s face is grey. She doesn’t dispute the words. Doesn’t argue. Just stands there, bloody and broken, waiting to see what I’ll do.
BURN US BOTH, SPELL-BURNER.
The script rearranges, forming the final words larger than the rest.
I DARE YOU.
Silence falls across the Restricted Stacks.
I stare at the grimoire’s message, feeling the truth of it settle in my chest beside the warmth of the mating mark. Two claims. Two bindings. One woman caught between them.
She’s bound to me. The mating mark says so. If she dies, I—
I don’t know what happens to an orc whose claimed mate dies. The stories vary. Some say madness. Some say death. Some say a cold emptiness that never fills, a wound that never heals.
I look at Thyra. She’s watching me with that watchful gaze, waiting for my decision. Waiting to see if I’ll put my mission above her life. Waiting to see what kind of monster I really am.
You came here to burn the grimoire. Those were your orders. That was the mission.
But the mission didn’t account for this. For her. For the mark burning over your heart.
I sheathe my blade. Lower my spent brand to my side. Meet her gaze across the wreckage of the Archive.
“Three days.” My voice sounds strange in my own ears. “I gave you three days to find a solution. That hasn’t changed.”
“And if there is no solution?”
Then I have to choose between my duty and my mate.
The thought should horrify me. Should enrage me. I’ve spent twenty years building an identity around destruction, around the Order, around the certainty of purpose.
Instead, I just feel tired.
“Find one.” I turn away from the grimoire, from its taunting message, from the impossible choice it’s laid at my feet. “Three days, Thyra. Use them well.”
I walk out of the Restricted Stacks without looking back.
The mating mark sears into my flesh with every step.
And somewhere behind me, in the depths of the Archive, the grimoire laughs.